The Upper Manistee: Four Campgrounds in Twenty Miles

Introduction

The Manistee rises just west of Grayling, within a few miles of the Au Sable’s headwaters, and runs southwest through state forest for its whole upper course. This stretch is part of the National Wild and Scenic River system, and — the part that matters here — the DNR has put four rustic campgrounds on it inside about twenty miles of river.

⭐ THE FINDING: this is the densest concentration of legal riverside camping in the Lower Peninsula, and it is the practical proof of the vol 1 argument. Four campgrounds, all rustic, all first-come, all on or beside the water, none of them requiring an argument about setbacks.

3.1 The four

Goose Creek State Forest Campground — 5.5 miles west of Frederic via County Road 612 and Manistee River Road.

• 9 sites, tent and small trailer
• ⭐ All nine have a view of the river. That is the entry worth circling in this whole dive — nine sites, every one on the water, under red pine and hardwood, on a National Wild and Scenic river, for state forest campground money.
• Nine sites also means it fills. Arrive early or have a second choice.

Goose Creek Trail Camp — same access, 5.5 miles west of Frederic via CR-612 and Manistee River Road. ⚠ A rustic equestrian campground, under tall jack pines. Worth knowing so you do not drive to the wrong one, and worth considering as an overflow if the horse traffic is light.

Upper Manistee River State Forest Campground and Canoe Camp — 7.7 miles southwest of Frederic via County Road 612 and Goose Creek Road.

• 30 sites, tent, small trailer and large trailer
• Red pine and hardwood; paddling and trout fishing
• Carries a canoe camp — paddle-in and walk-in sites

⭐ This is the one to plan around when Goose Creek is full, and the only campground in this volume that will comfortably take the truck and trailer together.

CCC Bridge State Forest Campground — 22.4 miles southwest of Grayling via M-72 East and Sunset Trail Road SE.

• 31 sites, tent and small trailer
• Set under a stand of red pines, on the Manistee where it is National Wild and Scenic
• The downstream anchor of the group

3.2 Why the four work as one destination

⭐ Twenty miles of river with four campgrounds on it is a float-and-shuttle setup, not four separate trips. Put in upstream, take out downstream, and the vehicle logistics are short because everything is on Manistee River Road and County Road 612.

🔴 And it is the clearest possible illustration of the one-mile rule from vol 1. Four campgrounds inside twenty miles means their one-mile bubbles cover a large share of the frontage. Do not come here planning to disperse camp on the bank. Come here planning to pay $20 and sleep fifty feet from the water, which is the better deal anyway.

3.3 What else is within reach

Deward is right here — the logging ghost town at the four-county corner, on the upper Manistee, a few miles from these campgrounds. See Ghost Towns and Ruins, vol 4.

⚠ The Deward Tract question is still open, and it is the same open question as before: whether the tract carries special management restrictions that would change the camping and driving answers. This is the trip on which to settle it with the Grayling or Gaylord field office, because you will be five minutes away.

🔴 Camp Grayling covers this ground. Crawford, Kalkaska and Otsego counties, roughly 147,000 acres. Range Control 989-344-6156; Headquarters 989-344-6100. Check the weekly range report before setting out.

⭐ And the Au Sable headwaters are about an hour east. The two best trout rivers in the Lower Peninsula rise within a short drive of each other, and a long weekend can legitimately fish both from a single base near Frederic.