Union Bay Campground

Another end of the road C/G located on the shores of Lake Superior at the base of Porkupine Mtn. The park is laced with hiking trails, a lake up in the mountain, winter ski hills and typical Rv sites scattered around the shoreline. Almost all sites have Lake Superior views, pads are grassy or gravel, most have electric with water and dump available near the entrance.

This is a wonderful family area, probably difficulty with cell and wifi, but who would care! If your eyesight is good enough you can imagine you see Canada 125 miles across the lake. You can watch freighters way off in the distance heading up or down the lake and sail and power yachts crossing in front of your campsite as they push their way to into the Ontonagon River Harbor with another day's sail ahead the next day to the Keweenaw Peninsula or west to Black River Harbor on their way back to the Apostle Islands.

You are located about 15 miles west of the town and shopping, a little closer for fuel. It's funky little town with a couple of restaurants, a few taverns and lots of nice residents and business people.

Great location for access to the park
The sites are close together without much privacy between them. Some sites are very muddy and not usable, so call ahead to ask which sites are flooded or muddy. Some sites are on the water and a few on the west end are more wooded.
Bathrooms were good and shower rooms were nothing to complain about. If your site is near the bathrooms, you will hear the high powered xcel hand dryers which are louder than the Lake Superior Waves crashing
Camp hosts seemed very nice and hosted coffee a few mornings we were there.
Verizon wifi worked sporadically at the campsite
ATT cell worked well most of the time at the campsite

The campground is located on the shore of Lake Superior with 19 sites that back up to the lake and are very popular. Most sites are grassy and can be muddy under wet conditions. The sites furthest from the shore tend to be sloping and as the electrical connections are to the back this can make leveling a challenge. Adjacent sites are often paired and share the same electrical pole. We arrived late and found our "pole-mate" had set up camp very close to the electrical outlet and we had to do some creative maneuvering (and leveling) to bring our trailer within reach. This is the first place we thought "Ah! a 30amp extension chord might come in useful". The restrooms do have very noisy hand-dryers, but they were not a deal-breaker. The campsite is pretty open, so not much privacy between sites. Very quiet at night. The boat launch - just a short walk from camp - makes for a spectacular place to star gaze, and, if you are lucky, see the northern lights.

The Union Bay Campground is on the east end of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, a large, remote and largely wild Michigan state park bordering Lake Superior. Don’t miss visiting the Lake of the Clouds approximately 7 miles down the road from the campground. It’s a gorgeous overlook that has views of a high mountain lake surrounded by old growth forests.

Really good area to stay at a local campground. Don't miss going to town of White Pine where there is a restaurant (Konteka Resort) that is feeding bears in the back yard. You will see one at like 7pm at night. You local campground could have a black bear, but they do not encourage it. Clean restrooms with hot showers, and music!! Plenty of space.

Drive to the area waterfalls and up to Lake Of Clouds observation area for views. Best mountain like view experience in Michigan.

You can't beat the Porcupine Mountains if you're looking for wilderness experiences in Michigan. Union Bay is a nice campground to use as a base camp for lots of day hikes in the area.

It can be busy and weekends are louder with kids, dogs, loud neighbors, etc , just like most state parks. Weekdays tend to be quieter even when busy.

Many sites are quite close together and there isn't much privacy in those. Some sites have odd sizes and shapes so be prepared to adjust your rig on the site to get best placement and be level (back in vs. sideways, etc ). Also consider having leveling blocks with you.

Sites in bottom loop offer great views and access to Lake Superior. But even the upper loops are a short walk to awesome shoreline and amazing sunrises.

Also a great spot for stargazing if the neighbors' lights aren't too bright.

Bathrooms are clean and showers have good design, although shower heads could use some maintenance.

Staff working the office seem to really know their stuff about hiking the area, so check with them for ideas in addition to the Visitors Center.

If you want the wilderness feel of the Porkies but modern amenities at the end of the day, this is the place.

Note that cellular service can be extremely weak if you don't have a booster.

This was the third state park we visited on this trip and it felt like the most organized as far as checkin/hang tag/etc. I will say we thought we watched a good enough video and google earth to know that site 40 would work for us, but we didn’t want to get too close to the trees and the fire ring was in an odd spot, so I would not choose this site for our 39’ big rig again. As someone else said, be ready to get creative with how you park your RV. And it is shared power poles for each 2 sites, so have your extension cord ready. There are a few big 5th wheels on the waterfront row, some at all sorts of angles and some parallel to the road. The sites in the middle section are mostly level once you get away from the entry area. I would choose sites 36, 38, 43 or 45 if on this back row again. Or maybe even 61 or 63 to get a little privacy. Maybe one bar of cell service.

We were fortunate to reserve a spot on the loop on the shore of Lake Superior. This loop has well spaced sites and was much quieter than the two upper loops where there were lots more kids (and the playground and shower house). The bathroom was kept clean and also has a small coin operated laundry facility.

We wanted to spend three nights in the area so we had to move once to another site a few doors down. Site #91 was better than Site #80 but the ground roots were huge and made hooking up dangerous and a bit frustrating. The black flies were awful until it turned cold and rainy on the last day. AT&T connection was lousy, and even though it showed one or two bars it was pathetically slow and not worth the time nor trouble except for checking email. The price for electrical hookup was $39 per night.

The shower facilities were great. Dump station had only one sewer connection but two fresh water hoses. The water was much better than our western travels proved to be.

The natural area in the Porcupine Mountains is astoundingly beautiful. A bit too hilly for my tastes for hiking these days, but there are many trails to choose from. We were lucky to discover Porkies Trading Post about a couple miles from the campground which served only pizza and burgers but they were both very good and fit the bill.
The Lake of the Clouds overlook and the park’s several waterfalls were beautiful. You must drive or hike to get to these natural wonders but it is well worth the trouble.

The Porkies are a huge park yet this, the developed campground is insanely crowded on a postage stamp sized piece of unlevel ground. The sites along the lake are spectacular, if you are able to book one in the 5 nanoseconds they're available. Otherwise, you're up on the hill in a campground much more like what you'd expect in a city park or county fairgrounds. Distances fire-ring to fire-ring are about 25 feet, and if you're on the very top you have sites on all three sides. There are some trees and a nice new shower house, but IMO this campground leaves a lot to be desired, especially since it's in such a beautiful natural area. Verizon service with a booster was OK.