Camping the North Shore: A Guide to the Best Campgrounds in Minnesota's Spectacular Lake Superior Region

by Andrew Slade

Overview

Your guide to Minnesota’s best places to camp!

Unpack the best tips for a great North Shore vacation. Naturalist and outdoors expert Andrew Slade scouted nearly two thousand campsites in this spectacular region, seeking unique experiences and beautiful places to camp. Camping the North Shore not only guides you to the best of the best, it gives you fun activities and adventures for each location, complete with detailed maps and dozens of photographs. This guidebook will help you enjoy Lake Superior views, catch a nice fish, relax in peace and quiet, and find an ideal base camp to boat, hike, or even shop on the North Shore. For RV and tent campers, seasoned experts, and those new to camping, find your perfect place on the North Shore. From Jay Cooke State Park to the Gunflint Trail, from convenient campgrounds in town to wilderness campgrounds on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, this guidebook features 26 “best” North Shore campgrounds and describes 40 more—that’s 66 campgrounds in all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780979467547
Publisher:	Adventure Publications, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/30/2019
Series:	There & Back Guides
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	292,659
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew Slade is a writer, naturalist, and educator who grew up exploring Minnesota’s North Shore. He lives on the Lake Superior beach in Duluth. Andrew has hiked in 23 states. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in environmental education and from the University of Montana with a MS in environmental studies. He was a Fulbright scholar in Germany. He is also the author of Skiing the North Shore and Hiking the North Shore, and he blogs about North Shore trails, natural history, happenings, and more at www.bestnorthshore.com. Andrew has worked for environmental education and preservation organizations on the North Shore since 1992. You can reach him at [e-mail].

Read an Excerpt

For a great weekend or week-long vacation, camping on Minnesota’s spectacular North Shore is an excellent choice. Camping is the best way to experience natural areas, and the North Shore has some of the best parks, forests and trails in the entire Midwest.

Lake Superior is one of our world’s wonders. It’s the largest freshwater lake on the surface of the world. And it’s stunningly beautiful. The lake sits in a massive geologic bowl carved out of some of the oldest rocks in the world.

The Minnesota shoreline of Lake Superior is known as the North Shore. For geologic, historic and geographic reasons, it’s both the most rugged shoreline on Lake Superior and the most developed shoreline as well.

Lucky us. To enjoy the scenery and experience the habitats here, we just drive in. If we were camping on the Ontario shore of Lake Superior, we would have to paddle sea kayaks 50 miles along the shore for terrain like this. On the Michigan shore, we might have to beat our way through 50 miles of gravel roads for campgrounds like these.

For car campers, the North Shore is paradise. But this paradise requires planning. If you want to camp on the shore of the lake, you have to plan far ahead. It used to be that all the campsites, even the “best” ones, were available on a first-come, first-served basis. Now, you must reserve a specific campsite months in advance for virtually every shoreline campground.

There’s more to the North Shore than those seven campgrounds right on the water’s edge. The North Shore experience goes far inland, and so do the campgrounds. If you’re willing to drive a little bit farther and if you can follow a good road map, you can find a good campsite any day.

What’s the best campground for you? First, you’ll need to make a few choices to find the campsite of your dreams...

Table of Contents

Foreword ii

Acknowledgements iii

Preface v

A guide to the campsite of your dreams 1

Insects: dare and prepare 7

Things to bring 10

Andrew's picks 12

Camping the North Shore: Featured campgrounds

1 Jay Cooke State Park 14

2 Spirit Mountain 18

3 Burlington Bay 24

4 Indian Lake 28

5 Gooseberry Falls State Park 34

6 Split Rock Lighthouse State Park 38

7 Eighteen Lake 44

8 Eckbeck 48

9 Finland 52

10 Ninemile Lake 56

11 Tettsgouche State Park 60

12 Lamb's Resort 66

13 Temperance River State Park 72

14 Temperance River National Forest 76

15 Sawbill Lake 80

16 Baker Lake 86

17 Crescent Lake 90

18 Cascade River State Park 96

19 Grand Marais RV Park and Campground 100

20 Devil Track Lake 106

21 Two Island 110

22 Kimball Lake 114

23 Trail's End 118

24 Hungry Hippie Hostel 122

25 Judge C.R. Magney State Park 126

26 Grand Portage Marina and RV Park 130

Thirty-five more on the North Shore 134