Onaway State Park is situated along the shores of Black Lake north of Onaway Michigan. It is a heavily wooded park and if you like to fish and want a quiet park to stay at I think you will enjoy Onaway S.P.
158 acres
85 campsites
Official Website http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?id=479&type=SPRK
Address
3622 N. M-211
Onaway MI, 49765
Pros
- Wooded Sites with Shade
- Boat Launch
- Newer Shower Building
- Waterfront Campsites
Cons
- Small Beach
- Shared Power Posts
- Small park
- Small Sites that can be difficult for large trailers
Campground
The campground at Onaway is an older campground with gravel roads throughout the park. The sites are nice and shaded but also have a lot of trees on them so it can be challenging if you have a larger trailer to get it to fit. The campground is also hilly and not level so be sure to bring some leveling boards if you have a trailer or motorhome. The multiple campsites share electrical posts and if you are between posts you will need a long power cord to reach the post. I would recommend at least a 100 feet of cord. Sites 1 through 24 are down near the lake and sites 1 through 14 are on the water. The shoreline along the sites are rocky so you won’t be able to pull a boat up to your campsite but you could probably launch a kayak or rowboat. The one drawback of being near the water is the park only has a vault toilet for the sites near the lake. The sites are also kinda small and you will have to “parallel” park your trailer to get it on the lot. Most of the sites in the campground are small and when checking the box for a 30’ trailer it cuts down your options to only about 35 sites that will fit a trailer 30 feet or longer so be sure to check your trailer size when making a reservation.
Reservations
Onaway state park is not as popular as some of the nearby parks so it is somewhat easy to get a reservation. For holiday weekends be sure to book 6 months to the day if not at least 3 months in advance. For the rest of the weekends, you can usually get a site a few weeks in advance or not the day before. This is a great campground for a last minute trip. The big issue is trailer size. If you want to stay here and you have a large trailer the sites are limited and you want to reserve the large sites as soon as you can.
Bathrooms
The bathroom building is an older building but it is in good shape and maintained. There is only one modern building in the campground, when it is closed for cleaning vault toilets are available across the street from the building so be sure to look at the posted cleaning times. A new building is next to the bathrooms and houses the showers for the campground.
Beach and Boating
The beach at the campground is rather small but it is a nice little sandy beach. If the beach is crowded and you want to lay out in the sun there is a nice grassy area next to the beach. The beach at the day use area looks as if it is not used much since it is covered in rocks, driftwood, and woodchips. Onaway S.P. does have a nice boat ramp and being on Black Lake I would think the park is popular with fishermen or fisherwomen. I did not see a dog beach anywhere so I am not sure where you can take fido swimming.
Shopping
The park does not have a store but, there is a large party store right outside the entrance to the park. If you need something that the party store does not have the town of Onaway is about 7 miles away. If you really need something at a big box store Cheboygan is about 34 miles away.
Things To Do
Besides enjoying Black Lake, Ocqueoc Falls is 13 miles away. If you like to hike or hunt there is lots of state land around Black Lake including Black Mountain Recreation Area with miles of hiking trails.
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