Ausable River Camping

Great experience only thing I would suggest is better description of Huron/Manistee campsite 41c. When you paddle in there is another site on the south end of the island that people have begun to use because there is not mention that the marked site is on the east side.

Beautiful area and lovely campsites.

We have been coming here six years in a row. The site is excellent, very large and has staircase leading down to the river. You will get the occasional dirtbike or 4x4 since the site entrance is directly off an ORV trail, but they usually do not stop to bother. Some locals will come by and use the stair access to fish or launch kyaks but we've never had an issue. Will be coming back next year!

The site was nice & clean. The DNR did make our experience not so enjoyable. The first time they stopped by our camp they were nice and went over where we can ride our ATV as we did not know the trail behind our camp was a hiking trail only. The sites we have visited in the past had ORV trails right there. We figured this one was the same. The second visit from the DNR was what made us ultimately decide we will not be camping near or in Oscoda again. The second DNR said he was stopping by to give us a map of ORV trails and talk to us again about not riding on the hiking trail. (We had not even started the engine since the first visit and had it stored by our camper. We go to sites like this often and have no problem following the rules.) As he is talking to us he mentions he really stopped by to talk to us because the other DNR staff were talking about us that morning and he just wanted to stop by and check everything out. I felt so embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. We already felt bad about riding on the wrong trails in the first place. After this experience we will be sticking to sites have have previously been near Glennie as we have always had a great experience.

It is a really nice site with some good shade and a decent view. The only drawback is the site isn't quite private. There's a bit of traffic driving through the circle, and a lot of people seem to think the site is a public access to the river. Regardless, I would camp this site again.

Awesome views, very secluded and more space than I could imagine

This is a wonderful site with great views of the river, forest, and sky and a few hangout zones away from the road and overlooking the dune. One note, it is VERY hard to access the river from this site. I read the previous reviews and thought it would be totally do-able but didn't realize how long/high the dune is. It's very long and very steep! My partner and I are fit and in our early/mid 30s and it was a TRIP so we only went down once a day. The dog also had trouble because of how hot the sand was. Just plan on swimming somewhere else if it's hot :)

great view but tough hike up from the river

A beautiful, quiet spot to camp. Nice large sites. Perhaps because there is no camp office or hosts there, but a group of teens was driving at a high speed through the campground, cursing at us as they flew by before running directly into a tree. They were injured but could have killed someone walking through. Not sure if this type of behavior is typical here, but it certainly put a damper on our trip.

This is a wonderful gift of a spot. There is great birdwatching and swimming. Some of the biggest trees on the AuSable are in this stretch of woods. The unfortunate thing about this site is that it has an easy boat access, which means that lots of the pontoon boats and motor boats like to stop by and use this landing as an outhouse because apparently they can't think of another solution. This means we often have toilet paper and messes to clean up before we can sit with nature and not think about oblivious drunk humans who really have a whole different way of enjoying nature, like ripping it up with engine noise and wake. Just be prepared to be a true steward of nature and build your merit cleaning up the mess that humans have so often become.