Overview

Lake Hudson Recreation Area is a semi-modern and fairly bare-bones 2800 acre state park that sits just north of the Ohio/Michigan border about an hour west of Toledo. There is a single campground with about 50 sites. The park also has a boat launch and day use area, which has a rentable pavilion. The main attractions here are fishing and hunting. However, the park has also been designated a dark sky preserve due to its location and lack of light pollution, so it is also a favorite for amateur astronomers and stargazers.

This was a trip I took with my youngest boy. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I take each of my sons on a one-on-one weekend trip each year. This trip was in September, which in Michigan means the weather can be hit or miss as far as temperature. This is especially true when camping with a four year old. I decided on this campground because it had a mini-cabin available the weekend we were heading out. I didn’t know at the time, but it’s very new to the park. After staying I believe it to be a good addition, and I’m curious if there are more to come.

Our Stay at the Cabin

Even though I was only taking one boy with me, I did wait until picking the other two up from school before we headed out. This meant getting to camp a little later than I generally like. That said, when you have a cabin with beds, setting up camp in the evening is less of a concern. The cabin sits in with the other campsites and is even numbered as one. This made sense after some further investigation found that this had just been converted from a “normal” campsite.

I loved the style of the cabin, though if you’re looking for more than a place to sleep you might want to look elsewhere. The cabin has electricity: one outlet inside and electrical hookups outside as well. However, there’s no built-in heat and no tables. There was a full bed and a twin bed, along with a single stand lamp. It seemed well insulated, and a small electric space heater was more than enough to keep out the fall chill. 

It might simply be because it’s still new, but I was surprised by the lack of any type of blinds for the windows. So you might want to bring something for privacy just in case. I personally just hung my sweatshirt over the window on the door and left the back window facing the lake uncovered.

For further space you can expand outside as we did. I brought our screened in canopy for over the picnic table. Bugs were not a real concern given the slight chill, but there was rain in the forecast and I didn’t want to take chances. This was where we did food prep, since there was definitely not enough room in the cabin. This included some late-night noodles for our arrival meal.

The next morning brought confirmation on why they decided to call this the “Lakeview” cabin. It had been getting dark fairly quick after we made camp so this was my first chance to take in the view out the back window. It looks like the area behind the cabin was intentionally cleared to allow for this.

Our main plan for this trip only included exploring the park, chilling at the cabin, and of course, fishing. The cabin has a small footpath that leads out behind it right down to the water. The last section before the shore is a pretty steep drop off, so launching anything other than a small kayak from here would be an issue. It was perfect for some casual fishing though. This was the first time in years that I’ve actually had a chance to basically fish from my campsite, which was nice.

Lake Hudson itself is known for muskie and northern pike, at least from what I’ve heard. There was certainly a solid fishing presence out on the lake. I was happy with the few moderate size bluegill we caught from the shore, which made for a very relaxing morning and evening of fishing. My son was content exploring the old stump on our little patch of lakefront and the whole experience was very peaceful. This was partially from the smaller camping crowd of a fall weekend and partially due to Lake Hudson being a no wake lake.

As a break from fishing we decided to take the trail that led from the campground along the lake to the boat launch and on to the day-use area. This was a wide-well maintained path and given that my last hiking experiences were at Rifle River and the Manistee River Trail, this felt like a highway. It was perfect with the little guy in tow though.

Two semi-warnings to mention though. The signage did not seem all that accurate as far as mileage. At one point a 0.1 mile distance registered over 0.4 on my GPS. This isn’t a big deal for me, but for a four year old the difference between roughly a quarter mile round trip and almost a full mile, is huge. The second is that I brought my Camelbak mostly empty thinking I could fill up at the beach. I could not. The only water at the park seemed to be the handpump at the campground itself.

Given the time of year, we were unsurprisingly the only people on the beach itself. The cold didn’t keep my son from wanting to play in the sand for a while. Even he didn’t last all that long before admitting his hands were cold. Overall, this looked like it would make for a rather nice, calm beach experience in the warmer weather. Just be sure that you bring something to drink with you.

The rest of the afternoon involved an early campfire for the usual roasting of hotdogs. This was actually something I had forgotten and although the gas station closest to camp did happen to have dogs, they were fresh out of buns. This had me going with a hotdog/Raman combination that I have to say I might plan for intentionally in the future. It was definitely the most my son ate in one sitting in a while.

The evening was naturally cloudy again, so I wasn’t able to take advantage of the dark sky preserve portion of the park. That said, given the fact that the park is surrounded mostly by farm fields, I have to imagine the sky is pretty spectacular. In the end it looked like rain was coming in, so we took advantage of the cabin and spent the night indoors reading and playing some cards before calling it a night.

Site Info

Aside from our site with the cabin on it, all of the other sites were pretty uniform. I tend to trend toward the rustic when it comes to camping, so I don’t have a ton to compare a more modern camping site to. There’s electricity at each site along with the usual firepit and picnic table. Many of the sites inside the road loop are openly connected to each other. However, those on the outside tended to have a pretty good tree line separating you from your neighbor.

Wrap-up

As I mentioned in the overview, this was a park I picked for availability reasons rather than any overriding urge to go here. That said, it was certainly a pleasant experience. The limited drinking water was a bit of a drawback simply because I hadn’t expected it. I’m fairly accustomed to hand pumping water out of a lake on other trips, so I can obviously live with a lack of running water. Just remember this if you make the trip. 

What I most took away from this was how much I loved the cabin. Nice and simple. It was just enough to make the night more pleasurable as far as temperature and it easily extends the camping season without feeling like a hotel. Despite the electricity this is still very much an out in nature experience. It was nice enough that I would consider coming back, preferably with at least one clear night next time.