Bear Head Lake State Park, Minnesota, United States

5Kimberly A 5:00 PM Apr 19, 2022

Beautiful State Park
Located outside of Ely, MN, a launching spot for BWCA adventures, Bearhead offers lakes and hikes in the great north woods of Minnesota. The group site provides privacy for your group on a beautiful lake. If the weather is unfavorable, head towards Ely to go the Bear Center, Wolf Center, and Dorothy Molter Museum for indoor activities.

4somamoons 5:00 PM Aug 16, 2020

Backpack site #1 review
We stayed in backpack site #1 in early August. It’s about a 1 mile hike (one way) to the site from the parking lot for backpack campers. The hike starts off pretty flat, but about halfway through changes to a lot of brief but steep rocky inclines (25% grade in some spots). We were a bit dismayed to find the site had a lot of poison ivy. It wasn’t on the main 1 mile trail, but was along the brief path into the site. It was also thick around the trail that goes to the lake, and also on the path to the toilet. (The toilet path is marked with pink plastic ties on a couple trees.) We had the site booked for a few nights, but only wound up staying one night for a bunch of reasons. One was that we have a very rambunctious 5 year old and didn’t think we could keep her out of the poison ivy. The other reason was the wolves. There was a wolf pack that was mostly centered around Becky Lake, and they howled all night long. It was so loud. They didn’t bother us, but I could hear them coming into camp and checking us out throughout the night. (One walked up to the tent and sniffed next to my head.) We barely slept (because of the howling) and were so sleep deprived the next day. Rather than go through a few more nights without sleep, we decided to pack it up and call it good. We also had a bear visit in the middle of the night. Heard him come crashing through the brush into camp and immediately headed for the bear locker (we know safe bear practices and had locked anything scented in there.) Heard him slap at that a couple times. I whispered to my spouse that we had a bear in the camp, which startled the bear. He went running off into the woods, using the trail that went up to the toilet. It was neat to experience all the wildlife, but one night was enough for us. It was our first time at the park, would like to try camping in the main campground once COVID is less of a risk.