Date: March 26, 2009
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is one place in the United States where you can be a stone’s throw away from a nice hotel, a pleasant meal, a commuter train and lots of shopping, and be able to hike, lost in your thoughts for hours. You can grab a good pair of shoes and step out to get the exercise you would get on a treadmill but in the actual outdoors at a cost that cannot be beat. The trails are free.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a unit of the National Park System, stretching across 3 counties, 13 municipalities, and 8 townships has over 45 miles of trails for variety of adventures and opportunity to immerse your self in nature. .
At the west end of the park, near Miller, IN , start at the Paul H. Douglas Environmental Learning Center on Lake Street and the Miller woods trails circle and loop for a quick 15 minute hike. Follow the trials past a few ponds, and listen for the early spring frog songs, then keep going to look for beaver dens and signs of the creatures stirring as their winter homes thaw. Past the beaver ponds the trail is more strenuous and an additional 30 to 45 minute hike takes you up and down the dunes to over look Marquette Park lagoon, but plan on coming back the way you came if the beavers have gotten industrious and used what they could find to expand their waterways.
For a lovely long hike that takes you through deep forest and across the urban-wild-land interface Cowles Bog trail north of US Highway 12 on Mineral Springs Road in Porter, IN is a moderate hike to the shores of Lake Michigan. The trail rolls up and down over 8,000 year old dunes now covered with large hard wood trees and blueberry bushes. The more boggy parts of the trail have a board walk to protect the plants from your feet and your feet from the mud. It takes about an hour traversing several dunes to crest the dune that slopes down to the shore of Lake Michigan. Come prepared since you may be the only one at the end of the trail.
Park your car at Kemil Beach parking lot in Beverly Shores, IN and take a 30 minute stroll along the beach where you will find a stairs leading up from the beach and on to Dunbar Street in the Beverly Shores area of the park. At the top of the stairs on the crest of the dune, you can see several National Historic Landmarks that came across Lake Michigan by barge nearly 75 years ago. These 1933 World’s Fair Homes were brought to the young town of Beverly Shores after the fair. Now these homes are leased through the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana to private citizens who are renovating them. Informational signs in front of the homes describe each of these looks into the future from the past.
On the east end of the park, near just off of Highway 12 near Michigan City, for a quick and heart pounding hike close to the shops follow the designated path from the parking lot to the front of Mt. Baldy on the shore of Lake Michigan. From the water’s edge, climb to the top of this dune where you can see the Valparaiso Moraine and along the shore almost into Michigan. When the wind blows across the top of the dune, the sand gets picked up and it looks like the dune is smoking. Once plants establish a foot hold their roots hold the sand in place. Please be sure to help Mt. Baldy by following the signs and stay on the trail down toward the parking lot.
Where ever you decide to hike at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore be sure to let someone know where you are going and when you expect to be back. Bring water and dress for weather conditions; the more self reliant you are the greater your solitude.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is one of 391 units of the National Park System ranging from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore includes 15 miles of the southern shoreline of Lake Michigan and 15,000 acres of beach, woods, marshes, and prairie in the northwest corner of Indiana. More than 2 million visitors come to this national park each year. More information can be found at www.nps.gov/INDU.
