The Best of Indiana Dunes National Park: Tackling Dune Succession and Mt. Baldy

This is part two of a travel series of our midwest road trip covering four states and two national parks.  We began our journey in Lake Geneva Wisconsin.  If you missed it, start HERE!

Years ago I gave my husband a wooden etched map of all the United States National Parks. It's really cool and attractive:  you put a wooden evergreen tree in each park you visited.  You can find a map like mine on Etsy .  It is one of our goals to visit as many national parks as we can although we will probably never make it to the Alaska/Hawaii parks 😢.  So far we have visited 15 National Parks;  not bad, but we have a long way to go.  

My primary goal in planning this road trip was to visit my grandchildren.  I had not seen them since June, and I couldn't bear to wait until November to see them again, so I planned a vacation that would be closer to where they live.  When I saw  two national parks were not that far from their house and that I could scratch two parks off my bucket list, I worked the parks into our travel itinerary.  

If I look excited in this photo, is because for once I'm thrilled to be 62.  The National Park service has a Senior Annual and Lifetime Pass.  For $20 you can get into all National Parks and Monuments for one year.  For $80 you can get into all National Parks and Monuments for a lifetime.  That is quite the deal as it would normally cost $25.00 to get into the park for one day.  To save $5.00 I purchased the $20 Senior Annual Pass.  I can upgrade to the $80 pass later if I do it within a year.  They will deduct $20 from my total!  And the best part is, everyone in your vehicle will get in for FREE!  So my husband, children, and grandchildren will not be charged a fee.  What a deal!

Once I determined we were stopping at this park to scratch it off our bucket list, I needed to figure out what to do during the short time we were there.   The top two places that kept coming up were the Dunes Succession Trail and Mt. Baldy so it was my goal to see those two spots in Indiana Dunes National Park.

The Dunes Succession Trail

Most parks only boast one beach, would you believe there are NINE beaches in Indiana Dune National Park?  We only had time to visit two of them, and both were BEAUTIFUL!

The first beach we visited was West Beach where the Dune Succession Trail is located.  It is the park's most popular trail...if you like steps, boardwalks, and lots of great views!

The Dune Succession Trail is a moderate one mile loop with an elevation gain of 80 feet and 270 feet of stairs.  If stairs aren't your thing, this trail is not for you;  see the stairs behind my husband...yup, we climbed those!

Reaching the top of the stairs is worth the effort though because you will not only see gorgeous views of Lake Michigan and the dunes, but the Chicago Skyline as well!  And trust me, the Chicago skyline is there, I just couldn't capture it in my iPhone.

When we got to the first viewing platform we took a break and saw just how far we had come.

The rest of the trail was pretty easy after that initial climb for what goes up must come down.  Now we were going through a forest!  I never expected to be walking through a forest in Indiana Dunes National Park.  The Dunes Succession Trail highlights ecological plant succession, moving from bare beach dunes to cottonwood stands, jack pine groves, and mature oak woodlands.

The boardwalk is absolutely beautiful and very well crafted.  I was reading in the park's newspaper that they plan to do boardwalk repairs in the fall, I certainly don't know why as it all looked beautifully maintained to me.

Once we exited the forest we began to see dunes and glimpses of Lake Michigan once again.

Just look at those views!  I always feel Lake Michigan is just like the ocean.  I remember the first time I saw the ocean I was disappointed and said "It looks just like Lake Michigan."  I grew up about a mile from Lake Michigan and spent a lot of time on the beach.  I don't know why I thought the ocean would be very different, and I know it is, but if you've never been to a Great Lake like Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, you couldn't understand the similarities.

After a sneak peek at the stunning lake views we were back in a small forest again.  This portion of the boardwalk really amazed me.  I loved how it snaked through the woods.

Once we reached the end of the boardwalk, I had to look back and see how far we had come.  Wow!

You will have to walk a little bit uphill in the sand on this trail;  both at the beginning and end of the boardwalk.  I honestly thought walking in the sand was the toughest part, not the steps.

You must respect all the signs and stay off the dunes in Indiana Dunes National Park.  This area used to be entirely a state park but in 2019 it was redesignated as a national park to protect the lack shore and dune ecosystems.  The dunes are iconic but fragile.  Just one footprint can destroy critical vegetation and trigger degradation of the dune systems.  Off-trail activity destroys threatened and endangered species and their habitats.  Of course, the deer apparently don't read the signs as we saw lots of their footprints in the sand, and they weigh more than me 😆.

Both beaches we visited were clean and swoon-worthy!  

We visited mid-morning so it wasn't crowded, but as we were leaving more and more people were arriving.

We weren't prepared to swim, but we both got in the water knee deep.  Lake Michigan water is usually very cold but by August, it is warm enough to swim in.

The return trip back to our vehicle was much easier as it was paved!  I loved this little backwater pond with some dunes behind it.

Of course I had to stop and enjoy the wildflowers!

More photos on the way back to our car.  Dunes are so hard to capture in photographs.  They look so small in the photos, but in real life they are HUGE, they can reach heights of 200 to 250 feet tall.  This is where it would help to have a person in the photo to get perspective,  but we weren't allowed off the path in this area.  

Mt. Baldy

Our next stop was the famous Mt. Baldy.  I must admit when I was researching this park and saw photos and videos of Mt. Baldy, I wasn't impressed, but the second we pulled into the parking lot, my jaw dropped.  The dune is 126 feet tall and MOVING.  It is the parks most active 'living' dune.  It shifts, moves, grows, and changes shapes every year.  It moves several feet a year, and has already taken over part of the Mt. Baldy Beach parking lot and will very soon probably cover the rest room seen in the background.

Hubby got a kick out of the name, hence his pose in the photo above.

The truck in the foreground of the photo below helps give Mt. Baldy some scale on how big this beast of a dune really is.

There is a ranger-led tour that will take you to the top of Mt. Baldy but you are not allowed to hike to the top on your own as it's very dangerous.  Years ago a boy got swallowed up in a sinkhole in Mt. Baldy, and thankfully, he was rescued (see this video on YouTube).

After gawking at the dune, we hiked the short trail to the beach.  This trail went through a buggy, sand trail forest.  It is a short 0.8 mile out-and-back trail with a steep, loose sand scramble to reach the beach.

This was the "scramble" part.  It wasn't too bad at all, the first step is steep and frankly I had more trouble getting back up then back down, but the rest is easy.

This beach is so close to the forest, there is a lot of shade;  no need to bring an umbrella here!

However, this beach doesn't quite have the views of West Beach because you can see the cooling towers of the steel plants.  That is one aspect of Indiana Dunes National Park that is very different from most national parks:  it is not the typical park where you drive into an entrance point and you're "in the park".  There are 15 different access points to the park and you have to drive "in" and "out" of the park to reach them on city roads.  There were rangers at the two access points we visited, so it must cost quite a lot to keep this park staffed.   There is a lot of industry in the area, which I found made this park quite unique.  Seeing the contrast of the factories with the natural beauty of the dunes and lake was quite fascinating.  

Our visit in Indiana Dunes National Park was short, but I got a good feel of the place in the few hours we were there.  Now we had to hit the road to reach our next stop for the night so we could drive to Cuyahoga National Park in the morning.  We saw rain was in the forecast, so we needed to reach our destination before the storms.  That was the story of our entire week as we were in the Indiana/Ohio area during the week of thunderstorms.  But by watching radar and careful planning, we still managed to do everything on our itinerary.

See you next week with my first post on Cuyahoga National Park!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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For more posts on our Midwest Road Trip, check these out:

A Gilded Age Getaway:  Our Boat Tour of Lake Geneva's Black Point Estate