Hiking the Indiana State Parks

Today is the first day in a 10-day road trip that I am taking along with my daughter.  We are visiting National Parks and all 5 Great Lakes.  It was a no-brainer then that we would visit both the Indiana Dunes National Park, as well as, the Indiana Dunes State Park.   I have never been to either park, and really didn’t know what to expect.  Translate that to I was unprepared.  

Name: Indiana Dunes State Park
Location: Along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan
Established: 1925
Size: 2,182 acres
Known For: Large natural dunes and beaches along Lake Michigan

The Day

We arrived at the park around 3pm CT.  The Welcome Center for the National Park is along the main entrance road and so we stopped there first.  It had lots of information about the Dunes, as well as a large map of the entire National Park and State Park.  It also had a small gift store where we got our National Park magnet.  From here it was a straight shot down the main road right into the State Park.  

When we got to the park entrance I could have taken one of two entrance lanes.  I chose unwisely and picked the left one.  We pulled up to the window where all I needed to do was show my pass and ask for a map.  After 3 minutes of waiting for the young woman to get off the phone and even just look up. I decided this was stupid and just drove on in.  I wasn’t going to have to pay anyway, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.  This meant, however, that I didn’t have a paper map.  This would turn out to be a problem.  

There are only three areas in the park.  When you come in there is a round-about with roads leading to each area.  We first took the road to the left which led to the beach.  We wanted to to see what it looked like.  Then we came back out and went to the right which led to the Campground and Nature Center.  We parked by the Nature Center.  My daughter had keys to the car and plans to sit, read, visit the nature center and eventually drive over to the beach.  I got my hat and remembered to grab a bandana and bottle of water.  I also downloaded a digital copy of the map to my phone.  

My plan was simple enough:  Take trail 9 north through the woods then cross out to the beach to take Trail 10 back down the beach, and then take trail 8 from the beach back to the Nature Center.  Trail 8 is the main part of the famous 3 dune challenge as it goes up and down over the three highest dunes in the park.  My best estimate was that this was about 5 miles, maybe a little less.  I got about a half mile into the dense forest before I was swarmed by dozens of small bugs.  Not mosquitoes, but smaller bugs in a swarm around my head and most of my body.  Not sure it would have helped, but I left the bug stuff back in the car.  This was my first mistake.  My only option was to use my bandana and every 30 seconds swing it around my face to get a few seconds of relief before they returned.   This went on for nearly 30 minutes.  

The trail was nicely laid out, and the dense forest provided plenty of shade, however, the shade meant bugs.   At the beginning, It could have been a trail in many of the other state parks, except as I got closer to the top of the hill (dune) the trail turned into sand.  I expected this as these are dunes afterall, but I had forgotten how hard it is to walk in sand, especially uphill.  The uphill was worth it though, when I came to the top and Beach House Blowout.  In this section I was on top of the dune with views in all directions.  The Blowout is a place where the dune is missing a large section between the top and the ocean.  It looked a little like a crater had blowout of the side of the dune.  I was on a pretty thin crest with a steep drop off on both sides.  Not a dangerous place, but there was nowhere to go but to follow along the ridge.  

The first thing I noticed was that in the sun, the bugs were gone.  However, the shade was gone too.  At this point I realized the second thing I forgot, which was sunscreen.  I took my handy bandana and tied it around my neck, so that the back of my neck was covered.  This immediately felt better.   Years of experience has taught me the back of the neck is my most vulnerable spot for sunburn.  The second thing I noticed was that 100 feet below, there was a  trail (trail 10 I hoped) was on a small burn at the back of the beach area.  This was good news meaning the trail wasn’t actually on the beach.  

Before I got to that point, though, I had to continue traveling north along the top of the dune.  For a while it was exposed and in the sun, but as I mentioned no bugs.  Eventually though it dropped down a little and back into the trees and the bugs.  It really was a hard choice, between swarms of bugs or sun.  There were several makeshift (use) trails that led down the hill to the beach, but I decided to follow the official trail.  It was farther than I expected, but I finally came to a T in the trail where the trail I was on turned right to loop back, and a small connector trail turned left out to the beach and trail 10.  

Strangely, there was no trail 10 sign or what looked like a trail anywhere.  I just had to assume It was on the beach itself.  Now out in the sun full time I returned the bandana to my neck.  I started walking along the beach, back in the direction toward where I started.  I began my beach walk by walking as far from the water as I could.  There were tire tracks, and I followed them thinking the sand would be more compacted, but I could barely tell a difference one way or the other.  The soft sand caused my shoes to sink way down, and made walking very hard and slow.  

Looking down the straight beach, I could see a long way, but I couldn’t see anything except empty beach ahead of me.   I was clearly a long way from a turn off for Trail 8. After walking a while, I passed a man who was walking the other way.  He was walking just a few feet from the water’s edge.  I decided to try that.  It did seem to be a little more stable, though about every 10 feet there would be a soft section and my faster pace would come to a screeching halt.   After about 15 minutes of walking, I still couldn’t see anything except empty beach ahead of me.  All of this time in the sun made me very hot.  I eventually got smarter and folded my bandana into a large triangle and then put it over my head and under my hat with the two short corners draping over each ear and the main corner draped back over my neck still.  I am sure I looked crazy, but it worked well to keep me cool.  No, I didn’t take a picture of myself.  

After another 15 minutes I could finally see the public beach way off in the distance.  I tried to look at the map on my phone to see where trail 8 met up with the beach.  However, the phone screen would not get bright enough for me to see it.  My eyes were so accustomed to the bright sunlight that even at max brightness I couldn’t make out any details on my phone, in fact, even turning away from the sun and trying to shade the phone I still had to squint to even begin to make out anything at all.  What made matter worse was that there was no breeze.  The humidity just hung in the air.  I took a picture out over the water where all I could see was a dense haze just hanging over the nearly still water.     

On the positive I must say the park did a great job with signs.  Every trail junction except the beach had a sign.  After about 40 minutes of walking on the beach and just before I got to the public area filled with swimmers I saw a large sign at the back of the beach that said 4 and 7 in large print.  Unfortunately,  I couldn’t look up the trails on a map, since I couldn’t see my phone, but I only had to walk another 200 feet before I saw another sign.  This one had a large 8 on it.  I left the fairly stable sand along the water’s edge and slogged my way through the thick sand up to the sign.  

When I got to the sign it was at the bottom of a small blowout.  It was  a concave bowl of sand about 50 feet across.  The trail appeared to go straight across the bowl and up the far side.  I began to cross it and the sand got deeper as I went, and my progress ground to a crawl.  I got about halfway across the bowl and stopped, and thought, “this trail goes over the three highest dunes in the park.  Am I really up to this at this point?”  The resounding answer was NO.  I couldn’t look at the map to see if there was another option, and I was tired and hot.  I was ready to be done for the day.  

I walked back through the heavy sand, back out to the beach, back out to the water’s edge and headed for the public beach area.  While I tried again in vain to read my phone I stepped fully into a pool of water along the beach.  Now I was walking with a soggy wet shoe and sock.  As I started to pass people, I could tell that the bandana on my head really did look silly.  I got quite a few stares, many of them had a concerned look.  Perhaps I was more tired than I realized, and that was what they were concerned with.  

I got to the parking lot, and nothing looked right.  There was a building here that I didn’t remember seeing when we drove down to the beach.  I called my daughter and we realized that there were two distinct beach areas in the park.  The center road from entrance round-a-bout came down to this area.  I had to sit and wait while she drove around to this parking lot.  Sitting down in the shade, I fully felt just how tired I was.  

I would suggest that anyone coming here to hike consider halving your normal walking distance.  If you normally hike 5 miles expect to do about 2.5 here.  The sand on the beach and on the trails really slows you down and requires a lot more energy.  I will have to come back some day to do the 3 Dune Challenge.  Next time, I won’t add a bunch of other hiking.   I will also likely come in the fall or early spring when the temps and the bugs are less of an issue. Oh, and I’ll be sure to pick up a paper map on my way in.