"The very first trail I step on is sand — and not just a dusting of the stuff either, but the soft, deep, undulating variety you’d expect to find near a beach. In honor of its designation in February as the 61st and newest national park, I’ve chosen to work my way across Indiana Dunes — formerly a national lakeshore — on a sunny Saturday in April, and picked West Beach as my starting point.
It’s a popular place to catch some rays and swim from Memorial Day through Labor Day — and the only beach in the park with lifeguards during the high season. But on this cool, wind-whipped morning I’m interested in hiking. The Dune Succession Trail loop I’ve taken is flat for a few paces and then it charges straight up more than 160 wooden steps to top a wooded dune and (already!) wows me with immediate jaw-dropping views of the vista over Lake Michigan stretching as far as the skyline of Chicago, which is an hour’s drive away .
Continuing down through hardwoods and then evergreens, it’s hard to tell where the sound of gusting wind ends and the noise of lapping waves begins until the trail’s twists and turns finish on the lakeshore. Walking along near the edge of the water that turns from a brooding deep blue farther out to turquoise up close, I’m reminded — as an Indiana resident who has somehow never been on this stretch of beach — of how Lake Michigan serves as an ad hoc ocean in the landlocked Midwest. And I can imagine how this place’s moods might change with the season, the weather and even by the day."
Michael Schroeder reports for the Washington Post June 7, 2019.
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