ABOUT THE PARK:
Indiana Dunes State Park Gate Fee:
$7 - noncommercial vehicles with Indiana license plates, every day, including holidays.
$12 - noncommercial vehicles with out-of-state license plates, every day, including holidays.
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.659540, -87.050578
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| Nature Center Parking Lot |
TRAIL MAP: HIKE DISTANCE: 9.8 miles
THE HIKE:
Day of 2 of the semi-annual drive and hike trip from New Jersey to St. Louis, Missouri.
It was a bit confusing getting started because the trail is designed to loop around the three dunes for The 3 Dune Challenge and back to the nature center but I wanted to hike a much longer loop which incorporated the dunes so it was trial and error to get started hitting the three dunes first. I wanted to do that early on because that is the main attraction and it gets busy even on a weekday and it is ascending on loose sand which apparently takes over twice the energy over climbing on solid ground. I would say so - it was EXHAUSTING!
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| We worked our way around the campground because the trail I had planned on taking ended up going through the campground and was posted "campers only". |
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| After going the perimeter of the campground, found a trail behind the restroom that would take us to the lake and dunes. |
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| Beach walk along Lake Michigan. You tend to forgot it's a lake, not an ocean. |
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| Brodie was jumpy when waves crashed but he eventually got used to it. |
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| Heading up to the dunes for the challenge. This was MUCH steeper than it looks in the picture. |
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| At the top, Trail 8 and ... |
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| ... Mt. Holden. |
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| On to the next one. |
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| Up a long flight of steps to ... |
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| ... Mt. Tom. |
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| View from Mt. Tom. The Chicago skyline was visible farther to the right but it was hazy early in the morning. We'd get a clearer view later on. |
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| This is the way back down to the nature center but we had another dune to climb. |
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| So back down the steps leaving Mt. Tom. |
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| The final dune, Mt. Jackson. |
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| Now on to the rest of the hike. |
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| Finally out of the loose sand and on hard packed trails. There was more sand in my shoes than I realized. |
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| After another brief climb up, views of Lake Michigan from above ... |
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| ... before descending back down to the beach and loose sand. The shoes came off this time. |
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| Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan. |
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| Another stretch of beach walk ... |
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| ... before heading back up to the trails and out of the loose sand again. |
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| Trail 2 has a very long section of boardwalk through a lovely marsh. |
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| On the drive out we stopped at the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center to claim our challenge sticker. |
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| We worked hard for this climbing in that loose sand. |
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