Indiana Dunes National Park offers a unique and historically rich dune experience along the southern tip of Lake Michigan. While the park spans over 15,000 acres and includes more than 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, the iconic-looking sand dunes—open, windswept, and rolling—are smaller and less expansive than many of the vast dune fields found in the American West. Still, what Indiana Dunes lacks in sheer dune height or scale, it makes up for with biological diversity, fascinating history, and accessibility.
Unlike some other parks where dunes dominate the landscape, many of the dunes here are stabilized by forest and vegetation. These “living dunes” are slowly being overtaken by plant life, turning into what ecologists call “dune succession”—a rare and educational opportunity to witness how sand gives way to forest over time.
The most traditional dune experience can be found in a few select spots:
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West Beach features a 250-step staircase to sweeping views atop a sandy ridge, and trails like the Dunes Succession Trail highlight the transition from bare sand to forest.
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Mount Baldy, the park’s largest dune at around 126 feet tall, is constantly shifting and has actually buried part of an old parking lot. It’s an active dune and one of the few in the park that remains mostly unvegetated, although access is now limited to ranger-led hikes due to erosion and safety concerns.
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Diana of the Dunes history is also tied to this park—Alice Mabel Gray, a reclusive woman who lived in the dunes in the early 1900s, helped inspire preservation efforts with her writing and local legend status.
The Indiana Dunes have a long-standing legacy in the conservation movement. Scientists began studying the ecology of these dunes as early as the 1890s, and the region has been referred to as the birthplace of American ecology. Despite becoming a national park only in 2019, the area had been protected as a national lakeshore since 1966, thanks in large part to decades of local activism.
Whether you’re a hiker, beachgoer, birder, or history buff, the dunes here offer a more subtle but equally fascinating take on America’s sandy landscapes.
