Visitor Center Trail Boardwalk

Visitors are encouraged to venture outdoors to experience first-hand the park’s beautiful scenery. From the Visitor Center, the short ½ mile Lake Michigan trail transverses the park’s sheltered backdune forest leading out into the grassy foredune. The first portion of the Lake Michigan trail (near the Visitor Center) is a hard-surfaced, raised trail for the physically challenged. This wheel-chair accessible trail gives visitors an opportunity to experience the solitude of the sheltered backdune, to see the wildflowers of spring and hear the diversity of bird songs. The later portion of the Lake Michigan trail offers hikers the option of viewing the dunes from the Dune Climb Stairway, a 193 step structure including an upper and lower observation platform perched atop one of the park’s largest parabolic dunes. The park’s ten miles of trails and diversity of birds provides a birding experience unparalleled in the region, especially in the spring at the peak of migration.