Indiana Dunes: the science of ecology was born on these dunes

South of Lake Michigan, between the factories of Gary and the port of Michigan City, a strip of beaches, dunes, marshes and woods remains. It’s cut into pieces, and crossed by roads and railway lines. Yet it’s a national park, and one of the richest in the country in plant species.

History and origins

In 1899, a Chicago botanist, Henry Cowles, studied here the way vegetation changes as you move away from the lake: bare sand, grasses, shrubs, then forest. He showed that landscapes evolve in stages. It’s one of the founding texts of ecology.

At the same time, industry was swallowing up the dunes. The tallest, Hoosier Slide, was loaded into railway wagons and turned into glass jars. Local people fought for half a century to save the rest. The shoreline was protected in 1966 and became a national park in 2019.

What to do there

• The beaches: fine sand and a lake so big that you can’t see the other shore. In clear weather, the towers of Chicago stand out on the horizon.
• West Beach: a trail climbs long wooden staircases to the top of the dunes, and shows all the stages described by Cowles.
• Cowles Bog: a loop through marsh, oak forest and dunes, to an isolated beach.
• The 3 Dune Challenge: in the state park, enclosed within the national park, you climb three dunes of soft sand one after the other. It’s short and very steep.
• Mount Baldy: a living dune, which advances by more than a metre a year and buries the trees. You can only climb it with a ranger.
• The 1933 houses: five futuristic houses built for the Chicago World’s Fair, then brought here by boat.
• The birds: the lake acts as a migration corridor. More than 350 species have been recorded.

Stories and good to know

• In 2013, a child was swallowed by a hole in the sand of Mount Baldy, then rescued. The dune covers dead trees, which leave cavities as they rot. It has been closed ever since.
• Cacti grow here, alongside Arctic plants and tropical ferns.
• The state park and the national park are two separate entities: a ticket for one isn’t valid for the other.

Practical information for your road trip

• Pass: the America the Beautiful pass covers the entrance fee. Everything is explained in our guide to the national parks pass.
• Getting there: the park is an hour from Chicago by car. The South Shore Line train stops at several stations close to the beaches.
• Parking: the beach car parks are full early on summer weekends.
• Where to stay: in Chesterton or Michigan City, or in Chicago.
• Combine it with: Chicago, the starting point of Route 66.