We arrived at the Dune Climb late in the afternoon, when the light had gone gold and the crowds had mostly thinned to a few families dragging tired children back toward the parking lot. Lia looked up at the wall of sand and said, “That doesn’t look so bad.” Twenty minutes later we were both stopped halfway, hands on knees, lungs burning, laughing at how thoroughly the hill had humbled us. Every step forward slid you half a step back. When we finally crested the first rise, there was another behind it. And another. Michigan had disguised a mountain as a beach.
The Dunes Themselves
What nobody tells you is the scale. From the road, the dunes look like a modest golden ridge. Up close they are a landscape you could get lost in, folding away in soft ridges toward the lake. We walked out onto the plateau where the marram grass leans in the wind, and for long stretches we couldn’t see another soul. The sand at the surface was warm and loose; a few inches down it was cool and firm, holding the shape of the last rain. Lia scooped a handful and let it pour through her fingers, and the wind took the finest of it sideways in a thin gold thread.
The Lake Below
The famous overlook is on Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, at the platform where the dune drops away in a dizzying 450-foot pitch straight to the water. There are signs everywhere begging you not to descend, because people do, and then discover the climb back up takes hours. We obeyed the signs, mostly because the view was enough. Lake Michigan from up there is not a lake. It’s an inland ocean with no far shore, the horizon a clean hard line, the water banded in impossible colors where sandbars lie beneath. A freighter crawled across the middle of it, small as a grain of rice, and it made the whole thing feel even bigger.
Empire and the Quiet Shore
In the evening we drove down to Empire, the small town at the park’s southern edge, and walked the beach as the sun went down over the water — which still surprises me, a sunset over a lake, the sun sinking into it the way it does over a sea. Bonfires were starting up along the sand. Kids chased each other into the cold shallows and shrieked. We sat on a driftwood log and ate cherries we’d bought from a farm stand up the road, spitting the pits into the sand, watching the sky go from peach to violet to a deep bruised blue. Northern Michigan in July has a softness to it that I wasn’t expecting, a gentleness the guidebooks don’t sell.
Getting There
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore stretches along Lake Michigan’s northwest coast, about 25 miles west of Traverse City, which has the nearest regional airport and makes the easiest base. From there it’s a lovely half-hour drive through orchards and forest on M-72 and M-22. You’ll want a car; the park is spread out and the best stops — the Dune Climb, Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, Empire Beach — are miles apart. Summer is glorious but busy, so come early or late in the day. Bring more water than you think you need for the climb, and shoes you don’t mind filling with sand.