Once off the beach, we enter the wooded portion of the dunes, where the back-lit trees cast blue shadows in the fresh snow. In winter, we can see Lake Michigan on the majority of the wooded portion of the trail, a few hundred meters to our right, but in the summer, it's mostly hidden by the dense woods.
Portions of the trail are rugged, and a bit strenuous if you're not used to hiking on soft, steep terrain, but it's not a straight climb up, it's rolling up and down throughout the entire trail. That's one of the great things about hiking through most of the dunes along Lake Michigan, you get a break on your way down each time you traverse a dune.
A great view appears at almost every turn on these trails, and you have to remember to look back every so often, because you don't want to miss the view from that angle. Almost to the first dune ridge, the woods begin to thin, and the grassy, open dunes appear in the background.
At this point, the sound of the waves begin to disappear, and the winds are blocked by the fore dunes, giving us a bit of warmth compared to the open beach below.
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