Hiking The Ridge Trail

 

 

I love bringing people to areas they've never seen, and this hike was even more special. My brother John came along for a winter hike through the winding, hilly trails of what I call the Ridge Trail. This is not the official name of the trail, it's a nickname I've given it - I honestly don't know the "real" name of this trail, and don't particularly care either. This trail starts out on the Lake Michigan beach, heads off into the grassy dunes, then through the wooded dunes to the ridge where it meanders for a half a mile or so around savannas, woods, and blowouts, until it comes back to the beach. It's a quick hike for a cold or hot day, and a great place to introduce someone to the Dunes.

 

Of course, John has been to the dunes before, but not to this particular area, and although I like to use this relatively short trail to introduce people to the dunes, he could hike for hours non stop, and we did continue after this trail.

 
One thing I like to do is to keep people looking ahead as they hike, then stop in certain places and ask them to look back. Here, John was hiking, and a few moments after this photo, I told him to look behind him. The view of the rolling dunes, conifers, and partially frozen lake are a relative surprise when you turn around. You don't realize the expanse of the area until you stop and take it all in.

Just ahead is a large dune with a winding trail up to the top. This is the backside of a large blowout - an area of a dune that has been eroded by wind and/or waves. The area looks like a large, bare depression in the dune, it's quite striking, but from the backside, everything looks normal. As we hiked further up, we would encounter the blowout, and the way down from the tall dune.