Morning at West Beach

Finally, the sun came out after a couple of weeks of very cold weather, warming things up to 18°F which feels very comfortable with no wind and strong sun. Arriving at West Beach, the western-most property of the Indiana Dunes National Park, the clouds parted and the sun bathed the foredune. The foredune is the first dune from a body of water, so in this case, the first dune from Lake Michigan. These dunes hold a bit of heat, at least a bit longer than the surrounding land, so the sand is often free of snow, and once the sun comes out it quickly melts off even more. 

The low, morning sun washes the sand with warm light, in great contrast to the dunes closer to me, which were still in the shadow of taller dunes. The almost always overdone theme of "fire and ice" still captures my attention, and here the warm sand and sun against the cool snow and shade make a good example of this theme.

 

Heading closer to the beach, other dunes come into view before the walk to the top of the dunes which consists of 474 stairs - up most, but down quite a few at the end. This type of winter hike brings to mind another "fire and ice" theme - the one where your body is hot like fire and sweating, while your face is ice cold. A backpack full of gear doesn't help either! 

Once you finish the more strenuous portions of the hike, you begin to cool down and now that your body is wet, you begin to freeze. This is why I never bundle up unless the wind it blowing 30 or 40 mph and the temperature is below 0°F. I'm not pretending to be warm, I'm trying to stop from heating up too early - warm early on means cold later on, so cool early, warm later on.