The Dune Ridge Trail in Spring

 

 

Things are waking up quickly around the Indiana Dunes National Park. Taking a quick hike up the short Dune Ridge Trail near Kemil Beach revealed quite a bit of "greening up" along the dune and especially down in the Great Marsh. The Great Marsh is a wetland running parallel to the Lake Michigan shore, on the leeward side of the aft dunes. This 15 mile long by 1/4 mile wide wetland was once all marsh, but since the 1900's, it's been drained in spots for houses, farmland, and industry.

 
Restoration of this wetland began back in the 1990s, and evidence of this still exists with thousands of tree stumps in the water. The trees were killed either by girdling (cutting around the circumference of the trunk) or by flooding after drains were removed. Either way, more and more of the Great Marsh is being restored every year. 

A road once cut through a good portion of this marsh, but flooding ruined it, and the park closed the road about 8 years ago. This road is now part of a new trail system that takes visitors between the aft dune and the edge of the marsh. The road can be seen in the distance in the photo above.

   

The relatively short and simple trail up the dune is called the Dune Ridge Trail, and at this early time of the year, I was surprised to see lupine blooming. I expected them to bloom a few weeks from now, but with the warmer weather, and the sun heating the sand, they're all ready to go. Soon, the Tolleston Dune Trail will have areas of lupine seemingly acres wide, running along the trails, into the woods, and up the dunes. It's a beautiful thing to see. 

Later in the early summer, the prickly pear cacti will bloom as well. Now is a great time to get out to these trails to see what is blooming this week. It's interesting to see how things change so quickly in the spring, and even more interesting to see how these areas change with each season, with each month, and even with each week.

The Phases of the 2024 Total Eclipse

 

The many phases of the eclipse in a composite of 19 images taken from first contact through last contact. Looking at the timeline below, you can see there are only about 5 seconds between some events, such as the diamond ring and Baily's beads, and totality, so there's little time to react and change camera settings.

The timeline of the eclipse:

01:50:22   The edge of the moon begins to block a portion of the sun 

02:13   20% obscuration 

02:20   Temperatures begin to change 

02:35   The sky begins to darken 

03:05:33   The corona appears 

03:05:43   Diamond ring 

03:05:48   Baily's beads 

03:05:53   Totality begins 

03:09:55   Totality ends 

03:09:56   Baily's beads 

03:10:00   Diamond ring 

03:32   Temperatures return to normal 

04:01   20% obscuration 

04:23:13   Eclipse ends

Solar Prominences

So many events happen during the brief solar eclipse, it's almost impossible to experience them all, and even more difficult to photograph them all. Camera settings and equipment can be very different for each phase, and some phases only last a matter of seconds. In the case of the sun's chromosphere, this took place at 3:05 and 54 seconds, and ended at 3:05 and 55 seconds - yes, one second! One second to assess, adjust, and execute. Well, I may or may not have captured this one second event, but in this photo, solar prominences are visible along with the bright red color of burning hydrogen.

These prominences are loops of hydrogen plasma from the sun's surface up into it's atmosphere, and these are actually larger than the earth, extending hundreds of thousands of miles away from the surface. According to the Holcolm Observatory, the one in the top photo measures three times the diameter of earth!

Generally, one needs to use special equipment to see these effects, often including a hydrogen-alpha filter that captures the wavelength of light these give off. Hydrogen-alpha filters are very expensive (I wanted to use one for the eclipse phases until I priced them), so I waited for nature to do the work for me. During totality and a few moments prior and after, solar prominences are visible without the aid of special filters. There was plenty of activity on April 8, 2024, so the eclipse did not disappoint. 

Following totality, a large prominence was visible near the south pole of the sun. Looking a lot like a tongue of fire, the plasma loop stood out against the black surface of the moon, and the blackness of space. 

   

Here, Baily's beads were just finishing up, and a bit of the sun's chromosphere is visible - the thin, bright red outline around the moon.
Once again, photography has persuaded me perform a deep-dive into a subject to find out more and more about the things I've seen behind the camera.

The Corona and the Chromosphere

 

In an attempt to pull any amount of detail from the dark moon, and bring out as much of the captured corona as possible, the image above resulted. A very small bit of detail can be seen of the moon's surface, lots of grain, but it's there. The sun's chromosphere can be seen at the bottom of the moon, reflecting red off of the surface - that's the hydrogen burning. This phenomenon is only visible for about five seconds at the very end of totality, right before Baily's beads.

This image was created using the 10 image stack from the previous post, and a new one with the chromosphere. This 11 image stack shows just how far the corona extends. According to NASA, the corona extends five million miles above the sun's surface. That's over five times the diameter of the sun.

The Sun's Corona and Diamond Ring

 

 

I spent a few days in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana to make certain I would be around to view the total eclipse of 2024. Back in 2017, I was working, and didn't make the trip south for that particular eclipse, and vowed I would not miss this one. 

Almost a year ago, I began planning, and several months ago, I put in for vacation to make sure there was nothing keeping me from seeing this event - except perhaps the weather. Hearing how horrible the traffic could be, I decided to head down a few days early, and stay at least another day. I did luck out in the traffic department, while everyone else was sitting in traffic heading northbound on I-65, I was either relaxing in my nephew's yard, or on Tuesday, driving down some farm roads west and north - I suppose these roads weren't GPS detours for traffic because they were almost empty. I-65 was backed up in several places throughout the day, and I'd probably still be sitting in traffic if I took that route. 

The weather forecast for two weeks mentioned cloud cover, and even on the morning of the eclipse, there was a 25% cloud cover forecast - while I looked up and saw very few clouds if any. We lucked out and had a relatively clear sky, with some very high, light haze which did mess a bit with the bright tones on the photos, but it didn't destroy them. 

I met some family and some friends - old and new - for the event, right in my nephew's large back yard. His BBQ dinner was excellent by the way. We all set up and waited for syzygy - the alignment of earth, the moon, and the sun. All the while taking photos of the different phases of the eclipse using a Baader filter on my 600mm lens (any closer and the corona will be cut off). Even this part of the event was excellent - and I've seen a few partial eclipses, but once the moon covered the sun, the fast darkness took hold and it was spectacular.

I planned on bracketing several exposures during totality, to obtain the best range of exposures of the rays of the sun's corona. I used 10 separate images for the photograph above, all aligned and stacked together to form an average of exposures to create one image showing the extent of the corona. 

The image shared in the previous post was done from one image, and on an older laptop, so I was not happy with it at all once I saw it on a decent computer monitor. This one seems a bit better - if not, let me know!

   

 Just before totality - at 3:05 and 43 seconds, the diamond ring effect took place. This is when only a small bit of the sun peeks over the moon, creating a relatively small point of light, along with some light from the corona around the moon - this looks a lot like a ring, and the bright spot on top, looks like a diamond. This lasted for 4 seconds until the sun was all but covered completely. There isn't a lot of time to remove the Baader filter and re-adjust the camera, but I managed to get things done in time - a camera capable of taking 120 images a second really helps. 

I like this diamond ring image better than yesterday's as well. If you look around the top of the image, you can see lots of solar prominences - huge, bright plasma looping from the sun's surface into the sun's outer atmosphere.  These colorful, hydrogen formations are huge, sometimes larger than several earths combined - the largest on record was about to 500,000 miles across.  

When is the next eclipse? 2026 in Iceland I think. I'll start making plans now.

2024 Total Eclipse - First Impressions

 

 The first images of the total eclipse today, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Had to get these posted without doing any "real" editing. Most photos of the sun's extended corona are created by stacking multiple images in photoshop, but this image is just one photo. I used a computer with a poor display, and while the images looked fine to me on that display, I see they have some halo effects around them on any other monitor.  QUALITY DISPLAYS ARE IMPORTANT.

Click here to see similar images processed correctly

Experiencing a total eclipse was something to behold, something better seen in person than in photos and stories. While images can convey the look of the sun, they can't convey the odd lighting before and after totality, the strange shadows on the ground, the cool breeze, the seemingly instant darkness, and a 360 degree sunset look in the sky.

   

 Just before totality, some interesting effects are created by the moon. The first is the diamond ring effect, so called because the last light creates a bright spot on one end, while the edges of the moon are illuminated by the sun behind. It really does look like a diamond ring.

   

 The second effect occurs moments before totality, the last tiny bits of light shining through the mountains of the moon, creating what's called Baily's Beads, because it looks a lot like a string of beads. This effect only lasts for a few seconds, so it can be difficult to capture well.

   

 After totality, a second diamond ring is visible. While a bit overexposed, this one has a nice flare effect reaching out into space. One of the best parts of viewing the eclipse was to share it with others; what others notice you may not, what you notice, they may not, and sharing this information in the moment is really special.

The Lonely Tree Trail

 

About 15 years ago, on a hike with my kids, we noticed a single tree on the vast grassland of the inner dunes. We named that tree "The Lonely Tree" because it looked so lonely in the middle of all the rolling hills. Over the next few weeks, we would visit the same trail and call attention to the lonely tree. Finally, we decided to try to get as close to the tree as possible, and looked for trails that headed in the general direction. After a bit, we made our way to a narrow, sandy trail about 100 feet behind the tree. This was about a mile walk from our original trail.

As soon as we arrived, my youngest son ran to the tree and gave it a long hug - he finally was able to greet the tree properly and make it feel a bit less lonely.

 

On the hike back to the main trail, the boys noticed another tree in middle of nowhere, this time it was an oak tree. This rather large oak had low branches, making it easy for them to climb up to get a great view of the surrounding dunes and woods. They could even see Lake Michigan from their high perch. This tree became known to us as the ladder tree, because the branches acted like a ladder. 

As seen in the photo above, at 20 years old, and 6'-4", Dan still loves to climb the ladder tree.

Hiking through this area today, some 15 years later, I'm still reminded of these natural landmarks on the trail, and I can still hear the kids shouting out in excitement as they came into view. It's great to remember these details, even if only to see how they've changed in the last decade.

The Edge of the Dunes

 

Getting to the top of the dune, we discovered and expansive area of mostly flat, grassy areas, but as we headed toward the lake, we found the sand dropped off rather abruptly. This abrupt drop lead to the ruins of a home, barely recognizable, and scattered down the eroding dune. Pipes, bricks, wood, and all sorts of electrical parts lead down to the beach below. I wonder who lived here, and even more importantly, why would they ever leave?! 

The erosion of this dune began well after the house was razed, I recall walking the trails between the lake and this house. They're now all gone, washed away by Lake Michigan.

   

I suppose it would take quite a bit of work to remove all of the remnants of the houses from the dunes, although it wouldn't be impossible. The old roads and driveways still exist, they've recently been turned into a trail system leading to privative campsites near Central Beach. 

 It's fantastic that the park opened this space up once again; I can recall walking here when a few houses still existed, and some had people living in them. Again, I question why anyone would leave this area unless they were forced to do so.

Building a New Foredune

 

A spring walk on the beach revealed the building of a new foredune on the shore of Lake Michigan. Only time will tell if this dune will grow or be spread out inland by the winds that built it. 

The Marram grass that grows just inland from the open beach has taken hold, and it keeps the sand that blows across it in place where it piles up. Over time, the sand will pile up and form a small dune. If the grass can grow through the sand, it will continue to keep the sand in place until it reaches 20, 50, or 100 feet in height. This all depends on how much sand is brought to the beach by the waves. 

The Indiana Dunes National Park has many areas of beach that are starving - meaning more sand blows inland than is replenished by the waves. This is one of the reasons the dunes are eroding at such an alarming rate (it's not from people walking on the sand).

   

 While waling through the paths of the dunes, there are so many patterns that can be found in the sand; footprints of humans, animals, birds, insects, are all common to see. Other items create patterns as well, in this case, a single blade of grass has bent over and touched the sand. As the wind blows, the tip drags and makes a mark in the sand. Because the grass is rooted in the sand, it does not change length and becomes the radius of the circle in the sand.

High Above the Lake

 

 

Taking advantage of March temperatures near 70 degrees, we decided to hike to a few places we haven't seen in a while, and one that was difficult to locate the last time we made the effort. Taking a little known trail, we were transported back in time to a place we used to visit frequently. 

This area was much easier to access years ago when the roads were still in use, and trails at the foredune were still in place. Years of no maintenance on the roads (intentionally left alone by the park), and years of erosion by the waves of Lake Michigan, have all but eliminated the access to this area from the beach. It is, however, still accessible from the roads, but you can hardly tell where the roads once were with all of the overgrowth. 

 It is good to see the National Park is marking these trails for once - maybe the entry fee is really going toward expansion and upgrades. I mean, what was once an asphalt road with houses along it, really can't be ruined by visitors walking across it, they may as well mark it and allow hiking again.

  When we would visit this area almost every weekend, the kids would love to climb on a particular tree to get a better view of the area. Careful not to walk on any of the Marram Grass or other plants, we'd make our way to the tree for a photo. Below are two of those photos, the first is from 2012, taken from a slightly different angle. The second is from 2010, taken from approximately the same angle as yesterday's photo. Things have really changed in the area. The park service has removed quite a bit of the invasive plants that were growing there. While it's best for the environment, I'm a bit disappointed at how bare things look today.

  

  

 

 

Morning Swans

Just as the sun came up this morning, two swans made their way past my position. Their white feathers reflected every bit of the early morning rays, while the relatively still water absorbed the light, making the water look like an oil painting, smeared, smudged, and dark. 

The master painters of the past highlighted the subject of their paintings with wonderful light, and kept the backgrounds dark and mysterious. Nature did this for me today, making this photograph look a lot like a Renaissance painting.

Climbing Shadows

 

 

The living dune of Mt. Baldy is slowly taking over the parking lot, and swallowing up anything in its path. The trees seen here are actually buried, their trunks begin at the level of the flat ground at the right of the image. A good portion of the parking area is now buried, and there's no end in sight. This is a natural process, as the "bald" dune (a dune with no grass or plants to keep it from eroding) seems to move inland because the wind blows the sand from the lakeside over the top and it falls on the opposite side. This makes the dune "walk" inland, burying everything in the way. 

The image below shows the leeward side of the dune today. Some of the trees that once stood here are completely buried, others died and broke off in the wind. The pine tree seen toward the left was once a small shrub in front of tall deciduous trees. This pine has grown significantly, but the trees are missing. 

Look below at the last photograph, it's a composite image I created over the years of the exact same area of this dune. You can see how the sand has moved to cover the trees. When Mt. Baldy was closed a few years back, I was unable to get photos, and when I returned, the trees were gone.

   

 Composite of Mt. Baldy over the years. Compare it to the image above to see the changes.

 

Gray Dunes

 

 

A walk through the Indiana Dunes on a gray, winter afternoon. I prefer sunny days when photographing landscapes, that's the opposite of most other photographers, they prefer overcast days that don't produce shadows. This may be true when doing portraits or photographing items outdoors, but I feel the sun brings out the colors of the landscape much better than filtered light. 

On this day, the gray sky seemed to demand a black and white image. The grayscale shows off a lot of the drama in the sky, and the contrast in the Marram grass of the dunes.

Sandhill Cranes in the Snow

 

 

These sandhill cranes woke up to a fresh blanket of snow in full sunshine just like us. Walking outside in the morning at this time of year, we're greeted by the sounds of sandhill cranes all around us. We're right on their migration route, and groups of hundreds- sometimes thousands - spend the night within a mile of us. If something spooks them at night, we'll hear their alarm calls, and I'll know to head out in the morning with the camera. 

Most of these birds stay away from people, and spend the night in the wetlands and farm fields nearby, but there are areas where some feed close to the country roads. I would often walk a mile or so to view and photograph them, but seeing me, they would quickly fly a few hundred feet away from me. I found that if I drive my car down the road, they're not alarmed much, if at all. I suppose they're used to cars, and realize the cars don't come close to them or pose a threat to them. I can spend some time photographing them from my car without alarming them at all - kind of a drive-by photo shoot.

   

 I don't consider myself a wildlife photographer, but I won't pass up an opportunity to photograph animals. I won't wait hours and hours for an animal to appear in hopes of getting a photo of it, but if it presents itself to me, I'll spend a couple of minutes attempting to capture an image. 

There are plenty of people who love the challenge of getting photos of animals - I'll leave that to them, they're better prepared for such things! Meanwhile, you'll just have to settle for these photos.

Migrating Sandhill Cranes

 

 

An overnight snowfall covered the farm fields and the food sources of the migrating sandhill cranes. Following a week of unusually warm weather, this snow was a surprise for all, but these cranes seemed to take things in stride.

The huge annual migration of thousands of sandhill cranes passes through this area each Spring, and is only a week or two away, but there are always early birds. I've seen these early flocks spending the night on frozen lakes, and thousands more in nearby farm fields. South of this location, in the Jasper-Pulaski wildlife Area, people wait for the migration to begin. This area is a stopping point for over 30,000 cranes, and offers some excellent viewing of the birds as they land in the evening and take off in the morning.
   

Sandhill cranes are large birds, standing three to four feet tall, with wingspans of up to five feet, and their rituals of jumping and dancing are fun to watch. They're often seen flying very high in the sky in large V formations, and generally can be heard before being seen. Their unique trumpeting sounds can help you spot them high above urban areas and rural areas alike. There is a migration in fall and spring, but the spring migration seems to have a larger concentration of birds excited to fly north to their summer feeding grounds.

The Back of the Dunes

 

 

Hiking up for a better view of the ice on the lake, and all of the surroundings, it's always wise to look around to see what's often hidden from view. A good portion of the dune is hidden from the beach, and it's always worth exploring. 

The path up is steep but not dangerous, a bit slippery with compacted sand, fallen leaves, and a bit of ice and snow leftover from the last storm. Up isn't too bad, but down can be a bit of a challenge - super fast if you just let gravity take over, but if you like your limbs intact, then the loose footing on the steep grade be cause for concern. It's always worth the effort.

   

 Sometimes there are formations on the front of the dune, the windward side. This face of the dune can take a beating from the winds off of Lake Michigan, and erosion can begin. When erosion takes place in the middle of the dune, it's called a blowout. A blowout is a bald area of a dune that has trouble growing any vegetation - the dune is basically blown out like a crater. These are pretty common, especially on the foredunes, and seem to attract people. 

Footprints are always seen in blowouts, but I never walk through them, I try to give them a chance to rebound as best they can. But dunes are the most unstable landforms, so they're going to do whatever the wind and rain dictate, there's really not that much I can do to make things better, or for that matter, to make them worse. My feet aren't going to destroy the dune directly, but walking on marram grasses or other plants can harm or kill the plants, which in turn, can accelerate the demise of the dune.

Warm Valley

 

 

 A well received break in the cold weather has allowed the dunes to green up a bit, and the sunshine sure helped as well. Some areas of these dunes have boreal leftovers that remain green all year. The patches of conifers can be seen mainly in West Beach, but small areas are seen in Central Beach, and the Dunes State Park as well. Walking through these areas of conifers instantly changes the feel of the area, often from bright sun and grass to shady Jack Pine; the sights, sounds and smells change right along with them. 

A benefit of hiking these dunes in winter is the fact that there are no ticks! Ticks love the dunes, especially the marram grass, and theres a lot of marram grass at the dunes.

   

 Even though the dunes are beginning to wake up, there are still signs that winter still has a grip on the area. A line of shelf ice can still be seen on shore, and the deciduous trees such as oak and sassafras are still without their leaves. It'll be a few weeks at least before the spring flowers arrive, until then, it's a back and forth dance between winter and spring.

Ice Lagoon

 

 

With the break up of the ice, interesting formations are found on the beaches of Lake Michigan. These structures of ice are ever-changing throughout the periods of freezing and thawing, taking shape with every wave and splash of the lake. 

Miniature environments that mimic vast land features elsewhere on earth can be spotted. Some appear to be mountain ranges, cliffs, lakes, oceans, estuaries, and canyons. Looking much like a lagoon filled with giant ice balls, this formation caught our eye as we made our way back from a hike through the rolling dunes. 

Hiking with me can be challenging at times, I stop periodically to investigate things that most people don't see, or don't bother to see. Stopping every so often to look and more importantly listen - it's incredible how the dunes and these ice mounds can block the sounds of the nearby cities and the crashing waves of the lake. Wind and wave sounds instantly disappear when traversing a dune, and temperatures can rise and fall just as fast - in summer or winter.

   

 First time visitors may surprisingly notice the Chicago skyline across the lake. At approximately 40 miles, the tops of the buildings are visible from the beach. Hike up a 75 or 100 foot dune, and you can see almost all of the buildings. The elevation helps overcome the curvature of the earth. A six foot tall person can see three miles across water before the curvature of the earth begins to hide things close to the surface. Gaining elevation helps to see a bit farther, and the height of the Chicago skyscrapers assists as well. So it's not unusual to see tall buildings from such a long distance.

Icy Pancakes

 

 

A bit of a breeze kicked up Lake Michigan this weekend, sending waves to pound the ice shelf. Every few seconds, loud, muffled thumps could be heard, followed by the splash of water onto the ice, this is how the ice mounds of Lake Michigan are formed, and how they degrade.

In very cold temperatures, this pounding and splashing sprays water and deposits ice chunks onto the ice where it freezes little by little until high mounds are built. At times of low winds, small pieces of ice are pushed against the ice mounds where they freeze in place creating a flat surface of round ice formations. Then the process starts again when the waves return, creating mounds further and further out into the lake. As the weather warms, these waves create a demolition process, where the water and ice erode the mounds. It's evident in the past several days, that this process is breaking things down on the beaches of the Indiana Dunes National Park.

   

 As ice forms on moving bodies of water, wind, current, and waves push the small pieces around at will. They bump into each other very frequently, and as they do, their edges raise slightly from the impact, and they freeze. This constant bumping and moving creates ice in disc form, and it's called pancake ice - it looks a lot like a pancake. 

These formations can become very large in open spaces, but here along the beach, they tend to form around two to three feet in diameter. The pancakes also freeze together when the temperatures drop, and break apart when the temperatures rise. Here they're beginning to break apart, and as they do, the same process repeats, and the pancakes can increase in size and become more rounded.

   

When the waves finally break through the ice mounds - or erode the underside and slip under - the ice at the shore begins to break up and move around. 

I'd love to have the time to create a time-lapse video of the ice forming and breaking apart over several days or weeks. Right now, the only safe way to do that would be to set up inside a home on the shore. Maybe one day.

Beach Approach

 

Entering Central Beach from what was once a road parallel to the lake creates a bit of a grand entrance as the trees open up to the view of the beach in the distance. I remember when you could drive your car almost to this point - you couldn't park it there, but the access was open for the homes that used to be on this road. 

These homes, perched on the dunes, had beautiful views of Lake Michigan, but they were all bought out by the national lakeshore. Years after acquiring the homes, they were razed to add area to the park. There are a couple of historic homes at the end far of this block, that remain because of their historic status; and are part of the national park.

   

 Many years ago, large boulders were brought in and installed along the shore to prevent erosion of the road and the many homes lining it. This measure worked as hoped, the road is still intact, and the homes on the tall dunes have not fallen into Lake Michigan as the dunes of Central Beach have. We refer to this area as "the rocks" and it's been a turning around point of many, many hikes. The rocks do provide a place to view the lake, especially during periods of high waves or ice. The waves and splashes don't reach you as you enjoy the view, and there is no danger of falling into the water or through the ice. 

I hope the areas acquired by the park will soon become trails and look-out points. These areas were once roads, driveways and house foundations, there is a basic trail system already there, it just needs marking and mapping. I'm optimistic because some other areas have been turned into trails - areas near Kemil Beach are now marked trails, and old home sites near the entrance of Central Beach are now an area of primitive campsites.