May 12 2008
In the News: Indiana’s Lake Michigan Coast
Indiana’s Lake Michigan coastline is a study in contrasts. In some spots, one can see the hulking factories of Indiana’s steel industry. In other spots, sand dunes and lighthouses dot the shore. The Booth News Service has a nice overview of recreational opportunities along the Hoosier shore:
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — Indiana’s Old Lighthouse Museum has stood as a sentinel for more than 150 years, the sole light on the state’s 40 miles of Lake Michigan coastline.
With its gabled roof and Grecian-trimmed windows, the museum’s special features include a lantern room, a 40-foot climb to the top of the light tower and artifacts from past residents, including one whose ghostly presence still is felt by some.
“The ghost trackers have been here three times with all their equipment,” museum director Jackie Glidden said. “They think there’s something here.”
Next, travel farther west to where the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and the Indiana Dunes State Park preserve the ruggedly beautiful sand mountains and pristine beaches that form the Indiana dunes.
In Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore sit two historic settlements, Chellberg Farm and Bailly Homestead. Chellberg offers costumed interpreters and visitors can watch horses pulling plows through the fields. At Bailly, visitors can help farm workers feed the animals.
Comprising more than 15,000 acres with vast stretches of woodlands, eight beaches and the tallest sand dune in the state — the 153-foot-tall Mount Baldy — the lakeshore attracts 1.8 million people annually.
“We have more than 1,135 native plant species here,” said park ranger Ryan Koepke, noting the lakeshore ranks seventh among all the national parks in the U.S. in plant diversity.
Next door, the 2,182-acre Indiana Dunes State Park also offers a bucolic blend of beaches, coastline and miles of hiking trails that wander through woods dotted with ferns and wildflowers.
Here are towering sand dunes to climb for vast panoramas of the coastlines of three states — Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. In the early evening, as the sunset turns the water and sand sherbet colors of pink and orange, the Chicago skyline looms large (as do the nearer steel mills of Gary and East Chicago).
The images above come from the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Coast Guard and publicly available satellite weather images.