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Indiana

INDIANA DUNES

ESTABLISHED 2019


At this cherished pocket of Indiana you’ll cross an amazingly rich natural world where grasses grow from ancient sand and into the sky. Prepare to fall in love with one of the most biodiverse parks in the system.

Hugging Lake Michigan in northern Indiana, layer upon layer of fascinating features cascade across the landscape with as much intensity as a falling Midwestern sunset. This park, formerly a National Lakeshore, was named for its dunes. They started forming over 13,000 years ago during the last Ice Age when glaciers retreated, creating the Great Lakes. Made of gravel, sand, and pulverized boulders, the vegetated slopes protect the shores from storms and shield beaches from invasive species that crawl in from the wetlands.

If the landscape alone wasn’t exceptional enough, you may be astonished to sight five model homes nestled in the dunes. Created for the “Homes of Tomorrow” exhibit for the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, they were moved by barge to the Indiana Dunes to promote new development at Beverly Shores.

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The gorgeous Art Deco Florida Tropical House is one of the park’s “Homes of Tomorrow”

Most know the newly minted national park and neighboring state park as a retreat from nearby cities, where the beaches become shoreside playgrounds in the summer. The lake holds 1,200 cubic miles (5,000 cubic km) of water, causing it to act more like an ocean than a protected body of freshwater (to the delight of sailors and body surfers). Away from the water, nature lovers are entranced by world-class biodiversity—with marshes filled with birds, squishy bogs that birth carnivorous plants, and more than 1,100 flowering plants throughout.  

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Bring a macro lens to capture intricate details of an enormous population of plant species and wildflowers in the spring.

Hikers are gifted with 50 miles (80 km) of trails, snaking through forests to lush beaches where the dunes wait to be climbed. The tricky “Three Dune Challenge” leads to the tops of the highest dunes here: Mount Jackson, Mount Holden, and Mount Tom, with some of the most breathtaking views in the whole park a welcome reward.

PARK PIONEERS

Henry Cowles

A botanist from the area, Cowles published an article in 1899 bringing attention to fragile ecosystems in the region, inspiring a legacy of preservation that led to federal protection in 1966. He is known as “the father of plant ecology.”

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Hikers are treated to spectacular panoramas of vegetation painted in vibrant shades of auburn and green in the fall

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