Field Trip - Pyramid Point Hiking Trail

Shara and I spent the weekend camping near Traverse City.  On Saturday (24 SEP), we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and hiked a section of the Pyramid Point Trail.  This popular trail segment leads to a bluff that rises 300 feet above Lake Michigan.  The trail to this overlook measures about 0.6 miles one way (for a 1.2 mile round trip).  The total elevation change of this trail is more than 200 feet, with about 140 feet of that coming in the final 0.2 miles of the climb.  If you are not used to climbing hills it can be a challenge, but the view is entirely worth the effort.

The trail leads upward

The trail passes though a mixed hardwood forest - including stands of birch

Shara stops to photograph something along the trail

Pay attention to the sign!

Tired, but proud, the view is totally worth it

Me with North Manitou Island in the background

The South Manitou Island lighthouse can be seen on the horizon at the left

The lake is 300 feet down from the top of the bluff!

Looking east along the bluff

A wider angle view of the horizon to the northwest

North Manitou Island - you see the dunes on the island's southwest side

Another view of the eastern horizon

Heading back down the trail

The Pyramid Point Trail is just one of thirteen named trails within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore - not counting the trails on the Manitou Islands.  Sleeping Bear Dunes is located about 2 hours 15 minutes from Mid-Michigan.  There is a fee for using the park. Currently, a 7-day vehicle pass costs $15 or an annual pass can be purchased for $30.  There is also a pass for people entering the park on foot or by bicycle ($7 for 7 days).  Check the calendar, there are several fee-free days throughout the year - the next one is scheduled for Veterans Day (November 11th).

Favorite Photos from Years Gone By (MAY 2009)

I don't feel like writing a long post today so I though I would share a photo from a few years ago.  This picture was taken on a hiking trip to North Manitou Island.  North Manitou Island is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and is accessible only by a ferry from Leland, MI or by private boat.  This car dates to a time when the island was privately owned - today there are no vehicles (or roads) on the island with the exception of a couple of tractors used by the national park Service for maintenance.

The policy of the National park Service used to be to remove human artifacts from many National Parks - in the past few years the Park Service has been to work at preserving (and even restoring) the human elements of the landscape. 

Plants can adapt...

I thought I would share one of my favorite photographs.  This photo shows that plants are tough and can adapt to less than ideal growing conditions.

Trilliums coming up through a cut in a log.

 
This photo shows two Large-flowered Trilliums (Trillium grandiflorum) emerging from a saw-cut in a log.  This picture was taken near a trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  The log was from a tree that had fallen across the trail at some time.  The trail crew cleared the fallen tree and tossed the sections of logs into the woods to decay.  Then one of two things happened.

First, the section of log may have landed on some existing Trilliums - two of those plants survived being covered by the log and eventually their sun-seeking stems found the cut in the log and grew through it. 

An alternate explanation is that the plants were not there before the log landed in this space.  One way that the Trillium is spread is by ants dispersing their seeds.  There may have been a colony of ants nesting beneath this log.  The ants brought the seeds from a trillium into their nest as food.  The ants ate a fleshy coating that covers the seed and then discarded the seed in their garbage pile where they then germinated and grew up through the cut.

To learn more about the Large-flowered Trillium look here.

November in Northwest Michigan

November comes,
And November goes
With the last red berries
And the first white snows,

With night coming early
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.

                               -Elizabeth Coatsworth

                "November"

This past weekend offered us one last time to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the rest of northwest Michigan before winter sets in.  While many of the facilities Sleeping Bear Dunes are closed down for the season, the park is just as beautiful as it is during the Spring and Summer.  The big advantage to visiting in the "off-season" is that you will have the park almost to yourself - many of the places that we stopped at in the park were completely deserted.  This was a nice contrast to Summer when there is no place to park and other visitors always at hand.  

Sunday was cold and windy, with beautiful cloud formations during the entire day.

Poplar trees with Glen Lake in the background

Bare poplar trees

Dune Climb - Sleeping Bear Dunes

Red, White & Blue - Highbush Cranberry (red), Red Osier Dogwood (white) and Riverbank Grape (blue)

"the last red berries"

Beach rocks and clouds - the view west at Glen Haven

The view east at Glen Haven

On Monday (Veterans' Day), a strong wind had come out of the north and snow was falling. Winter wanted to let us know that it is not far away.  An inch of snow was on the ground by the time we left Traverse City and more was falling.  The storm followed us most of the way home.

Waves crashing on the seawall at the "Open Space" in Traverse City

"and the first white snows"

Geology Photographs - Great Lakes Dunes

One more post for the week focusing on geology.  Here are some photographs of Great Lakes dune habitats from around the state of Michigan.  The dunes are created by the actions of water and wind.  Waves and currents in the Great Lakes bring sand from the bottom of the lakes and deposit it on beaches.  Wind then blows the sand inland, depositing it in dunes. In Michigan, major dunes can be found along shore of Lake Michigan from the the Indian Border to the Straits of Mackinaw and along the south shore of the Upper Peninsula.  Lesser dune complexes can be found in areas along the Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair shorelines.

Sometimes dunes are created atop bluffs.  These dunes are known as perched dunes.  In the Great Lakes, perched dunes can be found along the south shore of Lake Superior near Grand Marais, MI and along the Lake Michigan shoreline on the northwest side of Michigan's Lower Peninsula


Tower Hill - Warren Dunes State Park near Sawyer, MI

Grand Sable Dunes - these perched dunes are located on the shore of Lake Superior near Grand Marais, MI

Grand Sable Dunes - perched on the Grand Sable Banks near Grand Marais, MI



Grand Sable Dunes

 

From left to right: beach, foredune, interdunal swale, back dune - P.H. Hoeft State Park near Rogers City, MI

 

Vegetation stabilizes the backdune, interdunal swales, and foredune at P.H. Hoeft State Park



Forested backdune - P.H. Hoeft State Park

Perched dunes - Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Empire, MI

Perched dunes at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore - perched dunes on South Manitou Island are visible in the background

Bedding in the dunes at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore near Empire, MI

Interdunal wetland and foredune on North Manitou Island with perched dunes on South Manitou Island in the background - Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore near Leland, MI

Small foredune and perched backdune on North Manitou Island - Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore



More of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

I thought today that I would post a few more images that I have taken at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore over the past six years.  These photos were taken at different locations (including Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, North Manitou Island, and the Port Oneida Rural Historical District) at times of the year ranging from Spring to Fall.  Enjoy.