Stretching along 2.5 miles of secluded, Lake Michigan shoreline, this 1000 acre State Park is north of the city of Saugatuck. Trail loops take visitors from the parking lot across forested, freshwater dunes (some of which rise 200 feet above the lake level) and out to the wide beach.
The southern portion of the refuge, accessed by a 5.5 mile trail loop, is protected as a Natural Area and harbors several endangered plant species.
Visiting the Park, one is struck by the large trees that now rise above the dunes, knowing that they took root well after the last Pleistocene glaciers retreated into Canada (some 12,000 years ago) and have managed to survive the massive waves that lash the shoreline (and that produced the the dunes themselves).
