West Beach at Indiana Dunes National Park
Summary
For peace and solitude, we strongly recommend that you explore this trail system off-season, as during the summer, it’s one of the most popular beach destinations. You have been warned.
About 3.5 miles of designated hiking trails, including a half-mile elevated stairway and boardwalk that offers expansive views of Lake Michigan and local countryside.
Several beautiful and tranquil inland ponds surrounded by very unusual jack pine evergreen forest. Not your typical Indiana Dunes vegetation.
360° views of dramatic, bare sand dunes. I can’t think of another area in Indiana Dunes that offers such open views of the dune architecture, unobstructed by trees.
There are many places where signs warn visitors to stay off the fragile dunes, however, when you access the area from the adjacent settlement of Ogden Dunes, you can see a network of unofficial trails that are clearly used regularly by hikers, joggers and dog-walkers. A beautiful steep woodland trail skirts the eastern edge of the park, and leads to the top of an old dune that makes a wonderful picnic spot with panoramic views of the area.
Along the western side of the park is a trail that starts up a steep sledding slope along a tall tune, and winds over the rolling landscape through the woods heading inland, ending up on a fairly flat banks of Long Lake where you may be able to sy some beaver activity before heading back to the parking lot.
National Park System West Beach Trail System page.
Indiana Dunes West Beach page.