Deep Blue #10015

The Story

On a sunny day, a scenic 450-foot overlook of Lake Michigan at the Sleeping Bear Dunes features deep blue waters and a long, far-off horizon. If you look closely from this height, the slight curvature of the earth can be seen miles out onto the lake. My guess is a person could see 20 miles in this long water view, all the way out to the fog bank over the water. One can also see the water depth of the lake, with the green shallow water closer in changing to a full deeper blue further out.

It is simply stunning how much sand there is in Michigan and it’s particularly evident at Sleeping Bear Dunes. Standing here looking left and right at Lake Michigan’s edge, you will see nothing but giant sand bluffs into the horizon both ways on the coast, which is remarkable. Even more remarkable, there are extensive high-sweeping sand dunes behind the bluffs in scenes you might imagine from a major desert like the Sahara. And I do mean high, hundreds of feet high.

I had never heard of this place before driving into it on a long ramble through Michigan to take photographs, so you can imagine the surprise of a guy from the wooded mountains of Pennsylvania!

From this very point of view, there is a trail of sorts down to the water’s edge. It’s nothing but a very steep seventy-degree slope of loose sand all the way down, and there are prominent warning signs stating you will have a very hard time coming back up through that loose sand…so think twice. I peered over the edge and decided to heed the warning.

Far below this overlook, I could see a few people on the very narrow beach who looked like ants that far down. The decision to keep my self-designation as a leisurely tourist seemed like a good idea.

Nevertheless, you can see from all the footprints in the sand that people do go over and nearly straight down that very steep slope, but the walk back up has to be rather grueling like the sign said.

Location: the Great Lakes on Lake Michigan, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan. Picture and Story @ Andrew Dierks