Many great trails found near Indiana Dunes

Marquette Park beach with the downtown Chicago skyline in the distance.

Despite being urbanized, the area around Indiana Dunes National Park boasts a variety of great beaches, municipal or county parks, and other lengthy hiking trails.

These trails often allow you to escape the national park’s summer beach crowds while experiencing local life.

Among your best bets for day trails outside of the national park:
• Indiana Dunes State Park – The state park sits exactly in the middle of the national park on Lake Michigan’s shores. Its 2182 acres offers many of the same features – beachfront, dunes, forests, wetlands, and prairie/savanna habitat – and so also attracts an incredibly variety of birds. The mile-long Trail 2 circles the Great Marsh on a boardwalk so you can keep your feet dry. Among the birds you can spot are: Baltimore oriole; bay-breasted, blackburnian, Canada, golden-winged, hooded, Kirtland’s, and prairie warblers; blue jay; Louisiana waterthrush; scarlet tanager; and veery. A 3.5-mile round trip segment of Trail 10 passes two blowouts – an exposed area where wind moved sand from the dunes through an area of plants. The park's two largest blowouts – Beach House and Furnessville – are on this segment, which starts at the Pavilion and Bathhouse.
• Dune Nature Preserve – Technically the eastern two-thirds of the state park, the preserve includes three dunes known as The Tremonts: Mt. Tom, which tops out a 192 feet above lake level; Mt. Holden, 184 feet; and Mt. Jackson, 176 feet. The 1.5-mile long Trail 8 goes up and over each of the wooded Tremonts and runs from the Wilson Shelter to the Pavilion and Beach House.
• Iron Horse Heritage Trail – The 2.9-mile one-way gravel trail runs between Hamstrom Road and Indiana Hwy. 149/Max Mochal Road northeast of Portage, Ind. The best section is the eastern half, which runs along the edge of Portage Imagination County Park and a small lake.
• Marquette Park – A 1.4-mile white sand beach stretches along Lake Michigan at this Gary, Ind., park that is entirely surrounded by the national park. Formerly known as Lake Front Park, the area recently underwent a major $28 million overhaul. The beach is not a designated swimming area and is considered an Important Bird Area. Park in the city lots at the end of North Lake Street north of U.S. Hwy. 12.
• Oak Ridge Prairie and Savannah Trail – The 9.5-mile one-way former railway turned asphalt trail runs from Erie Lackawanna Trail at South Arbogast Avenue in Griffith, Ind., to the Prairie Duneland Trail at Hobart Road in Hobart. The end points definitely are better than the center, which crosses busy Interstate 65 and Indiana Hwy. 53.
• Oak Ridge Prairie County Park – Several short trails run through this public area in the Lake County park system. Try the 0.56-mile Lake Perimeter Trail, which circles a pond through woodlands and an open green. Pick up the trail from the lot at the end of the park entry road east of South Colfax Street near Griffith, Ind.
• Porter Brickyard Trail – The paved 3.5-mile one-way trail runs north to south with one end in the national park (trailhead is at 1184 North Mineral Springs Road) and the other outside the park at 198 S. Jackson Blvd. in Chesterton, Ind. Along the way, it passes the Bailly-Chellberg historic sites and in Chesterton connects to the Prairie Duneland Trail.
• Prairie Duneland Trail – The 11.2-mile one-way trail links downtown Hobart, Ind., (trailhead is at 4 North Hobart Road) to a trailhead in Chesterton at 198 S. Jackson Blvd. The grade is nil, and there are six smaller parking lots along the trail route should you want to do a shorter walk.
• Washington Park – The Michigan City, Ind., city park boasts a 2-mile long Lake Michigan beach and a small zoo featuring 90 different species on a 15-acre campus. Park in the lot at the end of the Park Entrance Road north of Lake Shore Drive.

Day (er, Night) hike sand dunes haunted by murdered woman’s spirit on Lake Michigan

Indiana Dunes State Park. Photo courtesy of Visit Indiana.

Apparition seen at Indiana park along Lake Michigan

The otherworldly, massive dunes in Indiana constantly shift and ripple about as if an apparition, but the next ghost-like form you see there may not be a sand but the spirit of a murdered woman.

Believers in the supernatural say the spirit of Alice Marble Gray, a daughter of one of Chicago’s most powerful families, makes her home at Indiana Dunes State Park along the Lake Michigan shore. A 1.25-mile foray into the park will allow you to enjoy the beautiful dunes – and provide an opportunity to experience the scare of your life.

To reach the dunes, from Interstate 94 take the Indiana Hwy. 49 exit in Chesterton. Head north on Hwy. 49 into the park. After passing the park office, turn right. At the next junction, go right once more. Drive past three more road junctions until coming to the North Picnic Area. At the fourth junction, turn left, parking at the nature center.

Diana of the Dunes
The trailhead for the Nature Center Trail is on the parking lot’s east side. Heading in that direction, you’ll soon reach the sand dunes, which line three miles of spectacular beaches along Lake Michigan’s southern shore. Sand dunes here can rise as high as 200 feet.

The Nature Center Trail serves as the stem for a lollipop trail through the dunes. Go counterclockwise on the trail. This places you on Trail 10 as you pass a marsh. Lake Michigan is to your left beyond the dune field.

During the 1910s, local fisherman began telling the tale of Diana of the Dunes, so named because they often reported a naked woman with the body of a Greek goddess frolicking about on the dunes and swimming in the lake. One man investigating the case soon discovered the woman was none other than Alice Marble Gray, who lived in a small lakeside cottage.

As the trail veers away from the marsh, Trail 10 breaks off and heads northeast, paralleling the lake. To make a loop, instead stay on the trail going north toward the lake.

Rather than rely on her family’s fortunes, Alice worked several years as an editorial secretary for Woman’s World. Upon amassing a little wealth, she moved to the lakeshore. Then, after five years of being alone, she met Paul Wilson, a drifter. In 1922, the corpse of a brutally beaten man was found near their cottage, and police questioned them. They quickly moved away to get out of the public eye.

A happier place?
In about an eighth of a mile from where Trail 10 broke off, the loop intersects Trail 9. Go left/southwest, making the opposite side of the loop.

Three years later, Alice died – from complications arising from repeated blows Wilson had suffered upon her. Wilson fled with their children. He later was found in a California prison, but no one knows what became of their offspring.

Shortly after Alice’s death, visitors to the dunes began seeing the ghost of a beautiful nude woman. Descriptions of her bear an uncanny resemblance to the young Diana of the Dunes who was so at peace with herself. Apparently Alice’s spirit has gone to the one place where her mortal self experienced true happiness.

In about 0.4 miles, the loop junctions with the Nature Center Trail. Go right/west, returning to your vehicle.

Find out about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.