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| Wisconsin Point on Lake Superior. |
Ten great Wisconsin beaches to hike include:
Bear Beach
A walk along a pristine sand beach awaits day hikers of the Lake Superior shoreline in Wisconsin’s Bear Beach State Natural Area. An unmarked trail runs for up to 3.4-miles round trip along narrow Bear Beach. Hiking the beach, you’ll get a good sense of what this area of the world looked like before Euro-Americans settled it. A thick woods of paper birch, balsam fir, speckled alder, trembling aspen, white pine and white spruce hugs the beach’s southern side while the lake stretches wide beyond to the north. Cobblestone and driftwood gardens also can be found. June through September mark the best time to hike the beach, but be sure to bring a sweatshirt or windbreaker. In addition, always check the weather and tide schedule; storm surges and high tide will inundate most of the beach with water.
Big Bay Sand Spit
Barrier beaches are common along the Atlantic coastline, and a microcosm of one with its own forest of red and white pines sits on Madeline Island at Big Bay State Park. The 0.5-mile Boardwalk Trail heads through the woodlands on the spit. Nicely flat, the half-mile boardwalk offers benches for resting, interpretive sings, and more impressive lake views. A lagoon sits to the boardwalk’s left. Bear-berry and wintergreen grows beneath the pines. Some 15,000 years ago when Madeline Island reappeared as the glaciers retreated and melted, the lagoon was part of Big Bay. Since then, wave action and lake currents built a pair of barrier beaches, creating the lagoon.
Julian Bay Beach
Day hikers can play in singing sand on Stockton Island, a popular summer destination in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. To reach the island, you’ll have to charter a boat or sail your own. There’s a dock at Presque Isle Point near the Stockton Island Visitor Center. From the dock, the 0.8-miles round trip Julian Bay Trail heads to the beach. Once there, you’ll want to take off your shoes, as the sand “sings” when walked upon. Exactly why the sand makes a high-pitched squeaking sound is unclear, though there are theories. What is known is that to sing the sand grains must be fairly spherical, between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in diameter, contain quartz, be at a certain humidity, and be pollution-free. If you don’t want to take off your shoes, no worries – you also can create the sound by rubbing your palm against the sand.
Kohler Dunes Cordwalk
Hikers can walk the length of a sand dune as paralleling Lake Michigan on this 2.5-mile round trip hike. Located in in Wisconsin's Kohler-Andrade State Park, the trail runs entirely on cordwalk – boards tied together with steel cables and staked into the ground. This ensures your feet don't sink into the sand and keeps you on the trail so fragile dune grasses aren't trampled. The trail also passes the Sanderling Nature Center, which provides exhibits on dunes, and offers spurs to an interdunal pond and an overlook of the lake.
Lion’s Den Trail
Day hikers can traipse along a secluded beach after passing through a deep, verdant gorge on this roughly 2-mile round trip trail near Port Washington. After passing wetlands that migrating birds like to stop at and then through a blufftop woodlands, the trail reaches Lion’s Den Gorge. There the trail turns into a wooden staircase heading down the gorge’s side through a cedar forest, losing roughly 100 feet in elevation. At the bottom, you can hear Lake Michigan’s waves crash against the shoreline. The beach boasts offers about a mile of shallow shoreline. Driftwood usually washes ashore at the mouth of the Lion’s Den, and many flat stones can be found on the beach.
North Beach
Families can enjoy a nearly a half-mile of shoreline at family-friendly North Beach in Racine. Boasting 50 acres of warm, white sand, the Lake Michigan beach nicely sits above a table of shallow water that makes wading and dwimming safe for kids. There's also an expansive nautical-themed playground on the beach's south side, the 27-acre Racine Zoo on the beach's northside, and hammocks, concession stand, volleyball courts, and summer lifeguards all inbetween. A wheelchair-accessible walkway heads over the sand to the water's edge.
Rawley Point Ridges Trail
Day hikers can walk along the ridges and swales of a secluded Lake Michigan beach at Point Beach State Forest. Part of the 5-mile round trip trail near Two Rivers is a segment of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. Swales are marshy depressions between ridges that parallel the shoreline; they and the ridges next to them were formed at the end of the last ice age. About six miles of undeveloped beach sit in the state forest. The beach makes for a romantic moonlight walk as Lake Michigan’s waves crash against the shore, and the 113-foot Rawley Point Lighthouse is nearby.
Schoolhouse Beach
Day hikers can massage their bare feet on a beach with no sand in Door County. The tiny beach on Washington Island is a geological marvel, consisting entirely of rounded cobbles of dolomite. It’s one of only five such beaches worldwide. No sand doesn’t mean this popular beach is boring. There’s plenty to do here: walk barefoot across the sun-warmed stones; build cairns; skip rocks across water with Caribbean-like clarity; and swim or even dive. Reaching Washington Island requires a ferry ride from the Door Peninsula.
Simmons Island Beach
Day hikers can enjoy a wide swath of soft sand along Lake Michigan as well plenty of other amenities at this Kenosha beach. A boardwalk, paved bike trail, historic Southport Lighthouse, and a long pier to the North Pierhead Lighthouse all await. In addition, it’s a great site to search for beach glass – shards that have been weathered over the decades and washed ashore. Thanks to all of that time tumbling underwater, the edges often are rounded with the surface frosted on one side while the other is shiny. The beach runs around about a third of a mile from end to end and can be crowded on weekends.
Wisconsin Point Trail
Day hikers can walk part of the world’s largest freshwater sandbar on this flat 3-mile one-way ramble down the center of Wisconsin Point along Lake Superior. Wisconsin Point and Minnesota Point, at 10 miles in length, combine to form the world’s largest sandbar on a freshwater lake. Despite Wisconsin Point’s narrow width, three major ecosystems converge on it. Much of the trail heads through stands of old growth pine and beach dunes. Sand beaches stretch for 2.75 miles along the trail’s right/northeast side. Great times to hike the point include summer for the sunrises and either May or September for spotting migratory birds.
