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| Pink Lady's slipper grows in the Pinhook Bog at Indiana Dunes National Park. Indiana Dunes boasts among the most diverse flora in the park system. NPS photo. |
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| Pinhook Upland Trail map. NPS map. |
The 2.1-mile round trip lollipop trail cuts through a beech and maple forest while offering a great view of the Pinhook Bog.
To reach the trailhead, from Chicago take Interstate 94 east. In Michigan City, Ind., go south on U.S. Hwy 421 then head left/east onto Snyder Road/W 200 N. Next, go right/south onto North Wozniak Road. In a little more than a mile, turn left/east into the Pinhook Bog parking lot. This part of the national park is not part of its main units along the Lake Michigan shore.
From the lot, go east on the stem trail. The trail surface is packed dirt but can be slippery and muddy after a rain, so be sure to wear hiking boots with good traction.
Beech, maple forest
The subtle changes in elevation so near Lake Michigan result in a variety of ecosystems, which in turn leads to a diversity of plant species throughout the park. Beaches and dunes, wetlands such as marshes and fens, oak savannas and wetland prairies, and hardwood forests, all can be found within the park.
Forests and a bog dominate the stem portion of the trail. At 0.3 miles in, the trail reaches the loop; go left/northeast onto it.
At a higher elevation than the bog, thus part of the loop runs through hardwood forests. Mature beech and maples shade a moraine, a ridge of sediment that was left by the edge of a glacier as it retreated about 15,000 years ago during the last ice age.
Just as the upland forest owes its existence to the area’s glacial history, so does the bog here. A chunk of the melting glacier left behind as the main one retreated depressed the land, forming a kettle lake. When the trapped glacier chunk fully melted, it filled the hole with water while pulverized clay and rock stuck inside it settled on the lake bottom.
The clay prevented the lake water from reaching groundwater or from springs and streams feeding the waterbody. As a result, this trapped meltwater grew increasingly stagnant and acidic over time.
Sphagnum moss
At 0.7 miles, the trail reaches a 33-foot bridge with the bog on the trails’ right/west side. Look for the light-green sphagnum moss covering the wetlands.
Sphagnum moss, which tolerates acidic water, forms floating mats over the lake. This in turn supports ferns, orchids (like pink lady’s slipper), and even strange carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants and sundew. As parts of the bog fill in, blueberry and and holly shrubs can take hold, which in turn opens the way for tamarack and red maple trees to take root.
The 38-foot bridge over the bog, at 0.9 miles from the trailhead, allow hikers to see these plants and many more.
The light-green mats of stringy sphagnum moss stand out in the bog and are even visible from the air. Thanks to compounds in the sphagnum’s cell walls, he moss does not decay easily, trapping water. Be careful to not step on the solid-looking moss – in addition to potentially harming other rare plants that grow atop it, the mats can’t fully support your weight, and you’re sure to get wet.
That’s true even of sphagnum moss that thickens up to six feet deep. If you spot blueberry and holly shrubs growing atop the moss, the mats are the deepest there.
At 1.2 miles in, the trail leaves the uplands for good and reaches a 53-foot bridge over the moss. The Pinhook Bog stretches for 580 acres on both sides of the trail; sphagnum moss covers about a quarter of that area.
Orchids, carnivorous plants
Breaking up the bog’s many green hues are a number of flowers, most notably the pink lady’s slipper. The sole lady’s slipper to lack stem leaves, it can grow up to 18 inches high. Other orchids here are the rose pogonia, which usually can be seen near the end of boardwalks, and the yellow fringed orchid.
Five carnivorous plants make the bog their home. The tiny spoonleaf sundew has spoon/teardrop-shaped leaves covered in mucilage-tipped tentacles that ensnare insects. Round-leaved sundew also has flypaper-styled leaves, which are round rather than teardrop-shaped. The purple pitcher plant’s leaves curl into a pitcher or cup half-filled with water and juices that trap and digest bugs. Hidden-fruited bladderwort feeds on small aquatic insects it captures in a bladder-shaped trap while the horned bladderwort does the same to small insects atop the soil.
At 1.7 miles, the loop reaches the stem trail. Go left/northwest onto it and retrace your steps back to parking lot.
Insect repellent is a must on this trail. Also, beware of poison sumac, which grows on the bog’s outer edges, known as the “moat”; poison sumac has compound leaves of seven to thirteen pointed leaflets with smooth edges.
