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