One of the fun dunes to climb at Indiana Dunes National Park.
More than 350 species of birds have been spotted at Indiana Dunes National Park.
The Indiana Dunes scenery is a magnet to artists.
throughout the centuries, blowing winds have created a wave-like network of dreamy dunes. Visitors can drive along the 8-mile Dunes Drive to view the dunes up close—or even closer on foot or aboard a sled—available for rent at the Visitor Center. For those who want to stay awhile, there’s a picnic area, hiking, biking, horseback riding, and backcountry camping. And, when the time is right, there’s an opportunity to join a full-moon hike led by park rangers. In addition to the striking dunes, White Sands is home to fossilized footprints that date back to the Ice Age, chronicling more than 10 centuries of human existence in the sprawling 6,500-square-mile Tularosa Basin that surrounds the park. White Sands is home as well to more than 800 species of plants and animals, including foxes, coyotes, bobcats, badgers, and a variety of rodents and reptiles. Visitors might also spot an exotic horned creature— the African oryx—introduced from the Kalahari Desert in the 1960s to provide a large game species for hunters (a program since discontinued). Native plant life includes cacti, desert succulents, and wildflowers. www.nps.gov/whsa, 575-479-6124 Indiana Dunes National Park began its first year as a national park with a bit of trepidation. While the
coronavirus was spoiling travel plans for many Americans and causing national parks across the country to suffer at the gate and even shut down, the nation’s 61st national park was experiencing a boom. Following a record-breaking year in 2019—with 3.6 million visitors, an 83% increase over 2018—park officials were not expecting the onrush of visitors to continue due to the virus threat, but the numbers continued to grow, landing the Dunes among the top seven most visited national parks in the country. Some of the increase could, of course, be attributed to the Dunes’ redesignation from national lakeshore to national park in February 2019. Just the publicity from this prestigious upgrade expanded the park’s exposure. But there was something else at work that unexpectedly helped bring in even greater crowds. Call it pent-up demand. A sandy crescent of Lake Michigan shoreline, Indiana Dunes National Park is a 15,000-acre stretch of beach, dunes, oak savannas, swamps, bogs, marshes, prairies, rivers, and forests that looks and feels worlds apart from the steel mills and power plants that loom on its horizon. Located within sight of the nation’s third largest city, the park presents an easy escape into nature—and not just
AMERICA’S NEWEST NATIONAL PARKS
COAST TO COAST FALL MAGAZINE 2021
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