Nordhouse Dunes July 4th wknd

“We'll come back to the parking pass later. First of all......I have been active in the outdoors for as long as I can remember. I've hunted, fished, car camped, canoe camped, floated for days downriver on a one-man-pontoon boat, dayhiked, etc, but I've never really backpacked like you big kids do. So when I made up my mind that this year I was going to start, I knew I had some ground to make up---I'm not as young as I used to be. I bought my pack about a month ago, found you all here, (THANK YOU EVERYONE for the plethora of information you've posted here and the words of encouragement) started to make some changes to my workout routine to prepare myself, and I made my first tiny little trip---we'll call it a "test run", this past weekend. Hats off to all of you who do this on a regular basis! It was a great trip and I learned a lot and can start making some much needed adjustments already.

I took my son to the Nordhouse Dunes area of the Manistee National Forest; miles of forested trails with 2 miles of undeveloped beach-front. Most of the trails run through old forested dunes. The trails are nice and really wide in some places but the beach sand (yep, even in the woods) can make the hiking tough. The boy had a 10 lb pack and mine was about 680 or so it seemed. (I have a tendency to overpack.) On a hunch I picked the trail that I thought would have less traffic because it was the longest route to the lake from the Nurnberg Road Trailhead I'd chosen. Turned out I was right! We had about a mile and a half hike before we could see the lake from the top of the huge forested dune we were on. Great view but there were so many trees and heavy foliage it obscured much of it. Rather than camp up in the woods, we descended the damn near vertical hill to where the lakeside sand dunes meet the forest edge. We found a perfect campsite and set up with a great view of the lake in front of us and a nice shaded area in back. Nothing left to do now but slack off, baby!

We changed into our slacker beach clothes (BTW, the Under Armour shirt I bought was GREAT!) and applied our sunscreen.....well at least I thought WE did. Turned out the boy had missed a rather large section of his upper back and it was quite a while before I noticed the growing red patch. (I know.....sigh....I should have paid more attention to make sure he had himself covered, but I had two brilliant white legs of my own I was trying to protect.) While we played around, walked the beach and ate our dinner, it was becoming apparent that we might have to adjust our plans for the next day because the boy was feeling his sunburn already. As we watched a fantastic sunset over the lake and climbed into the tent (I kept the rainfly off so he could see the stars at night---the weather was perfect) we worked up a not-so-painful plan for the next day because at this point I wasn't sure he'd even be able to shoulder his pack.

One thing I noticed during our session on the beach: the sand "barks." I'm sure it must be from the way the wind packs the sand, but when you're taking steps, it makes a "verp, verp, verp" sound not unlike walking in corduroy pants. Pretty funny to play around in.

We woke up around 7 AM to another gorgeous day and had our breakfast. The boy had complained through the night about his sunburn but tried on his pack the next day and found that it wasn't as bad against his back as we'd feared. We broke camp, scaled the hill behind us (I kid you not, it had to be at least a 70 degree climb.) and hiked the same trail back to the car where we traded in our bigger packs for my small daypack. We were going to spend the day hiking more of the trails and walking the beach (with his shirt on and his pack off!) before we ran home for the aloe vera. As I swapped out some essentials from one pack to the other, I noticed the ticket on the windshield. WTF?!? I purposely stopped at the Forest Service station and picked up every brochure I could find and nowhere did it say I needed a camping permit for the National Forest---in fact it said I DIDN'T need one! What I missed however, was the big freaking sign in the parking lot that said I needed a "parking pass." That little three dollar oversight cost me 50 bucks! Damn! I don't have a problem paying it as long as it's going to a good use, but......DAMN!

I had left more water in the car so we refilled our water bottles and took off down one of the other trails towards the beach. It was the shortest trail and the one that most of the other hikers had taken the day before. We were going to end up making a 4-5 mile loop, with about a mile and a half of that being with our feet in the surf of Lake Michigan rather than high up on the forest trail that paralled it. We made it to the lakeside dunes and started seeing and hearing people almost immediately. As I suspected, most of them had come this way and were camped and playing all over the area. My son and I walked to the beach and removed our shoes and headed north. It wasn't long before we got away from the campers and had a great walk along the shore, skipping rocks and goofing off. Every once in a while we'd come upon another person or two, but other than that we had the beach to ourselves for most of that section of our hike. We hiked beyond our previous night's campsite, then scaled the steep hill again and picked up the trail that skirted the top of it. What a great trail! Again, the trees obstructed most of the view of the lake, but periodically we'd hit an open area where we could see it. It's a nice and sometimes narrow walk along the very steep hillside. We eventually picked up the trail that we had hiked backed to our car (and that f'n 50 dollar ticket---but I'm not bitter.) earlier in the day and hiked the remaining mile and a half back to the parking lot. I was proud of the boy; in two days he had hiked just over seven miles. He was equally proud of himself when I told him!

The whole time out I can recall only about 4 or 5 mosquitos! I'm sure it may have something to do with the near constant breeze from the lake, but even while on the woods trails they were virtually nonexistant. Definitely not a bad thing.


Now if only someone can explain to me how I ended up with beach sand in areas that were not exposed.......

(PS: pics are on my album page.)”

“YAY!!! Sounds like a great trip. How old is your son? And did you know that in a few weeks there is the "All About the Kids" trip that will be happening at Nordhouse Dunes as well?”

“Yep---we had such a good time we're going to try to make that trip too. My son is 10 years old and he loved it.”

“Very cool. My son (trail name Calvin) is also 10, and I believe there is going to be another 10 year old boy as well. I also have a 5 year old (trail name Hobbes) They are going to have a blast together!!!!”

“I'm sure they will! My son spent hours in the surf (hence the sunburn) building soldier forts and skipping rocks. If we can make it I'm sure they'll get along just fine together.

Calvin and Hobbes---very nice!”

“I solo hiked and camped there last year. I also swam naked, even though you are not supposed to.

Very cool place to camp.”

“I'll bet you won't forget to pay for the parking again. $50.00 is too steep of a fine, IMO? Nice trip report and pic's. N.Dunes is a special place!”

“sounds like a great time in spite of the little ticket issue :-)”

“Cool trip report NC! It'll be great if you and the son can make it back out w/ all of us.

I don't think Birch and I have ever had a parking pass for Nordhouse and we've never been ticketed. This year we'll have to get a national forest pass if they're cracking down. thanks for the heads up!”

“Nice report, NC. I made my first trip to Nordhouse last month and am really looking forward to spending a whole weekend there for the Kid's Hike. My 2nd cousin (or is it first cousin, twice removed... I never can figure it out) is my "kid" for the weekend. She came w/ me last year and made me proud. She's 9 and enjoys playing w/ boys as much as girls so w/ that many 10 yo boys around, she'll be in heaven. (Ruby, she still talks about Calvin...)

p.s. Nice sunset pic!

Thanks for sharing.”

“Thanks all! We had a great time and hope to make the Kids trip. I have a feeling once the kids see the beach that the hiking will come to an end. Sass I'm still a little flustered over the whole thing but I don't think you need a permit to camp unless you're at the campground on the north end.”

“Hey NC...I found it!!
Great! Pictures too. sorry about the ticket. You're right, sand does "bark". that's funny. Never really thought about it.

Yam, em and myself hiked in sand before, so we know how difficult it can be. I also used to run on sand my daily 6 miles. {not anymore since I go to the gym now}...but yeah it's a pain the butt.”

“Thanks Gem! It was really odd seeing the sand on the forest trails like that---I'd never seen it like that before. Still, we're already planning to go back because it's a beautiful place.”

“It's definitely a very relaxing area to hike. Nice pics.”