Indiana Dunes National Park is the 61st and newest US national park. Located an hour away from Chicago, this park is described by New York Times as ‘a long, skinny patch of 15,000 acres with 15 miles of beach along Lake Michigan’s southern shore’. Protected as National Lakeshore since 1966, it recently got ‘bumped up’ in status – and perhaps, prestige – when the current administration signed it into a national park in February, 2019 as part of the spending bill that also included funding for the Mexican wall. After a prolonged struggle, local conservationists got their wish of achieving the top NPS protection status for the park.
This status elevation has turned out to be somewhat controversial with national park enthusiasts. After all, the key feature of this park are sand dunes, which are, by no stretch of imagination, anything like epic landscape of Yellowstone or Grand Canyon; not even like other parks featuring sand dunes, such as Death Valley or Great Sand Dunes. Moreover, any splendor of the landscape here is artlessly punctuated by grim steel manufacturing mills and their ugly chimneys. Also, the best dunes of this area are not a part of the national park – they are in the state park which is managed independently by the state of Indiana. However, fans of this park vigorously defend the promotion and point out that the biodiversity of this park is astounding – recorded 1,100 native plant species here rank the park fourth-most diverse plant ecosystem among all US national parks, superseded only by much larger Great Smoky Mountains, North Cascades, and Grand Canyon. Also, annual visitation-wise, this park ranks a decent 13th among all 61 parks. This area was the field laboratory of the University of Chicago botanist – HC Cowles – who proposed ecological succession – a fundamental tenet of modern ecology – based on his work in the park. Like it or not, Indiana’s lakeshore is visually somewhat dissonant but is now a national treasure ready for primetime.
Arguably, the protagonist of the park is a 125 feet tall, bare dune that has an unflattering name: Mount Baldy. Due to lack of vegetation, the exposed Baldy is a ‘moving’ dune that moves 4-20 feet every year. As it moves, Baldy buries and chokes mature oak trees that stymie its languid progress. Locals tell tales of horsing around on this great pile of sand in summer, but these days, Baldy has restricted access. In 2013, a young boy on a family hike was ‘swallowed’ by a patch of Baldy quicksand. Although he was rescued miraculously after a few hours by firefighters, NPS closed the dune for further inspection and visitor safety.
We visited mount Baldy when we were in the park a few days ago. In person, the dune is indomitable and big. It sprawls right next to the parking lot and will likely engulf it in a decade or two. You see, the dune is a perfect coup between shores of lake Michigan and high winds that ride the air around here. As the wind gales, sand particles climb up the windward side of the dune and roll down leeward with a soft mellifluous rustle that is clearly audible if one pays attention. Photographing this giant was a challenge. Because the day was windy (surprise!) and clouds were moving, long-exposures came to mind and I set up my tripod. This amazed everyone nearby. ‘What are you shooting?’ several of them asked, often emphasizing strongly on the ‘what’. ‘Clouds’, I told them. In response, many looked up (‘O yeah, they’re pretty!’), while others decided to urgently vacate premises to avoid contacting my lunatic cooties.
The fragile dunes of Indiana Dunes national park were created by receding continental glaciers 14,000 years ago. Since then, they have danced with the wind, sang with the rain, frozen with the winter snow, and dreamt with clouds. If you visit them and listen to their stories, you will be surprised to find that their tales are just like your own; against all odds, they are tales of resilience and perseverance.
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