Best Lake Michigan Hikes: 10 Favorite Lake Michigan Hikes on the Beach

By Loreen Niewenhuis

Ever since Loreen Niewenhuis hiked the perimeter of Lake Michigan in 2009 (and wrote her popular 2011 book, A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach), people have asked about her favorite stretches of the Lake Michigan lakeshore – especially options to hike that are a bit shorter than 1,000 miles long!

Now, Niewenhuis has assembled a list of her 10 favorite stretches of shoreline to walk. With a map and ideas for starting points for each, she selected great hikes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, including walks at Warren Dunes, Grand Mere State Park, Ludington State Park, and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan's lower peninsula, Fayette Historic State Park in the U.P., and Harrington Beach and Kohler-Andrae parks in Wisconsin, plus two urban walks on the lakeshore in Milwaukee and Chicago.

The hiking trails (mostly unmarked, as the paths generally follow the lake) range from very short up to long hikes of 15 miles or more. It's a brief ebook, only about 35 pages long, but offers inspirational ideas for outings that celebrate this wonderful and scenic natural resource.

Niewenhuis includes notes on local attractions, museums, and independent bookstores, with an appendix noting major organizations like the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, and Alliance for the Great Lakes that are working to preserve and protect Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes environment.

After her first 1,000-mile walk in 2009 around Lake Michigan, the author undertook a second 1,000-mile adventure, walking stretches of all five Great Lakes, culminating in her 2013 book, A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk. In 2015, she published the story of her third Great Lakes adventure, A 1,000-mile Great Lakes Island Adventure.

Niewenhuis lives in Traverse City, Michigan, and does many talks around the Great Lakes region for book clubs, public libraries, and environmental groups. For more on her presentations, visit her website at www.LakeTrek.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crispin Books
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781883953690

Book preview

Introduction

Ever since I hiked the perimeter of Lake Michigan in 2009 (and wrote my bestselling 2011 book, A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach), people have asked me about the best stretches of the lakeshore to hike. Sometimes they have a group heading to the lake together. Other times it’s just a solitary person wanting to take a long hike . . . but something less than 1,000 miles!

I’ve been happy to answer these requests as best I could, trying to consider the abilities of hikers and point out hikes in their vicinity that might match well with what they are looking for.

After fielding these queries for several years, I realized that many people would like to follow in my footsteps and walk a long stretch of beach. While much of Lake Michigan’s shoreline is accessible, there are obstacles – both natural and manmade – along the way. And the terrain varies from vast stretches of sand, to broken limestone, to clay or dirt or limestone bluffs falling into deep water.

So, how do you know where it is safe to hike?

Use this eBook as a starting point. Each highlighted stretch of beach will give you its approximate length and might mention some obstacles you might have to navigate (and how best to navigate them). Please note that nature is mutable – that is, it changes. Small streams that I may have stepped over during my hike in 2009 may in the future be a deep creek or may be completely dry. Sea walls may have been installed. The lake may be higher or lower than when I last walked.

Therefore, use your best judgment when hiking these routes. If you reach an obstacle in your path and you are unsure about getting past it safely, you can always return along the path you’ve walked back to where you