The shadows of the trees are elongated when they fall on the steep, smooth sanddunes along the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. Constant battering by waves causes erotion, and these dunes, once many meters from the shore, are now only a few feet from the waves. High waves regularly crash into the dunes, and have collapsed much of the dunes along with the forest on top.
The paths and trails I once walked along the dune ridge are long gone, washed into the lake about three years ago. My morning hike included the winding path through the wooded dunes, into the bare blowout, through the dune savannah, back up to another heavily wooded oak forest, then down to the beach. Clumps of flowering shrubs, wild grape, wisteria, and stands of pine were landmarks along the way - things I recognized and watched change through the seasons and through the years.
Now, hiking on these dunes is not allowed, and it's rather difficult to get up to them from the beach. I imagine some of the landmarks remain, changing with every season, waiting to be seen again.
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