Following an afternoon of hiking the beach, dunes, and woods of Van Buren State Park, we took advantage of the daily pass and used it at a smaller, less visited state park a few miles south. Grand Mere is a bit out of the way, and much less traveled, but worth the stop.
The small parking area holds a few cars, and it's a good hike to the dunes and the shore of Lake Michigan. In addition to the rolling dunes, dense woods, and the beach, this park has two or three small lakes visible from the top of the taller dunes.
Of course we had to explore the tallest dune we could fine. Getting there required us to hike through the rolling dunes, then to the beach and finally over to a narrow trail through the wooded dunes. We followed the trail through the trees until we found the small trail up to the top. While it might not look like a tough hike, these last few meters were the most difficult, and really tested out our legs. Well, we did spend the day hiking hilly terrain, so that made this all the more challenging.
Once to the top, we were immediately greeted by the view -a sweeping vista of the countryside, wetlands, and lake below. With the day ending, we headed down another trail on the opposite side that brought us toward the lake, onto another trail that meandered to the parking area.
Looking back at the trail down the dune, we were certainly happy we didn't need to climb back up to get home.
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