Cowles Bog Trail, Indiana Dunes National Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/10/2024	5.0 miles	2 hours 36 minutes	191'	2.1 mph	241.4 miles

Parking: 

• 1450 North Mineral Springs Road, Dune Acres, IN

Map:

• Provided at Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center

Directions:

• Cross street from parking area. At the intersection with the first loop, keep right. At the intersection with the second loop, keep right. At the intersection with the first loop, keep right. At the next intersection, keep right and head to the Greenbelt Trailhead. Turn left and walk along Mineral Springs Road. Turn right to return to parking lot. 

We chose a more inland hike as our first hike of the day. The parking lot is just to the right of a private community. They even have a security guard (who we mistook as a national park ranger) who redirected us to the parking lot with a smile. He must have to do this several times a day...

Our favorite part of this hike was the small portion along Lake Michigan. We had the beach to ourselves. The beach is right next to a harbor - it seems so weird for a lake to have a shipping harbor. There were factories - US Steel, fertilizer, lime, etc. There was a cooling tower - not nuclear, but coal. On our drive between Nashville, IN and Chesterton, IN, we actually drove by miles of wind turbines. We couldn't believe how many there were. We did some research, and it looks like a typical wind turbine can power 1,500 homes. We wondered how much of Indiana's electricity comes from wind turbines. It is only 10%, which surprised us, because of the huge quantity we saw. It looks like much more power comes from coal. 

The last section of our hike at first looked truly ugly (along electric & gas company property). But then we walked along the bog which was really interesting. It looks like you used to be able to walk through the bog - on wood pallets. Lots of birds - this area is popular among birders (we are not birders). Again, it's nice in such an industrial area, there is a preserved area for wildlife and visitors.

Bog

Not sure what it is, but looks a lot like blueberries

Cleft phlox

Chicago in the distance

The official trail is just inland of the beach. 
We took a detour and went to the beach of course.

Climbing a sand dune.

The last stretch was really ugly at first.

But it passes by a large bog, where we saw several red winged blackbirds and sand hill cranes.

Greenbelt Trailhead

Marsh marigold