Indiana Dunes NP: Cowles Bog Trail

I decided to hike the Cowles Bog Trail, which the Park brochure described as the most challenging of the trails and has diverse vegetation. When I arrived at the site, I discovered that the main trailhead was closed, and I had to park at the Greenbelt lot which was next to a train track and under some power towers/lines. It started to rain, and I sat in the minivan for a while, debating whether to go ahead with the hike. In the end, after seeing a few people arrive and went on their hikes, I retrieved my raincoat and waterproof hiking boots and started hiking at 2:30 pm. The first part of the hike was through some marshes and ponds; it was clear there was fish in the water since some herons and other birds were looking for food there.

The flat sandy trail started to change, there were a lot more bushes and then trees. I could see poison ivy and sassafras trees, having learned how to identify them from Ranger Penny during the Mount Baldy hike. The elevation also changed, becoming pretty steep as the trail went up the dunes, then sharply down towards the beach. The hiking boots were very useful in getting traction, especially when climbing uphill in the sand.

It was a relief to finally get to the beach. There were a lot of yellow flowers along the sandy path, I think these are called butterweeds. A few of these plants just popped up from the sand, with little vegetation around them.

From the beach, I took a different way back, the other part of the loop back to the Greenbelt Lot. It was up a very steep dune that turned into an undulating trail with changing vegetation, leading back to the Greenbelt Lot. The entire hike was just under 5 miles and took about 2.5 hours. I went back to Dunewood Campground to shower and change, then went to the nearby town of Chesterton for dinner. The town center was quite pretty. Had dinner in a Mexican restaurant, the fajita meal was rather large but I felt I have earned it after all that hiking!

After dinner, I drove back to the park's visitor center and parked Millie a few spaces from a Class B RV. There were about 6 RVs and a couple of cars in the very large, well-lit parking lot which also had 2 porta potties. Spent a comfortable night in the visitor center's parking lot of the Indiana Dunes National Park and drove off early the next morning, to meet up with my brother and his wife in Iowa.