Warren Woods State Park

Despite websites claiming it’s open year round, we showed up on a warmish winter day and after driving past the park entrance a couple of times (there are no signs), we finally saw a barrier saying «closed for the season». Wonderful. We went and did a hike on the beach instead (ignoring the private beach signs). So glad I have access to all of NW IN’s lovely trails and hikes — this part of MI has very little in the way of hikes or publicly accessible nature.

If you’re looking for white sandy beaches with the backdrop of massive sand dunes then this is the place for you! At $ 8 bucks a car the Warren Dunes has been a family staple of ours since the 1960’s when the loonies from Chicago would come out — roll in the clay and walk around a shade of gray/​green.
Legend had it that the clay was good for your skin. And while I am not certain that’s actually the case, you can still see plenty of kids and adults covered in the stuff on a daily basis during the summer.
The dunes are huge and the kids love to walk up and run down them — some of us even learned to downhill ski on them ;-) Just be sure to hit the dunes before 1PM because after that they get extremely hot! You may find out the hard way when you take your sandles off (better traction in barefeet) and end up hopping home.
The water can get as warm as the gulf and even toss out waves 3 feet high and higher. There are concession stands with surprisingly decent food and there is always plenty of space — for now.
Recently a good deal of folks from Europe are heading this way for breaks so this place will probably not be as accessible as it has in the past. Infact the line to get in by car measured nearly a mile last year at one point.
Pack a bag and cooler and head on out — just a note, plastic snow sleds work wonders in this deep-​white sand to pull a cooler and the rest of your «stuff».

Big disappointment. We were told in Three Oaks that we’d find hiking trails that led to an old-​growth forest, trees that had never been cut or cleared.
Well, we did find the park. We did find a place to park the car — in fact, ours was the only car there. We did see a single trail, and we took it across a bridge that led to a swamp. And that was it. Aside from the many, many mosquitoes that live at Warren Woods State Park, we saw no trails, no trail map, and no big trees. There were lots of trees, of course, and that’s great, but no old-​growth.
Big disappointment. We got in the car and left after 20 minutes.