Sleeping Bear's Moving Shoreline: Bluff Erosion and Coastal Landslides

The towering bluffs at Sleeping Bear Dunes — Sleeping Bear Bluffs, Pyramid Point, and the rest — are some of the most beautiful scenery Michigan has to offer. But if you’re thinking about property near this coastline, it’s worth knowing what those bluffs really are: glacial moraines that wind and waves have been carving away for thousands of years. And sometimes, not so slowly.

Three times since 1914, large sections of the bluff at Sleeping Bear Point have slid into Lake Michigan all at once. The most recent was in February 1995, when a 1,600-foot stretch of popular beach — more than 35 million cubic feet of sand — vanished into the lake in a single landslide. That’s a good reminder that shoreline change here isn’t just gradual.

Lake Michigan’s water level adds another layer to keep in mind. Since 1918, the lake has swung more than 6 feet between its record low and record high. During the record high-water years between 2017 and 2020, coastal flooding and erosion-related property damage hit shorelines across the Great Lakes.

The Sleeping Bear shoreline runs about 65 miles along Lake Michigan through Benzie and Leelanau Counties. Those headlands and bays are still actively changing — part of what makes this stretch of Michigan so alive, and worth understanding before you put down roots near it.