Warren Dunes: the 240-foot sand mountains next door

The first time you crest Tower Hill, you understand why a million people a year visit Warren Dunes State Park. That’s 240 feet of bare sand, rising straight out of the Lake Michigan beach. Nearly 2,000 acres of dunes, woods, and three miles of shoreline make it one of the most popular state parks in Michigan. It’s also one of the great freshwater beach days anywhere. You can sled down the sand in summer. Hang gliders launch from the ridge on the right wind. Sunsets empty the parking lots slowly.

The park exists because of a local conscience. Edward K. Warren was the Three Oaks businessman who made a fortune on featherbone corset stays. He started buying this shoreline in the 1880s, just to keep it wild. He also preserved Warren Woods a few miles inland in Chikaming Township. It’s one of the last old-growth beech-maple forests in the state. For the people of Bridgman, Lake Township, and the surrounding wine-and-orchard country, his long-sightedness is now simply the neighborhood beach. Few neighborhoods anywhere have a better one.