The Dune Climb

FOR YEARS I HAVE DREAMED of one day reaching Sleeping Bear Dunes. I first heard about them years ago during my undergrad, when a close friend introduced me to Sufjan Steven’s album Michigan. I was entranced by the melody of "Sleeping Bear, Sault Ste Marie”. The lyrics talk of running to the top of the dunes and being frightened by how high up you feel at the top. There are many trails around the park, but the most popular and definitive one is the Dune Climb, a rite of passage for Michiganders and other children packed into minivans on a midwest vacation. The sand is beautiful and lush, begging you to take off your shoes and ground yourself, feeling the cool earth between your toes. Children and adults alike run down, roll down, sled on their behinds, somersault down, body slide, boogie board, you name it; all hitting level ground and shaking their heads for composure with a loud “THAT WAS AWESOME”.

The climb is more strenuous than I anticipated. Right when you think you’ve reached the apex, another peak appears, beckoning you to keep climbing. We spent about an hour climbing the dunes one after another, sometimes so steep we had to crawl. The sun was starting to set, and we knew daylight was limited. Whats more, a storm was forming on the horizon of Lake Michigan, certainly bringing sleet and freezing rain with it. We enjoyed the sunset views while we could, and then did what I’ve wanted to do for close to a decade: run. We took off our shoes and bounded down the dunes, the soft sand making us feel almost as if we were gliding. It’s a feeling I can’t even describe, it’s as close to magic as I’ve felt since I was a child. It’s as if you’re running on the surface of the moon. Everything is velvet soft, and when you turn you send sand spraying as if you were a racecar on a dirt road. It took us ten minutes to run full speed to the bottom. By the end, we caught our breath, looked at each other, and cried out, “THAT WAS AWESOME.”