Sleeping Bear National Park has many beautiful spots. I don't go to the park as much as I should or could, but I have a feeling with the roundabout construction at M-22 and M-72, I'll be heading west on the peninsula much more often than east into town. It's better for my mood to avoid the crushing traffic that is coming with the summer influx of tourists.
Greeting you from the parking lot are the kilns. Created by Pierce Stocking in the 1950s, they were used to create charcoal from the waste created by the lumbering industry.
The theme of these trails is up. It is, after all Alligator Hill. They go down, too, in case you were worried.
All those steps are more fun than a Stairmaster. Cheaper, too. And at the top you get an amazing view of Lake Michigan and Glen Arbor
If you are so inclined, the "Big Glen Lookout" trail leads to a lookout of... well, I'll let you guess.
I'm a law-and-order kind of guy and thus I hate graffiti and those stupid political stickers you see stuck to the back of signs around Traverse City. (Pro-tip: No one cares about your views.) But I'm willing to put a pause on my hatred to say thanks to whoever wrote directions on the signs. A little clarity goes a long way.
It was ten years, 2015, ago that a nasty windstorm hit the Glen Arbor area and decimated the trees. Leelanau.com has a rewind feature about the storm, the costliest in Leelanau County history, with hail over 4" in diameter. That's big. You can still see the signs of the storm where, in certain sections of the trail, very few tall trees remain standing and most of it newer growth.
Let's end this post by learning something: The land was the owned by D.H. Day, and his was original plan was to develop the land, including a golf course. You can still see the outline of the fairways on satellite photos - well, that is what the NPS website says, and they wouldn't lie about such a thing. Are those lighter colored areas the ghosts of fairways past?
