Our trip randomly coincided with a free day at Sleeping Bear - couldn't pass that up!
Not the most restful evening, with a few wake ups from Harvey.
But on the road before 6 am! I saw sunrise was 6:33, so figured a 6 am arrival would be good. I would have been okay with a 5:40 arrival I think, tons of light.
Only three cars in the lot on arrival. One would eventually leave a sticker for their Virginia gym under my wiper, highly relevant.
Subaru parked!
Nice morning!
This is as far as Harvey and I made it last year.
This time I went to the top!
I would be the first human to do the full hike this morning, based on footprint freshness, but not the first critter to roam the dunes!
I had great views, until I spent 20 minutes staring at my phone texting daughter who was not enjoying the power outage back home.
I see why people get into trouble. You get up the main dune, and then you get to sort of this spot, and it seems not that far away, but it's still quite a bit off, relatively speaking, and all soft energy-absorbing sand.
Lake Michigan!
Once I train Harvey into being a camping boy, we'll get ourselves dropped off on South Manitou island for the weekend (shown, with North Manitou visible behind it).
Would have loved to hike way up or down this coast but one eventually runs out of time.
Headed back
Car visible, more or less right on time