2000 residents live in New Buffalo, which has a lovely old-fashioned street shopping district. Amtrak runs three trains through the station daily, and tribes of native Americans run the Four Winds Casino nearby. There are bathrooms, showers and lifeguards at the beach area, and a good playground area for kids.
This is also a good spot for boat watching, as the beach is adjacent to the river and channel where the boats are shunted out to the Great Lake. People climb on the rocks on the pier here, and it doesn't look made for that, so I say caution should be used walking out. We also saw an unfortunate incident in which a boat was blown into the rocks trying to get out the breakwater, and the crew needed emergency assistance. As we know, not all boating conditions in wind are favorable.
34 miles to the west, closer to Chicago, I traveled to West Beach of the Indiana Dunes. It's featured in my second and third photos above. This beach sits near Gary at the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan. It has nice trails, including a 6-mile bike loop. I believe this is the Marquette trail, a repurposed rail line. For walking trails, one is along a flat area with an oak savanna, and another is a more strenuous dune climb with steep stairs. The walks are potentially beautiful, with forested dunes and views of the great lake and Chicago skyline in the distance. Through a spot that had been sand mined in the 1920s, prickly pear cactus can be seen along with green herons and other waterfowl in a re-established wetland.
It does cost $6 to park at West Beach, and there are 600 spots. There's a website with West Beach surf reports: air and water temperatures, surf heights and wind, etc. It wasn't surfable when I was there but that's fine. Be careful with all the rail crossings in this area. I-80/94 is nearby too, making travel easy from Detroit and Chicago.
One random note: I'm amazed at the way people don't know better and let their kids scramble all over the dunes and beach grass. Other places, California or Florida, the public seems better educated about this. I repeatedly saw a park ranger have to tell kids not to climb on the grass because it kills it. The grass holds back the sand and keeps the dunes from blowing away. The kids are just looking for somewhere to jump off, but I do hope all people get the message.
The last beach I'm writing about today is the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. Reclaimed in an industrial area, it sits right next to the massive US Steel in Portage on the great lake. The top photo above shows its fishing pier and harbor exit. It formerly held settling ponds, industrial byproducts and sewage treatment facilities. It became a brownfield reclamation in 2008 and reopened with a beach, trails, pier, and 900 restored feet of breakwater.
A 3500 square foot public pavilion is a key feature of the lovely place. Its modern design and use of glass resembles a sail in the wind. It's a Gold LEED certified building, meaning it's been awarded for leadership in energy efficiency and environmentally sound design. The whole redesigned area was planned by the city of Portage and the National Parks Service.
To get in to this park, one drives along the Burns Waterway. This is a channel from the Portage Marina that runs alongside the massive US Steel plant complex. The park has free parking and 125 spaces. It's open daily sunrise until 1/2 hour after dusk. One can see the Chicago skyline in the distance here, of course, too. All these places are just over a two-hour drive from Fort Wayne. So, these are easy day trips, or good overnight and weekend excursions. I highly recommend it. The scenery, the colors, the sunsets are wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment