9/18:Sleeping Bear Dunes

We’ve been driving a lot so there was not a lot to talk about the past days but we did see Lake Superior, which is a glacial lake.

We were on way to Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan when our car broke down in Elk Rapids, Michigan. Luckily we broke in front of a body shop with a tow truck.  They took our car and the local campground host took our trailer to the campground that was close to where we broke down.  We ate a restaurant called The Riverwalk and had white fish.

The next day we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes which was named that after the Indian legend about the area. The legend said the mama bear and her cubs swan across Lake Michigan but the cub didn’t make it and drown and the mother bear sleeps their on the dunes waiting for her cubs whose graves are the Manitou Islands

The area is rich in geologic features were formed by the glaciers.  Before The Great Lakes were even formed there were many rivers in the area of The Great Lakes. When the glaciers, which were 2 miles deep, covered the area they widened the valleys a lot, left moraines around the ends of the glaciers and depressed the land forming the lakes.  As the glaciers melted the land rebounded and tilted southward blocking the northern exit from Lake Heron when the lakes tilted they flowed into the Mississippi River.

The Sleeping Bear Dunes are “perched dunes” on top of the old moraines created by the glaciers. The coastlines are very steep because the moraine has been craved away by the wind-driven waves in the lake.  We also saw peninsulas on The Great Lakes. They were made by medial moraines, which were made when two glacial lobes joined together.

People climbing 450 foot sand wall

I saw all the diverse life zones of the park. There are 5 different life zones. They are: Beech/Maple Forest, Pine Forest, The Shrub Zone, Active Dunes and The Beach. The Beech/Maple Forest is the climax forest of the area. Under the Red Leaf Maple, White Birch, Beech, Basswood and Hemlock canopy forests live many deer, cougars (no longer there), opossums, coyotes and owls.  The Pine Forest is the other kind of forest. In the less thick red and white oak and the red and white pine forest live squirrels, hedgehogs, bobcats and piliated woodpeckers. The Shrub Zone is where the forests change into the dunes. In the drier envornment juniper, buffalo berry and jack pine survive. Badgers, red fox, many rodents and prairie warbler live in the plants around them.  The Active Dunes are very deserty and expose ghost forest as they blow backwards into the forests. Dune grasses and strong trees survive the harsh envornment . The animals that live there must be very strong like the seagulls and smaller animals. The beach is home to many wading and shore birds. The plants that live on the beach are mostly shrubs. Also, otters play along the shore and streams.