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Going bald
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Derek Smith, 1-866-362-2167 Ext. 13863, dsmith@heraldargus.com


Photo: By Wendy Thoms
A sign warns visitors Monday to stay off the south side of Mount Baldy.
More photos from this shoot


National lakeshore officials close back side of Mount Baldy in order to prevent further erosion

MICHIGAN CITY -- Climbing Mount Baldy has been a tradition for visitors to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore for years.

Rising above Lake Michigan just west of Michigan City on U.S. 12, the dune welcomes an estimated 375,000 hikers and beachgoers each year. But the wear and tear of all those visitors is taking its toll on the dune.

The amount of foot traffic over the years has dragged more and more sand down the south side of the 126-foot dune and toward its base.

In a move to prevent further erosion, restrictions have been made on climbing the dune’s south side.

Visitors will now be rerouted to an alternative path by the lakeshore, about 100 yards to the west. A temporary snow fence has been set up to prevent people from climbing the south side of the dune.

“We hope that by keeping people off of the south side of the dune, that area with sand movement will be stabilized,” said Mike Bremer, the park’s chief ranger. “We had 125,000 carloads of visitors coming to Mount Baldy last year. We figure that there are about three passengers per vehicle.”

These precautions are expected to keep sand from moving inland. If left unchecked, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore estimates the dune could start to cover the nearby parking lot within seven years.

“We’re glad the parks services has taken this step to protect Mount Baldy,” Tom Anderson, executive director of the Save the Dunes Council, told The La Porte County Herald-Argus Monday. “We don’t want to love our parks to death we want to preserve our natural resources for future generations.”

Sand shifting is a familiar scenario for Drew Montgomery, park supervisor at Warren Dunes State Park in Sawyer, Mich.

Although Warren Dunes has experienced sand shifting on Tower Hill, a popular dune there, the park has never seriously considered restricting people from climbing it, Montgomery said.

“Being so close to the lake, you’re always going to have movement of some kind,” he told The Herald-Argus.

Montgomery added that while foot traffic does contribute to sand movement, people can actually help compact the sand to help prevent erosion.

Tower Hill is protected by a sand control fence, which keeps sand from shifting and spilling over into the nearby parking lot, he said.

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http://www.post-trib.com/news/373581,mtbaldy.article

Drifting Dune

May 7, 2007
By DIANE KRIEGER SPIVAK Post-Tribune staff writer


Aerial photographs tell the tale.
Over the past 69 years, Mount Baldy, the largest moving dune within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore has moved considerably, more than 1,300 feet.

Researchers from Indiana University Northwest's Department of Geosciences began a study of the dune last fall and produced a historical overview showing the changes that have taken place.

At 123 feet high, Mount Baldy is moving inland at a rate of 4 feet per year, says geosciences professor Zoran Kilibarda.

"If it continues at this rate, in five years it will begin to bury the parking lot," Kilibarda said.

But Mount Baldy isn't only sliding into the parking lot, it also has been transformed from what geoscientists call a transverse dune, long and straight with a steep slope to the shore -- to a parabolic dune -- scooped out by a blowout.

And, it is shrinking.

In 1938, Mount Baldy was more than 3,900 feet long and 900 feet wide with an almost vertical slope facing the lake.

By 1972, it had migrated more than 1,000 feet and was only 2,000 feet long.

By 1998, a blowout in the dune over 1,000 feet long had developed.

"I knew it was moving," said geology student Diane Taylor, who conducted the study through an IU research fund. "I've lived in the area for 20 years. But I was surprised it was moving at the rate it is."

A portion of the changes can be attributed to natural progression of the dune, but other, man-made changes have affected not only Mount Baldy, but also the beach directly in front of it.

How much of the changes can be attributed to man and how much is natural?

"We don't really know," Taylor said. Future funding for research might reveal the answer.

"Obviously, there's human impact there," Taylor said. "But we need to look at a lot of things, like lake levels and shoreline."

A critical man-made factor is that the natural movement of the sand has been interrupted by a federally constructed break wall at Michigan City Harbor during the early part of the 20th century.

Comparative aerial photographs beginning in 1938 show how the wall has prevented the natural movement of sand westward, allowing the lake water to carve out a crescent in the beach in front of Mount Baldy, drastically narrowing the beachfront.

In an attempt to correct the accelerated erosion, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began trucking in sand in 1973, said Steve Davis, Lake Michigan specialist for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. More was brought in in 1981 and in 1996 a long-term 50-year beach enrichment program began.

The plan calls for dumping of 264,500 cubic yards of sand in five-year intervals at a cost of $184 million. More sand will be added this fall, project manager Kristen Harris said.

The erosion has affected not only the beach, however.

"Anything that affects the shoreline affects Mount Baldy," Taylor said. Only remnants of a fore-dune, a smaller dune that acts as a buffer between the beach and Mount Baldy, remain.

"It would act as a snow fence to prevent accelerated sand transport," Taylor said. Now, that buffer is no longer there.

Kilibarda said future research plans include monitoring other dunes seldom visited by people or affected by harbor structures the way Mount Baldy has been. "We will study them to see the differences and compare the rates of dune movement," Kilibarda said.

Mount Baldy wasn't always bald. At one time, it was covered in forest growth, and remnants of tree stumps can still be seen buried in the dune. As recently as 1973, the west side of the dune was fairly stabilized by beach grass.

"But people caused it to erode by walking on it and using it for a hang-gliding take-off," said National Lakeshore Superintendent Bruce Rowe.

As a first step toward slowing Baldy's migration, the National Park Service fenced off the south side of the dune, rerouting visitors 100 feet to the west to a trail up the dune.

"A lot of people are concerned about Mount Baldy being fenced off but it's in their best interests until we know what's going on," Taylor said. "We don't want to take away from the visitors' experience, but we have to become stewards of our resources.

"I, too, loved walking up Mount Baldy," Taylor said. "But now that I know what I know, even though I have a permit to walk up it, I walk around it."


Contact Diane Krieger Spivak at 477-6019 or dspivak@post-trib.com