Manistee National Forest and Ludington

The Manistee National Forest is between Manistee and Ludington and the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area was on our radar for some good hiking.  The trails went out to Lake Michigan and past little Nordhouse Lake. 

Some of the trails were well-groomed and quite wide and others were narrow and lined with moss like this one. 

As usual, we volunteered to take pics for other couples so we could get some of us together too!  That's a little sliver of Lake Michigan in the background!

There were beautiful views around every turn.

Some of the trails were along these high ridges with fairly steep drop-offs to either side.  I loved it!

And some trails were through the sand dunes along Lake Michigan.  There were lots of people camping just under the trees - it was a perfect fall weekend! Temps were about 60 degrees with beautiful sun!

Just Pure Michigan perfection!!

Some of the dunes were a ways in from the water - that surprised me.  I didn't know we had so many that were that far inland!

You just can't get tired of these views!!

There were a ton of evergreens in the wilderness area so we didn't actually see all that much color but it was still breathtakingly beautiful!

Another barely marked ridge trail!

Along the beach in Ludington - just so beautiful! The waves were intense though. It was super windy.

By this point, let's just say our feet were getting a little tired from walking in so much sand...Garry got blisters!

And then we finally made it back to Ludington, ate dinner and hurried out to the beach to catch this beautiful sunset. The perfect end to a perfect day!