Cottonwood Trail-Sleeping Bear Dunes

  • About

    The 1.7-mile Cottonwood Trail loop winds through the perched dunes above the Dune Climb and provides a close look at the beauty of these shifting hills of open sand, as well as the vegetation such as bearberries, buffaloberries, beachgrass, and cottonwoods that are slowly stabilizing them. The Cottonwood Trail is an interpretive trail with nine posts that correspond to a self-guided brochure available at the trailhead. The brochure describes the plant life and geology of the area and explains why the mounds of advancing sand in this ever-changing land are so special and so fragile.

  • Map