North Ottawa Dunes — Attraction in Ferrysburg

Overall 4.5/5 stars. Great trail.

Pros: Beautiful area. Very well maintained trail. Almost everything was well-marked with signs and trail markers at each intersection. It is easy to pick your own trail as you hike while consulting the maps at each fork in the road. Plenty of routes to choose from. More elevation gain/loss than I expected on the route that my group chose, but I'm sure there's flatter route options for easier treks.

Sunday in early Summer with great weather: it was busy but not crowded. Plenty of parking at the trailhead and we saw friendly folks every 10-15 minutes.

Cons: The Lake Michigan section of the trail is pretty poorly marked. We wanted to hike around Ottawa Hills and then end up at the beach but got a bit lost in the last leg. Still beautiful & maintained trails, but more signage could be helpful. Also be aware that there are a lot of stairs as you approach the beach, if anyone in your party has trouble with longer staircases.

Also the restroom at the trailhead was locked. As I tried to use the men's room, and an older woman was walking past and said "they're never locked here, that's a surprise." Maybe we caught an outlier day. Our group found a porta-john on the other side of the park before...

Really nice trail system for hiking. There are detailed maps that not only show the trails but also the difficulty of each trail segment. I was on a route deemed "Easy" by a popular trail app. However, the first half of the trail was rated "most difficult" by the park. Please use the posted trail maps to make a selection appropriate to the individual hiker.

The trail was quiet though I did encounter several other Walters during my hike. The bugs were minimal, only really a nuisance when I stopped moving. Some trail segments were quite hilly and, being a sand dune, were often several inches of lose sand over harder packed dirt. The sand certainly added additional difficulty to the hike.

I heard many birds and found plenty of cool flowers, mushrooms, moss, and lichen. It was a really pretty walk.

Overall, I would love to hike this again with this additional knowledge. I would have selected different trail segments and likely had an even...

We're fairly new to the area and are exploring every park and trail as we're able. This was the first time that we were confused on what trail to take. There were many forks or options at a few points and we lucked out by taking the more difficult looking of the options (we were on a difficult trail). So far, the thing I like the most about the Ottawa Trail System is the trail markings (for someone like me who is still learning the area). The trails themselves are beautiful and a mix of sand and dirt and are appropriately marked for levels of difficulty. I look forward to...