Segment 4, Day 3 Montague->Mears 24 miles

High of 64 degrees.

It was finally warm enough on the lake to wear shorts!

This day's trek was supposed to be around 18 miles, but when I reached Flower Creek, I had to go inland. The creek opened up to a wide wetlands. There is good and bad about wetlands. The good: they are great for the lake because they filter water and give wildlife a haven. The bad? You have to walk miles to get around them.







It was a gorgeous day and I passed farms and flowering orchards in the miles I walked away from the lake. I even passed some woods filled with flowering trillium.









Back on the beach, the ladybugs were all over the shoreline. My stopping point for the day was in Mears on the shore of Silver Lake. Little Sable is one of my favorite lighthouses on Lake Michigan and I was glad to see it emerge as I walked.

My sister and cousin, Les and Milene, drove up to meet me in Mears and to walk with me the last two days of this segment, and they met me at the lighthouse.

Segment 4, Day 2 Muskegon->Montague 12 miles

High of 67 and foggy.

My friend, Mary Vermeulen, was able to join me for Day 2. We began in Muskegon and traveled through the fog to just shy of the lighthouse on
White Lake (which is between the cities of Whitehall and Montague).

The fog horn was sounding as we walked the channel and out to the beach at Muskegon State Park. Muskegon has done a wonderful job of setting aside its lakeshore for all to enjoy. South of Lake Muskegon, there is a long stretch of park, and north is the Muskegon State Park.

Mary packed us a gourmet lunch.

It was a little eerie to walk and watch the trees and dunes reveal themselves out of the mist. It wasn't too cold, but we did hit a thick patch in a cooler spot which left us with condensed fog droplets covering our clothing and, especially, my glasses.

The shoreline was impassable just north of Duck Lake, so we had to double back and go up to a road. The lake is high this year, so there have been several places which are currently underwater which were not just last year. We were just 1 mile south of the boat launch into White Lake when Mary's husband and girls (Dave, Anneke, and Abby) caught up to us on the road.

Strangely, by hiking the 100 yards inland, then 30 feet up some stairs to the road, we left the fog behind, down on the lake. It was a completely different weather day up on the road, sunny with no fog.

After a foggy, long walk, it was great to stop in at the Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague (hot chai tea, PLEASE!).

Segment 4, Day 1 Grand Haven->Muskegon 17 miles

High of 72 degrees, sunny.

I was glad to get back to the lake after a three week break between segments 3 and 4.

Grand Haven is a lovely town, and I began this segment on the north side of the Grand River and went north.

I soon was into P.J. Hoffmaster State Park and spent some time exploring the trails and visitors center there. This park has preserved a 3 mile stretch of coastal dunes for everyone to enjoy. In the visitors center, there are interactive displays which explain how the dunes were formed over thousands of years of sand being blown and then held in place by dune grass.
I met Mary Jo on the beach. She was gathering trash, something that she does often between Musekgon and Grand Haven. She's one of my Lake Heroes.

In Muskegon, quite near the end of this day's trek, I passed by a house with a sign which said "COME SIT ON MY PORCH." There was a man sitting there, so I pointed to the sign and asked if I could sit with him. Lawrence is a watercolor artist in Muskegon, and after we had chatted for a bit, he showed me his work in his studio/gallery.

The Lake Trek has taken me many interesting places and I've met some great people along the way.

The Relentless Lake: Erosion Control

The lake is in motion. In a storm, it becomes a force, pounding, relentless. The shoreline is subject to the lake and to the moisture which drains into the lake.

In addition, the composition of the shore can determine how it erodes. Sand will fall away at a faster rate than clay revealing the clay in huge, sculptural deposits.


People have tried many methods to shore up the shore. The classic, low tech way is to just deposit a load of massive rocks or chunks of concrete at the waterline. The idea here
is to let the waves bash away at these impediments instead of the more fragile shoreline.

The seawall is a more high tech improvement on this idea. A line of wooden pillars driven into the shore was the first incarnation of the seawall, and that has evolved into wood and steel construction.
























Concrete poured in various configurations are also used to hold back the storm.












Another concern is to preserve the crumbling cliffs. Planting dune grasses and other anchoring plants can help. Some people have used netting or tarps to protect these
escarpments (with various levels of success).


It's a battle that is slowly lost, it seems, no matter what method is employed. The lake doesn't stop, doesn't quit, never goes completely quiet. Little by little, it will take what is owed, and people will rebuild their ramparts to hold back the erosion, maintain their beaches, to attempt to stop the slide of their structures into the water.

Calvin College Lake Trek Video

A 1,000 mile walk on the beach from Calvin College on Vimeo.

Lake Trek Sound Piece for WMUK

I'd never had someone record my footsteps, so this experience was a new one for me. My local NPR affiliate, WMUK (broadcasting from Western Michigan University's campus in Kalamazoo), produces short 'sound pieces' to use during the morning and evening news broadcasts.

I met Andy Robins, News Director at WMUK, in South Haven where he walked with me, capturing the sounds of the Lake Trek with his digital recorder.















All of the sounds that you hear in the piece were recorded that morning, Day 4 of Segment 3 of the trek. Even the gulls cooperated, calling out as if on cue.

After the recording session on the beach and in town, I finished the script for the narration (adding a couple of sounds -- like the dredging barge and zebra mussels -- that weren't in the original script). Then, I met Andy at the studio and recorded my part. Andy took the two parts, narration and sound, and expertly mixed them to finish the piece.

This piece plays when you open up this blog.

Next time you're in South Haven, stop in at Black River Books. The owners usually have their labradoodles there, Booker and Dewey, and they love to greet people. Check out all of the independent bookstores that I've visited so far with the links in the sidebar. By the end of the Lake Trek, I will have stopped in at 30 indie bookstores all around the lakeshore.

A big thanks to WMUK for the great experience!

Invasive Species

The Great Lakes ecosystem is vulnerable to invasive species. The photo to the left is of a mass of zebra mussel shells. This species was introduced into Lake St. Clair in the mid-80s and quickly spread throughout the lakes. Native to the Caspian Sea region, this mussel was brought here like most invasive species to the lakes, in ballast water.

It occupies a niche in the ecosystem that was not occupied, so the mussel population exploded.

The second photo is of an alewife. This is a fish native to the Atlantic. If you've ever been on the beach in the spring after a quick warm-up in the temperature of the lake, you may have seen massive die-offs of the alewife population. They cannot handle the stress of a quick change in temperature.

A new regulation was recently put into effect that requires all vessels coming into the Great Lakes system (from other fresh water systems) to rinse out their ballast tanks with salt water. This will purge most fresh water species before they can be transported into the Great Lakes, but it is not a perfect solution. This point is illustrated by the alewife, an Atlantic Ocean species.

So, what is the solution?

There are ways to treat ballast water to insure that no live creatures or plants survive to thrive in the Great Lakes. The water can be treated chemically or with UV light. What needs to happen for this to happen? Lisa Jackson, the new head of the EPA, vowed to review regulations for the Great Lakes. She could enact a new ballast water regulation. While there is no pending legislation in Congress, it is a good idea to alert your representatives to your concern over invasive species in the Great Lakes.

Why should you care? Zebra mussels, alone, have required up to 5 billion dollars to contend with since they arrived. Water intake pipes used to bring in lake water (for cities like Chicago) or for industry (like the three nuclear power plants on Lake Michigan) get clogged with the mussels and have to be cleaned. These mussels also compete for the food that small fish eat, making it tougher for fish to thrive.

It is virtually impossible to eliminate a new species once it has been established in the lakes. It is surprisingly easy, though, to prevent their arrival in ballast tanks.

Segment 3 complete!

Segment 3 took me from South Haven to Grand Haven, April 6-9. It mapped out at 50 miles. I had planned three days for this segment, but the weather on Monday was WILD, high of 37 degrees, but the wind chill was in the 20s. And the wind! It was sustained at 30mph with gusts up to 40mph.


The two photos are of the same stretch of beach. The one on the top was taken today (the 9th), the one on the bottom was from Monday (the 6th). The lake responded to the wind with giant waves. You can tell how high the lake was during the storm by the same vertical stake in each photo.




Monday's 5 miles were hard earned and felt like 25. I added a fourth day to this segment to cover the ground I was unable to make on Monday.

My son, Lucas, joined me on this segment. He's 16 and was on his spring break this week. It was great to be on the lake with him.

I passed the 150 mile marker during this portion, and have now covered 175 miles. The West Michigan media picked up on the story and it was fantastic to share the story of this adventure. Check out the links in the sidebar.

Segment 3, Day 4 South Haven->Pier Cove 14 miles

High of 49 degrees.

Since the weather on Monday was so brutal, I added an extra day to this segment to cover the ground between South Haven and where I began on Monday.


Thursday was calm and sunny and I was wise to make the decision to not attempt this stretch on Monday. Some of the shoreline would have been impossible to walk or climb during the storm (and some rocky stretches were challenging even without the wind and waves).



















There were some stretches with a wide, flat beach. And there were even some large deposits of clay that had eroded into massive, sculptural shapes.