The Covered Bridge is the first stop on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive tour and is a beloved spot for an unforgettable photo.

Pull off and take a picture with the lovely wooden bridge in the background.

After a steep climb through hardwood forest, you’ll come to a pull-off for stop #2, the Glen Lake Overlook.

Hop out and feast your eyes on the turquoise waters of Glen Lake in the distance – it’s your first glimpse of the vast beauty found at the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

This is definitely a picture-taking spot!

And be sure to note the narrowing of the lake in the middle. That’s what locals call “the narrows.”

To the left, the profile of the hill rising up resembles an alligator. It stands to reason that area is called Alligator Hill. It’s a favorite Sleeping Bear Dunes hiking spot.

The 1.5-mile Cottonwood Hiking Trail loop hike over rolling sand dunes is difficult. While relatively flat, the trail is quite sandy and open to the sun.

Also on this trail: an old abandoned loop of Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. It was abandoned due to drifting sand – you’ll see the road surface buried under several feet of sand in places as you hike.

We recommend you save your energy for the stops ahead if time is short or if you are only visiting the dunes for one day.

Along the open path, you’ll see dune plants and wildlife while getting a nice view of Glen Lake and the Dune Climb.

(Watch for poison ivy near the trailhead.)

This is a transitional area where the dunes stop and the forest starts.

We don’t recommend stopping at #5, Leaving The Sand Dunes, as you can see the main point of this marker from your car.

Essentially, the open dunes give way to the forest in places the winds aren’t able to penetrate.

If the winds don’t keep the sand open, trees and vegetation take root. This creates forests and other areas of vegetation

Dune Ecology is a stop devoted to the plants growing in the dunes. Some visitors make this a quick stop, but for someone interested in the science and vegetation of the dunes, it’s very informative.

Stay in your car for this one, too. You’re driving through a Beech-Maple Forest.

Under all of the trees are sand dunes. Dominant trees here are sugar maple and American beech but you will also find other hardwoods like black cherry, hemlock, and basswood trees.

The National Park Service has designated this area as a place to contemplate the major changes the dunes have experienced over the years.

The instructions at Changes In Time are: “Imagine how this land must have looked just after the glacier melted about 11,800 years ago. It was a landscape of sand and gravel stretching in every direction. No trees would have blocked your view. Only a few hardy plants struggled to survive. From this bleak beginning, plants, by their living and dying, have slowly created a layer of topsoil covering these sandy hills. Living communities of plants and animals have transformed this once-sterile ground into the productive forest that now surrounds you.”

Most visitors make this a quick stop or skip it altogether.

Stop at the Sleeping Bear Dune Overlook to see the very dune the park is named after. The Sleeping Bear Dune is the large dune, about a mile away to the north, along the edge of the bluff.

Learn the interesting story about how Sleeping Bear Dunes earned its name here. The Ashininaabek people used the bear as a landmark and tell this story to explain its origin.

Today, the dune is shrinking due to erosion, so it no longer has a bear shape like it used to. It was once about 234 feet high and densely vegetated, giving it the profile of a sleeping bear.

Waves chipping away at the base of the dune have been eroding it over the last 100 years. In 1961, the dune was 132 feet high. By 1980, it was down to 103 feet. Sadly, it’s likely the dune will completely disappear sometime in the future.

Stop #11 at the North Bar Lake Overlook offers a picnic area along with a nice view of North Bar Lake off in the distance.

Fun fact: North Bar Lake used to be a bay on Lake Michigan.

Waves on the lake carrying sand and dirt eventually closed off the bay, turning it into a lake. This same process also formed Torch Lake, among others.

Thus North Bar Lake is unique, then, since it nearly touches Lake Michigan!

It’s literally just steps away from the big lake, offering visitors the luxury of warmer, more shallow waters with a view of gorgeous Lake Michigan merely feet away. The best of both worlds with a cool backstory to boot.

As you come to the last stop on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, you’ll notice a plot of land where only pine trees have grown, and all are similar in size.

This is an old red pine plantation that was planted after the original hardwood forests had been cut down, but before the land became a National Lakeshore.

Pine trees are not natural to the area, but were planted by property owners to improve their land for farming or logging.

The National Park Service is working to gradually thin out the pine plantation to allow a variety of tree species to repopulate the area with native forest growth.