On top of Mount Baldy, all covered with sand, some new vegetation will soon be at hand.
Indiana Dunes National Park reopened access to the park’s most famous dune on June 15. So now what?
Interim Superintendent Leo Lestino said the park is being watched carefully to see which way the wind blows, and with it the sand.
“Sand is very dynamic. A lot of what we’re doing now is seeing what that sand will do,” he said.
“It really is a matter of monitoring right now,” Lestino said, to see how the dune reacts to having 27,000 tons of sand shaved off its southern face.
Approximately 27,000 tons of sand were moved from the Mount Baldy access area/parking lot, placed in a staging area, and transported to Crescent Beach. The sand was placed directly on Crescent Beach as beach nourishment.
“They had been doing beach nourishment and sand movement for years now,” Lestino said, so the heavy trucks transporting sand to nearby Crescent Dune didn’t sink in the sand.
“This first effort this past spring was intended to immediately protect and keep infrastructure that was there,” Lestino said.
Mount Baldy was sneaking up on the restroom facility, getting within feet of it before the National Park Service and Army Corps of Engineers thwarted the invasion. Already, the dune had swallowed up the northern part of the parking lot along with trees and other obstacles in its way.
Ultimately, the plan is to see if vegetation can take root on the top of the dune to stabilize it.
“This is not the planting window over the summer for ensuring the marram grass that we plant at the summit takes root,” Lestino said.
Mount Baldy made headlines in 2013 when a 6-year-old boy was suddenly swallowed by the dune, prompting rescues to frantically dig him out. He survived.
Researchers later discovered that when a tree is buried by a dune and decomposes, it can create a hole in the dune, causing instability.
Lestino said while the park staff is observing the dune, it’s also staying off the top for safety reasons. It’s not only unsafe for the public but also the staff.
Park staff are eyeing Mount Baldy the way a defender on the football field closely observes its opponent, waiting to see which direction it will go.
When it’s safe and the time for planting arrives, it will be time to plant the marram grass that has deep roots to stay in place atop the dune.
The parking lot, beach and trail to the beach are now reopened for visitors. There’s a steep descent to the beach, and it seems even steeper on the way back up.
Lestino joined the park staff in January, his first posting at a national park. His career includes working in legislative affairs for the park service.
“This park is incredibly unique. It’s incredibly intertwined with the communities around it,” he said. “It has so much biodiversity, and folks really visit this park for such a variety of reasons.”
Not only do beaches like Mount Baldy draw visitors, but so do historic structures like the House of Tomorrow and other Century of Progress homes, Bailly Homestead and Chellberg Farm.
“The team here is incredible,” Lestino said, with a wide variety of experts lending their expertise.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
