Distance: 3 miles round trip
Type: Foot path
Terrain: Forested ridges
Difficulty: Easy
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore features sweeping panaromas, towering dunes or long stretches of deserted shoreline. The Valley View Trail has none of those. What this short and easy trail leads to is a handful of backcountry campsites, tucked away in a quiet and often overloaded area of the park and surrounded by an impressive forest of hardwoods.
What the Valley View Trail offers is an overnight escape into in a region of Michigan that is often overrun by tourists in the middle of the summer. When Platte River and D.H. Day Campgrounds are filled to capacity with motorhomes, humming generators and sun-burnt families, Valley View is a peaceful oasis where you can pitch your tent and sip your morning coffee in the shade of hardwoods while watching a whitetail meander through the small meadow. The price for such tranquility is carrying your necessities 1.5 miles from a parking lot. And then carrying them out when you’re ready to head home.
Such a small price in today’s congested world. The best time to arrive is from late September through mid-October when the beech and maples that form much of the canopy are burning with fall colors. Without the heat, bugs or crowds and with such autumn splendor overhead, this relatively obscured trail becomes a priceless weekend getaway. Your necessities should include water as there is neither a source of safe drinking water here nor a stream or lake nearby to filter water.
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Valley View Trail begins next to the information sign in the parking lot and immediately crosses Hyland Road. On the north side it enters that beautiful forest and remains in it until you reach the campsites. Nearby is M-22 and you can hear the traffic rumbling by until the trail swings sharply east and begins steadily climbing a ridge. You gain almost 75 feet in the next half mile topping off on the forested dune where the trail swings north and follows the rounded crest of it. The largest beech and maple are located here and will dazzle you in the fall.