Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore features sweeping panaromas, towering dunes or long stretches of deserted shoreline. The Valley View Trail has none of those. In the past this short trail led to 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. But the ridge that the trail climbs and follows was hit hard during the great wind storm of 2016 that resulted in so many fallen trees that the National Park Service decided it was not worth the manpower and cost to remove the timber.  Thus what was an easy walk is now considerably more challenging and not recommended for families as it was ...

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