Photo Gallery Friday: Muskegon State Park
Photo Gallery Friday is a regular feature on Travel the Mitten that will help showcase photos from places where one post just isn’t enough to show off everything.
Muskegon State Park is one of Michigan’s larger state parks on Lake Michigan, easily accessed just a few miles from U.S. 31 or from downtown Muskegon. The park has more than 1,230 acres for swimming, hiking, cross-country skiing, boating, camping, and more. Two campgrounds offer 240 sites from May-October, with more than 130 sites at the South Channel Campground and 105 at the Lake Michigan Campground. There is also a group use area and a yurt (featured in our Michigan A to Z: Spring 2016 post) that is available to rent. The Snug Harbor day use area feature a boat launch, playground, picnic shelter, games (horseshoes, cornhole), and more. The day use beach area features sandy Lake Michigan shoreline that seems to stretch north for miles, and there is another beach area on Muskegon Lake as well. The Winter Sports Complex features cross-country ski trails, a luge track, ice skating, and ice fishing. One of the main highlights of Muskegon State Park is its sand dunes, which stretch for miles and can be visited while hiking the more than 12 miles of trail that wind through the park. The blockhouse provides an overlook with scenic views of both lakes and the dunes.
The park also offers access to the channel that connects Muskegon Lake and Lake Michigan. From a day use parking area just outside of the Channel Campground it is a short walk to great views of the Muskegon South Channel Lighthouse, the USS Silversides, and passing ships. The Lake Express ferry passes by here frequently, and the occasional freighter visits the area. The Dune Ridge Trail begins directly across from this parking area.
The address for the park is 3560 Memorial Dr., North Muskegon. Grand Haven State Park and P.J. Hoffmaster State Park are to the south, and can be reached by a half hour drive. Duck Lake State Park and Silver Lake State Park are located within an hour’s drive or less to the north.
