PAYING DUNES
Indiana Dunes National Park’s newest addition? Visitor fees
Visiting the Indiana Dunes National Park recently on their road trip from Atlanta to Seattle, Abigail Crombie and Hussain Miyaziwala took a walk along the dunes trail at West Beach and, on a day too cold to swim, enjoyed the view of Chicago from the beach.
Were they surprised that the park, which didn’t have an entrance fee until this year, is asking visitors to pay?
“It’s a national park,” Miyaziwala said. “So, no.”
His view echoed those of other West Beach visitors that day when asked about the new fees.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States, and I’m used to that,” said Abigail Stoner, of Rolla, Missouri. “It’s going to a good cause.”
“All the national parks I’ve been to, even city parks in Indianapolis, charge a fee,” Indianapolis resident Sam Hebenstreit said.
Howard Mattingly, of Portage, noted that he and his wife, Alix, used to pay $6 every time they went to West Beach, the only Indiana Dunes National Park unit that had a fee before this year. Now they have one of the park’s new senior passes and can go there any time without an additional charge.
“Even when we had to pay every time, we were happy to pay,” Mattingly said. “Everything here — the restrooms, the picnic areas, the trails — has to be maintained.”
Nearly two months have passed since the Indiana Dunes National Park started asking for entrance fees from its visitors, for the first time since its founding in 1966.
The only resistance so far, Superintendent Paul Labovitz said, has come from local residents who were used to free access to nearly the whole park.
“I think it’s just a change,” he said. “But frankly, people are used to an entry fee for almost any place they go. Frequent national park visitors are used to entry fees.”
The park’s management first announced last August that it was considering charging an entrance fee, and the new fees were made official in January. The park started collecting them on March 31.
The park needs money from the fees to catch up on deferred maintenance, Labovitz
said last year.
“Every building, every facility is getting beat up,” he said then. “We are literally unable to keep up with maintenance.”
The new fees include a seven-day pass for $25 and an annual pass for $45 (or $20 for seniors).
More information is available at the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center at 1215 N. Indiana 49 in Porter. The phone number is 219-9262255.
Seven-day and annual passes also are available at several businesses in the area, including Dig the Dunes Trail Stop, at the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk pavilion; Virk’s Dunes Mart, on U.S. 12 west of Michigan City; Porter Quick Stop, on U.S. 20 in Porter; the Marathon gas station on U.S. 12 in Ogden Dunes; Schoolhouse Shop, near Chesterton; and 4411 Inn and Suites, in Michigan City.
Several recent visitors at Porter Beach, a national park beach just west of Indiana Dunes State Park, said they hadn’t heard of the new national park fees.
“If they’re going to charge a fee, they should have someone here to let you know,” Crown Point resident Emily Bonick said.
Porter resident Kelly Lyon said she had bought an annual pass.
“I’m hoping to see improvements, like they said,” she said. “It’s OK, as long as it goes for something good.”
One of the national park’s overdue maintenance needs became apparent recently, when the park shut down the Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education, in Gary’s Miller area, after the pedestrian bridge over Lake Street from the center’s main parking lot was found to be unsafe.
The bridge’s concrete had deteriorated and was exposing the steel reinforcing bars.
The Douglas Center will reopen when the park settles on a way for pedestrians to cross Lake Street safely, Labovitz said.
“Hopefully, the closing will be only for a month,” he said.
It could take several years, however, before a new pedestrian bridge is built.