Stark beauty in unlikely places
ONCE there were 274km of unspoiled Lake Erie beaches with dunes and beach- loving vegetation on Ohio’s North Coast. Few remain today.
That’s what makes Headlands Dunes State Nature Preserve in Lake County so special. It is the best and one of the last surviving lakefront beach plant communities, with its hummocks and its sand- loving vegetation.
The state is adding a 244km boardwalk and observation platform this spring at the nature preserve. It is a unique headlands landscape of sand, vegetation, forest and marshes.
It sits next to the 48ha Headlands Beach State Park, the biggest and best natural sand swimming beach in Ohio. That beach stretches more than 1.6km along Lake Erie, with up to 91.44m of sand between the water and the 19 parking lots in Mentor and Painesville Township.
It gets up to 10,000 visitors a day in the summer, 2.2 million a year. It is routinely rated as the best swimming option in an Ohio state park. It is popular for picnics, beach volleyball, wind surfing, jet skis and fishing. There is no breakwall and northern winds can kick up big waves.
The state of Ohio began acquiring land for a park west of Fairport Harbor in 1951- 1952. It opened in 1953 as Painesville Beach State Park. In 1955, the name was changed to Headlands Beach.
In 1957, the beach was closed when waves and undertow created safety problems. The public enjoyed swimming instead in a creek that flowed into Lake Erie. The undertow is still an issue and swimming is prohibited when the waves are too big, officials said.
The state in the late 1960s added parking lots, concession buildings, restrooms, changing buildings and a sewage treatment plant.
The 10.12ha state nature preserve often gets overlooked next to the popular state park. It is tucked between the park and the Grand River west of Fairport Harbor.
It features a natural beach and plants more typically found along the Atlantic Coast. It is a highly specialised ecosystem too hostile for many plants and animals. There are 11 rare plant species.
Such dunes are typically found west of where rivers such as the Grand enter Lake Erie. The dunes are shaped by wind and water. They are up to 6m tall and surprisingly colourful with reddish brown and tan- coloured grasses dominating.
It is a fragile environment with a handful of trails criss- crossing the dunes. Some areas are fenced off to restrict access.
The plants cannot thrive on the harsh, windy beach, but they do in the shelter of the dunes. Some have extensive root systems, others have folding leaves to stabilise themselves and to trap moisture.
The key plants are switchgrass and American beach grass. Both are common in the preserve but rare in Ohio.
They become established on the upper beach away from the water and quickly spread into huge root- like mats. Sand then drifts into the calm areas around the grasses and stops moving. This makes the dunes taller.
Yet the grasses are not buried and are able to simply grow through the accumu- lating sands. They are joined by beach pea, cocklebur, sea rocket, seaside spurge and purple sandgrass.
Once the beach grass and other hardy pioneer species get established, the dune changes. What had been shifting, nutrient- poor sand without shade now provides stabilised sand, partial shade and the beginning of soil as dead plant matter decomposes and builds humus.
As the dunes become established, grape vines and poison ivy appear. Diversity grows. Cottonwood and willows emerge and black oaks will follow.
Other dune- specific plants you will likely find are sand dropseed, Canada wild rye, water- ash and wild bean.
Lake Erie was part of the Atlantic Ocean 12,000 years ago when the glaciers were retreating. Saltwater disappeared 2,000 years later, but the Atlantic coastal plants remained in the Lake Erie dunes.
Headlands Dunes, dedicated in 1976, is a good spot for watching migrating birds and monarch butterflies. Birds will rest, feed and wait for the best weather before flying across Lake Erie on their way north. The result can be frequent large fallouts of warblers and other songbirds in the preserve.
Visitors are asked to walk carefully on trails and not to disturb dune vegetation.
A lighthouse at the edge of the preserve ( it is private property) marks where the Grand River empties into Lake Erie. The lighthouse dates to 1925.
The dunes are moving farther into Lake Erie, due to the breakwall at the river’s mouth. The beach has moved northward 760m since 1827. That’s when the US Federal Government constructed piers