“Packed” beaches? A curmudgeon comes around

By Tim Mulherin

Sun contributor

One Friday afternoon last July, my dear wife, Janet, suggested we go down to Good Harbor Bay Beach CR 651 (Good Harbor Trail) for a few blissful hours of relaxation. That favorite Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore location is conveniently located about two miles from our home in Cedar. She had the right idea: It was a glorious northern Michigan summer day, the kind that makes you want to drop what you’re doing and report to the nearest Lake Michigan beach.

“Sounds good,” I said, “with one exception: It’s July and the beach will be packed.”

Now, “packed” is indeed a perception issue when it comes to determining one’s spatial requirements on a northern Michigan beach during the summer season. For most locals, a “packed” day at Good Harbor Bay Beach – if not most beaches along the Leelanau Peninsula – can be upwards of 150 people or more. Most of them are tourists, many first-time visitors. They tend to congregate just beyond the short trails to the shore, a poorly understood phenomenon, leaving virtually miles of open beach to the rest of us – the occasionally grumpy local populace.

To be fair, I must admit, packed it’s not. Just Google “Coney Island beach” and see what comes up. There are so many people packed together there that you can barely see the sand for the teeming flesh. For northern Michiganders, such an uncomfortable image reminds us all why we don’t live there and do live here. We truly value our space.

As I braced myself in late June to share the summer with the swarm of visitors to the region (which involves beseeching the Almighty and increasing my intake of adult beverages to calm my nerves), a friend reminded me of something “Michiganders take for granted.” While downstate on personal business, he was sitting outside across from a roadside park on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. An Ohio-plated vehicle pulled up. The car had a rooftop luggage carrier and bicycles dangling from a rack on the rear, “vacation” written all over it. “The kids poured out of the car and ran to the bluff, all excited,” he emailed me, adding that “people from outside (meaning downstaters and out-of-staters), especially kids, come here and leave with lifelong impressions of wonder.”

Judgmental folks, of which I’ve been accused of being like on more than one occasion by a certain spouse, should keep this in mind. As with my friend, I’ve witnessed such elation from likely first-time visitors discovering the outdoor splendor of northern Michigan.

Eight years ago, my son and his young family drove up from Indianapolis and met Janet and me at Good Harbor Bay Beach to kick off their stay. Their youngest son, James, was about six months old. He had never seen Lake Michigan. (Imagine what that looks like to a baby, a rookie earthling.) I took my grandson, in his short onesie and sun hat, and sat him at the tideline. The waves gently washed over his chubby little legs, and he quivered, unsure of what was happening. His big brother plopped down next to him, a veteran of several summers Up North, and laughed as the cool water repeatedly surged and retreated. Baby James began to giggle. Years later, without hesitation, he eagerly runs toward Lake Michigan and splashes his way in, a special childhood reunion with the Big Lake.

Of course, I accepted that July afternoon invitation from Janet to go to the beach (after 40 years of marriage, I’m well-trained). Once we crossed M-22 and drove down the National Park Service road to Good Harbor Bay Beach, a chockful parking lot greeted us, with vehicles lined up along both sides of the road. More than a decade ago, as the Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi” relates, the NPS “paved paradise and put in a parking lot” here, putting Good Harbor Bay Beach CR 651 officially on the map. Although we fortuitously found a parking space near the beach entrance, still, I muttered some choice words. I was thereby instructed to get over myself.

Playing Sherpa, I lugged two beach chairs and a backpack with sunscreen, bug spray, and some apples, energy bars, and water bottles to the prime location my wife selected: about 10 yards beyond the path to the beach, right in the heart of a slew of vacationers. Janet followed with Benny, our Pomeranian, who, like any kid, loves the beach.

“Um, no, this isn’t going to work. This way,” I insisted, pulling rank. We trudged over to a small hill that gave us some decent distance from the happy campers, on the northeast side of the beach where the NPS allows dogs.

Once we settled in, Janet quickly lost herself in her beach read; usually yappy Benny sat contentedly facing the mild onshore breeze; and I sulked, disgruntled that I had to share “our” beach with so many “foreigners.”

The recreating throng engaged in all manner of beach activities: wading, swimming, walking the shoreline, rockhounding, sunning, snoozing, picnicking. A boombox played country and western for all within earshot, like it or not. That only irritated me more.

As I considered where else I’d like to be – anywhere but here – I spotted an extended family emerging from the path. A couple in their mid-30s approached the water’s edge, with two elementary school-aged children, followed by their grandparents. The group stood there for a few minutes, transfixed by the panorama of the Manitou Passage and the islands in the background, Pyramid Point to the west, Whaleback to the northeast, and that enchanting Caribbean-colored water (courtesy of the invasive mussels, a scientific fact for them to learn about another time). The couple’s son, perhaps 10 years old, couldn’t contain himself: “Whoa, isn’t this amazing? It really is Lake Michigan! Can I go in?” His mother nodded. When the water was up to the boy’s knees, he turned to his family and beamed. And I remembered what that moment felt like for us, too, so many years ago.

Now that I was over myself, I sighed and reached for Janet’s hand. “You okay, honey?” she asked, not looking up from her book. “Yup,” I answered, vicariously enjoying the scene unfolding before me. I had made my peace with making room for everyone who was here with us. Pretty darn nice of me, don’t you think?

Tim Mulherin is the author of “Sand, Stars, Wind, and Water: Field Notes from Up North,” a collection of essays and stories about his outdoor adventures in northern Michigan. His book about the impact of the pandemic, climate change, and tourism on the Grand Traverse region will be published by Michigan State University Press next year.