Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve

County: Muskegon Established: 2012 74 Acres

View Map 8501 Meinert Park Road, Montague, MI

Features

Hiking
Interpretive Signs
Scenic Vista
Sensitive Habitat
Water Feature
Wildlife Viewing

Amenities

Leashed Pets Allowed

At a Glance

Approximate Street Address: 8501 Meinert Park Road, Montague, MI
Located in northern Muskegon County, Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve protects unspoiled dune habitat along the lakeshore. A boardwalk leading to an overlook provides panoramic views of Lake Michigan and the surrounding dunes.
Trail length: 1.2 miles (round trip from Meinert Park). Download a Trail Map.
Before you visit, check out our preserve guidelines. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

Visitor Information

Parking is available at Meinert Park, located at the west end of Meinert Park Road in Montague. Muskegon County Parks may charge a fee for parking. There are restrooms available seasonally in the Meinert Park parking lot.

From Meinert Park, walk about a quarter mile north along the beach to Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve. Please respect the private property between Meinert Park and the preserve and walk close to the water’s edge. The preserve is marked with a sign and a stairway that leads up from the beach to the top of the dune.

Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve provides a glimpse of what the Lake Michigan shoreline used to be—undeveloped and undisturbed. Thanks to support from the Community Foundation for Muskegon County, the John J. Helstrom Dune Ridge Trail brings visitors up a steep portion of the dune and leads to an overlook with impressive views of Lake Michigan and the surrounding area.

Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve is a Category 2 LCWM nature preserve. Category 2 preserves may have limited parking or shorter trail systems. Trails are narrower and may feature areas with steeper grades or staircases. Most trails can be hiked in 30 minutes or less.

Trail Information

The trails at Flower Creek Dunes are marked with blue blazes and consist of a mix of sand, natural surface, boardwalks, and stairs. The trails are 1.5 feet wide and have an average grade of 11%, maximum grade of 42%, and average cross slope of less than 2%.

Visitors walk into the preserve from Meinert Park along .25 miles of sandy beach. Visitors can continue hiking along the beach northward toward Flower Creek or ascend a set of stairs to access the John. J. Helstrom Trail. This portion of the trail alternates between stairs and boardwalks and guides hikers along the forested dune ridge. The trail peaks at an overlook of Lake Michigan with an interpretive sign highlighting the unique natural features of the shoreline.

The John J. Helstrom Trail continues down the slope of the dune to a flat landing, where visitors can choose to head west and descend the dune to the beach or continue northward through the forest. The northern trail leads to another set of stairs and an overlook of a Great Lakes marsh with an interpretive sign. From there, visitors can follow the trail along Flower Creek until it empties into Lake Michigan.

Conservation Value

Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve—located in a designated Critical Dune Area—protects a population of the threatened Pitcher’s thistle, a unique wildflower found only on certain areas of the Great Lakes shoreline. A suite of other sensitive dune species thrives on the shifting sands near the water’s edge, while the stabilized back dunes further inland support a hardwood forest that is home to a myriad of wildlife and bird species.

Situated on the Lake Michigan shoreline, Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve lies along a major migratory flyway. Bald eagle, merlin, northern harrier, hooded warbler, common loon, red-headed woodpecker, and the endangered piping plover have been observed on the preserve or in the immediate vicinity during migratory periods.

The area around Flower Creek Dunes has been identified as a regional conservation priority since at least the 1960s. Under the Land Conservancy’s ownership, management of the preserve has focused on protecting the intact open dune and forested dune habitat.

History

Humans have shaped the landscape in the vicinity of Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve for thousands of years. Native Americans altered the landscape around the preserve by hunting, farming, burning, and the establishment of villages and trails. European settlers later extensively logged forests in the area at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. At least two sawmills were established along Big Flower Creek in the 1860s. The selective logging and subsequent fires caused a shift in composition of the recovering forests towards hardwood-dominated systems containing few conifers. After the extensive logging in the late 1800s, the forest on the property that is now the preserve was allowed to recover, and by 1938, the parabolic dunes supported a closed-canopy, mid-successional forest.

The western portion of the property was owned by the Neff family from the mid-1950s to 1989, when it was sold to Dale Crooks. Around that time, Douglas and Gretchen Paprocki purchased an adjacent 43 acres and worked with the Land Conservancy to protect the land with a conservation easement.

In 2012, with abundant community support, the Land Conservancy worked with the Crooks family to purchase 14 acres and create Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve. The community later helped the Land Conservancy purchase an additional 17 acres from the Crooks family in 2017 and then the 43-acre conservation easement parcel from Douglas Paprocki in 2021. The latter parcel was added to the preserve and designated as the Huston-Rausch-Paprocki Reserve, in line with Mr. Paprocki’s wishes and in recognition of the property’s former landowners.