Note: This is an Earthcache. There is no physical cache to find. Logging this Earthcache requires that you undertake an educational task relating to the specific Earth Science at the site.
Prior to logging this cache, click on Message this owner, or send an email with answers to the following questions:
- What has happened in the bays along the shoreline over the last 11,000 years?
- Why do you suppose this has happened?
- Based on the current rate of erosion, how much longer do you think this wooden structure will survive?
- Required to log this cache:Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site. Upload the photo with your log.
Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive
Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive is a fee area within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A daily or annual pass is required. Currently there is a Virtual cache along this drive as well.
The walk to this cache has an incline. The path is mostly asphalt or wooden boardwalk, though you may encounter some areas where the sand has drifted over the boardwalk. In spite of this, we have seen standard wheelchairs at the overlook.
While no signs have been posted as of the date of this listing, to limit human caused erosion on this glacial hill, the National Park Service is requesting that we no longer climb this bluff. The sand dune at the Dune Climb area is not negatively impacted by our climbing there. There is also another EarthCache and Virtual cache there. The same park pass will get you into both areas.
This Lake Michigan overlook, on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, provides a great view of the shoreline. If the visibility is good, you can see Empire Bluffs 4 miles south, Platte Bay 9 miles south, or even Point Betsie 15 miles south.
Looking down the slope here, you will notice that it is not a sand dune like the Dune Climb area. There are rocks mixed in with the sand, making this a glacial hill rather than a sand dune.
The bluff at this overlook has been eroding back at about 1 foot per year in recent times. Waves wear away the base of the bluff, and sand and rocks from above slide down to the beach. Human activity has also caused erosion. This process has gone on for many years. It is likely that this glacial hill used to extend farther into the lake. The shallow waters offshore also seem to indicate that a peninsula once extended from here about 2 miles. As waves wore back the peninsula, this bluff got closer to the water.
(Source: Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive brochure)
This sign used to be at GZ. It compares the current shoreline with what is believed to be the shoreline 11,000 years ago.
