Great Marsh Trail

Itchy feet would have been a good way to describe how I was feeling a few days ago.  It was the end of a much needed weekend, and there was still a few hours of daylight left.  I looked at a map of the park to see if I could locate a trail I had not yet been on.  Rather inconspicuous in the corner of my wrinkled fold-out map was a small loop trail called the "Great Marsh Trail."  It was a trail that the park had built a few years ago to provide public access to a recently restored wetland complex

I pulled into a gravel parking lot.  At then end of the lot was a modest brown sign that just said "trail" with an arrow pointing off into a mowed grassy walkway.

The sun was shining through the trees and I could hear red-eyed vireos (Vireo olivaceus) and eastern towhees (Piplio erythrophthalmus) singing their springtime calls with a hint of summer lethargy.  Warblers of all colors and shapes scurried around in the brush, and brightly colored red-headed woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) skimmed an old snag for insects.  


I turned the corner and saw the trail's namesake:  A vast and great marsh filled with cattails, sedges, pond lilies, and other glamorous emergent plants with common yellow throats (Geothlypis trichas) warbling melodically and great blue herons with 5-foot wingspans soaring gracefully over the glistening water.  


At the end of the trail a long pier stretched out into the marsh.  An old man who had just gotten off his bike was sitting there quietly and alone.  Time had now passed behind him.  There was nothing left in the world for him but that Great Marsh.  


The "Great Marsh" in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was once a vast wetland complex with a diversity of wildlife.  Thankfully, many sections of that marsh are preserved by the National Park Service for the enjoyment and benefit of the public.  

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