Conquering the Sleeping Bear Dunes

My calves were burning. My lungs were burning. Everything was burning, burning, burning. I looked upward, peering toward the top of the monstrous sand dune I was in the middle of climbing. I swore it hadn’t looked THIS big from the bottom… But, then again, nothing ever does. I was at the Dune Climb in northern lower Michigan — a 450-foot sand dune that is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.