Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore provides accessibility options this summer for all visitors.
Partners of lakeshore, Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, helped the park secure a grant to purchase a track chair in May. The track chair allows people with mobility challenges to travel the trails.
The park offers three beach wheelchairs, one child and two adult size, free for checkout.
Beach matting has been placed on shores to allow any type of wheelchair access to get closer to the water.
Superintendent of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Scott Tucker said the goal is to provide visitors an opportunity to experience Sleeping Bear on their own terms.
“If a visitor who has been coming here for years, has never dipped their toes in Lake Michigan because they could not get to Lake Michigan, and now they can, that’s life changing experience,” Tucker said. “That’s not only going to affect that person, but their family and their vacation.”
Tucker said in addition to wheelchairs, the park has an accessible kayak launch on Loon Lake. He said numerous campsites in the Platte River campground have also been renovated to be more accessible.
