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The Little Calumet River Trail is one of the best trails at Indiana Dunes National Park. It’s located near Bailly Homestead and Chellberg Farm in Porter, Indiana.
The Little Calumet River Trail is a 1.6 mile loop. I recommend combining it with the Bailly/Chellberg Trail, which would make it a 3.7 mile loop. That way, you can enjoy the nature on the trail as well as the two most historic places in the park. This entry focuses solely on the Little Calumet River Trail.
Mnoké Prairie
If taking the trail clockwise like I did, the trail starts after Bailly Homestead. The first half of the trail runs for about a mile through the stunning Mnoké Prairie, an active restoration project of an original tallgrass prairie.
Thanks to their fertile soil, tallgrass prairies were plowed and used for farmland by European settlers. Less than one tenth of a percent of original tallgrass prairies still exist in Indiana. The Mnoké Prairie is a 120 acre tract of former prairie that was farmed for many years.
The National Park Service and school groups are removing non-native species of plants and planting native ones in order to restore the original habitat. They’re also performing controlled burns to simulate the effects of historic fires, which favors native plants.
If you walk through the prairie at the right time of year, you’ll find several flowering plants, butterflies, and insects.
Little Calumet River
The second half of the trail starts by crossing the Little Calumet River. The Little Calumet flows through several towns in Northwest Indiana.
The trail then continues through a section of marshes along a nice section of boardwalk before finishing with a walk through a forest. It’s a very pleasant place to hike.
