Which Michigan Sand Dune Is The Toughest To Climb Up? [Photos]

This video I found of a Detroit news reporter stumbling her way down the Pierce Stocking Drive sand dune near Empire has led me to ask this question.

Have you ever climbed up a steep Michigan sand dune? If so, which one is the toughest to get back up?

I have climbed both the Pierce Stocking Drive dune on the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, and the fabled Log Slide on the Pictured Rocks Lakeshore near Grand Marais. It seemed to me the Log Slide was a longer dune, but the Stocking one is a wee bit steeper.

Both dunes carry huge warnings about the risk of even attempting such a feat. The sign at the Log Slide warns of it taking at least two hours to return the 500 foot climb back up, as well as the remoteness of the location causing a long wait for any help. Strangley, the Pictured Rocks Lakeshore web site, doesn't mention climbing it or warn you to stay off it at all.

Meanwhile the sign at the Stocking Drive dune (not to be confused with the more user friendly Dune Climb near Glen Lake) offers a similar two hour time frame to get back up the 450 foot drop, and the National Lakeshore web site discourages you entirely:

Although going down the bluff is not prohibited, you are encouraged not to do so. Running down to the lake can be dangerous for yourself and for others below you, and erosion of the bluff face is obvious as you look down to Lake Michigan where others have climbed the bluff.

Sleeping Bear Dunes ranked 13th of 100 National Parks in 2014 for the amount of search and rescue missions in the Park, most of those pulling climbers off the big dune on Pierce Stocking Drive. Park Ranger Joe Lachowski told Mlive.com, the dune is deceiving.

"People don't necessarily envision these risks," Lachowski said, noting how many vast, mountainous parks out West appear more dangerous. "People don't view Sleeping Bear Dunes as a wilderness park because you drove there."

So have you ever climbed one or both of Michigan's big dunes?

I have, and I found the Log Slide to be a bit tougher, but they may have been because I climbed it during the height of the UP's black fly season, and those little peckers were biting me the whole way up. Although, I got up faster because of them.

WDIV Detroit reported Kim DeGiulio recently visited the Sleeping Bear Dunes, and found the going down much tougher than going up. Watch her video as she face plants on her run down to the big lake.

Check out these photos I took last week of people attempting to climb the Pierce Stocking Drive dune at Sleeping Bear. Still think you could do it?