Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness is a 3,450-acre protected area in Michigan’s Manistee National Forest, north of Ludington, with four miles of undeveloped Lake Michigan shoreline and the northern half of the Big Sable Dunes complex. Formed as Great Lakes water levels fell about 3,500 years ago, its sands were shaped by wind into hills rising up to 140 feet above the lake. The area preserves a striking transition from active shoreline dunes to older inland forest and provides important habitat for Pitcher’s thistle, a federally threatened plant. Protected as wilderness in 1987, it remains one of Lake Michigan’s most intact dune landscapes.