[2] The area is popular for hiking, fishing, camping, boating, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and hunting.

The Manistee National Forest is not one continuous mass, but is a "mosaic" broken by private property and towns.

[2] The large areas of cutover timber were not very suitable for farming, and much of the burned over forest land had still not yet regenerated to trees by the 1930s.

[4] The terrain is mostly forest underlain by sedimentary rocks, covered by a mantle of glacial drift as much as 1,000 feet thick.

Aquifers within glacial deposits are common and feed thousands of miles of cold water streams at a relatively constant rate throughout the year.

Dispersed camping is free on National Forest lands, as long as you follow the guidelines found on the USFS website.

The Nordhouse Dunes are interspersed with woody vegetation such as juniper, jack pine and hemlock.

These were important for transporting logs to the mills during the lumber boom, and now serve as popular destinations for canoeing, fishing, hunting, and hiking.

Many backpackers plan 2–3 days to hike the complete loop, setting up backcountry campsites overnight.