This gorgeous yellow lady slipper wild orchid was just off the boardwalk near Lake Lonidaw.

There is so much more to Indiana’s Pokagon State Park than swimming, camping, biking and horseback riding.

Don’t get me wrong, all of those activities are great. In the winter, Pokagon visitors also can toboggan and cross country ski. But Pokagon’s often overlooked stars are the nearly 14 miles of hiking trails – and an array of wildflowers, ferns, grasses, forests, hills, wetlands and meadows.

Pokagon is located on Lake James near Angola, Indiana. I hiked and camped there often in the mid 1990s when living in Fort Wayne and have rediscovered its varied, natural charms in recent years.

The trails are all easy to navigate, although some are more rugged than others. Those on the park’s the eastern side, including trails in Potawatomi Nature Preserve, are the most picturesque and serene. There also is a connector off trail eight to Beechwood Nature Preserve, which offers a lovely 1.5-mile meadow loop.

The view of wetlands from trail seven.

Pokagon’s rolling terrain was created by a glacier, and Hell’s Point on trail three is a high point, both figuratively and literally. Hell’s Point is a kame, a sharply crested hill resembling a rooster’s comb and formed by debris as the glacier melted.

The southern side of trail seven’s loop offers another favorite view, this one of wetlands. The trail seven loop itself is especially gorgeous in summer, when New York ironweed and other prairie flowers are in their glory.

Go to Pokagon for the beaches in the summer, the toboggan run in the winter or lake views all year long. Just don’t forget the hiking trails, too.