Overlooks leading off this 7.4-mile-long drive and its trails afford spectacular panoramic vistas of the Manitou islands, Lake Michigan shoreline, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and the Glen lakes, and present the best visual orientation to the national lakeshore. In 1967 Pierce Stocking (1908–1976), a lumberman and native of northern Lower Michigan, opened the road that loops through dunes and forest on his land to share and protect the scenic beauty of the dunes region with the public. Ten years later, having acquired the site as part of the national lakeshore, the National Park Service improved the drive and added overlooks in 1986.