Into the Tunnel — a stop on the Tunnel of Trees.
And here it begins. Notice what happens to the light.
The trees on both sides close overhead and the road becomes a green corridor — that is the whole phenomenon, and it is why this road has the name it does. What makes it work is a specific accident of history and geometry: the road was laid out following an old Native trail along the top of the bluff, it was never widened or straightened the way most highways were, and the right-of-way is so narrow that the hardwoods on either side have grown together above it.
Sugar maple, beech, birch, basswood. In summer it is a green tunnel with the light coming through in flecks. In October it becomes something else entirely — a corridor of gold and scarlet with the sun coming through the leaves rather than off them, which is why photographers rate this road so highly. The colour is above you and around you rather than out in the distance.
Notice too that you cannot see the lake for long stretches, even though it is a hundred feet away and several hundred feet down. The trees hide it. Then a gap opens and the whole of Lake Michigan appears at once, and then it closes again. That rhythm — enclosed, revealed, enclosed — is the actual experience of this road.