Night Head Lamp Hike in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The other night when camping at 12 Mile Beach with my friends, we decided to go on a night head lamp hike. We walked the nature trail above the campground, and then hiked the beach back to our camp site. If you have ever walked down a beach at night, it is difficult to see exactly where you are and when you have to head up to your camp. To help us know where our camp site was, Marsha hung a light on the steps.

The trail travels up the bluff from the center of the campground and winds its way through different forest communities.

To get this shot of the stump, rather than use a flash -- we all directed our head lamp beams to the stump.

I used the flash for this stump...

When hiking at night, you find yourself focusing on just the things within the beam of your light.  You see the vegetation in front of you much more intimately.

I tried to capture the white birches.

The camera would not focus on it, but as we finished the nature trail and worked our way to the beach, we saw the International Space Station go overhead.  It was almost like it greeted us.

The full moon was rising.  While in the woods it didn't help us see our way since the tree canopies blocked out the moon light.  On the beach, however, the moon light was quite bright.

Since we arrived back at the camp site quite late, we reignited our fire and enjoyed it for a short time before getting some sleep.