Hike and Seek: Full Moon at Proud Lake!

Proud Lake State Recreation Area is one of our local parks open until 10pm year round.  What is so cool about that in the Fall and Winter?

NIGHT HIKING!

Yes, you can hike after dark on these trails without coming back to find a nastygram (ticket) by DNR. Most parks in this area close at dusk so you don’t get to enjoy the woods after nightfall, but Proud Lake is one where you can.  In the Fall and Winter, when dusk comes at 3pm, it makes for a great opportunity for a night hike. Full moon hikes are especially delightful, when the moon casts shadows in the woods.

We bundled up, had our headlamps on and made our way into the woods. There are many tall pines in this section. I love this shot.

My friend struck a pose at the first signpost map.  Hahaha.

About halfway through our hike, I somehow managed to trip and fall flat on my face. After I got up and brushed myself off, we looked and looked for what I could have caught by boots on, but nothing made sense, there were no roots big enough to trip over. The below picture is of a piece of some sort of fabric or burlap embedded in the trail. However, it wasn’t really enough to hook my boot into, let alone both boots. (I tried re-enacting it.)  It was the kind of fall where you catch one foot on something, quickly bring your other foot forward to steady yourself and nope, that one’s caught too.  I put my hands out but still banged up my nose on the ground and afterwards, my jaws on both sides hurt as well.  That all subsided after a while and we continued our hike, but that was the weirdest thing!

The moonlight shone on a small inland lake and we caught some twinkling in the distance, but I couldn’t quite capture it.

Further along the trail, my friend’s headlamp picked up shimmering green “eyes”.  It was this guy!  He is a Nursery Web Spider, according to the almighty ChatGPT, and is very common in Michigan, and sometimes mistaken for Wolf spiders, as they are similar.  His leg span had to be three inches. We first found a family member on the underside of another branch, and then his eyes lit up as well when our headlamps scanned the woods.  Gah.  Carry on, buddy. We’ll be on our way.

Near the site where we spotted the spiders was a lean to of sorts, and I joked that he had built it.  He was HUGE.

Our lamps caught a spot of color and we found someone had painted a heart on a dead tree trunk. I often wonder what people are thinking when they do this. The blue had sparkles in it, and it looked like nail polish.

Even though there was plenty of signage, we still used GPS to get back to the parking lot.  One of the fun things about night hiking! LOL  Maybury State Park is another one open until 10pm.  I look forward to more night hiking this season!