Photos

It probably took hundreds, even thousands of years for the waves of Lake Superior to carve grooves into the slab of limestone in the foreground of this photo, as if it were just a sandy beach.

This photograph was taken at Mosquito Beach, located in the Pictured Rocks National Lakehsore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The "Pictured Rocks" are the colorful cliffs, seen in the background of the photo, that make up this unique stretch of shoreline along Lake Superior.

The colors of the rocks and cliffs are caused by the excretion of different metals and minerals from the rock layers. In fact, the water seen on the grooved limestone in this photograph is not from the waves of Lake Superior; rather, it is seeping out from between the rocks.

You can't see the pictured rocks properly unless you're looking at them from the water (and thankfully the park and cities around the park have provided many opportunities to do just that), but the land surrounding the shorline is just as beautiful and diverse, being covered with old-growth forests and a labyrthine network of streams and rivers.

Geography buffs: I'm listing this photograph as taken in Munising, the closest major town to Mosquito Beach, although the area is unincorporated and belongs to the National Park System.