The dirt path leads deeper into the still, sun-dappled woods. Eleven-year-old Caris Pearson trudges along, stopping every few minutes to catch his breath.

“Mom!” Caris calls, summoning his mother Nikki Pearson, several feet ahead. “Can you walk with me?”

Nikki Pearson, 34, turns and saunters back along the trail toward her son, a black and olive green backpack hanging from her shoulders and a red bandana tied over her shoulder-length dreadlocks.

Falling into step slightly ahead of Caris, she slows her gait so that the boy can keep up.

Mother and son have both anticipated and dreaded the hiking part for weeks. The challenge sounded exciting, they say. But they also worried that they wouldn’t have the stamina.

For the duo from Pontiac, the hike is more than a jaunt in the woods. Caris, who weighs more than 300 pounds, is on a mission.

It is a mission that brings them here — hundreds of miles from their cramped co-op apartment to a two-mile trail in the heart of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula.

For these two weeks, their focus is on eating right, exercising often and shedding pounds at a weight loss camp for families.

While weight loss camps abound, this one — Wellspring Family Camp — bills itself as the only one in the country that works with both parents and children to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Caris and Nikki are among 10 kids and nine parents participating in the camp’s fourth and final session of the summer. It is two weeks of constant activity, self-monitored eating and behavioral therapy aimed at helping both the parents and children understand some of the reasons why they struggle with food and exercise.

While there are more drastic ways to lose weight — such as surgery — the camp is a last-ditch effort for the two before turning to those options. They have tried weight loss specialists, appetite suppressants and therapists to help Caris. Together they’ve also sampled different diets, most recently cutting out carbohydrates. It didn’t work.

The camp, both hope, will be a turning point.

The Pearson family’s story is one that millions of Americans can relate to, as childhood obesity rates continue to climb each year. In Michigan, an estimated 12% of high school students are considered overweight and another 13% are at risk for becoming overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, 16% of 6- to 19-year-olds, about 9 million people, are considered overweight.

While Caris says he knows his weight could lead to serious health problems down the road, so far he’s been spared from many of the complications that often stem from obesity. His cholesterol levels are normal, says his mother, and he hasn’t been diagnosed with diabetes or other diseases.

But he’s been taunted by schoolmates and he says he misses doing things that other kids are able to do.

“I used to be able to run real fast,” Caris says. “I was the fastest kid in kindergarten.”

It is about one mile into the hike and Caris is easing himself onto a log, complaining that his leg hurts. He wants to turn back.

There’s no point in looking back, Nikki says.

“Walk it through, baby,” she says. “What else can we do?”

That’s the point of the program — move forward, live healthy, shape the future.

But the past is hard to overcome. Nikki — an outgoing, straightforward woman who loves to read — realizes that Caris’ weight issues are as much her problem as his. So she is the driving force behind the effort.

“It’s a really emotional issue for both of us,” Nikki says. “I’m feeling like a failure.”

A single mother, Nikki has spent much of Caris’ childhood as a student, working on her associate’s and then bachelor’s degrees. She is now a counselor at the North Oakland Career Center in Highland.

Caris — smart, sensitive and sometimes playful — spent much of his time in the care of Nikki’s mother.

“I have parents that grew up in the South, where food is love,” Nikki says. “The more food you give a child, the more you love them.”

She didn’t notice as her son gained weight.

“He was a chunky kid, but with him being so doggone cute, it wasn’t really a problem,” she says.

One day when Caris was about 6, Nikki arrived at her mother’s house to find him sitting in front of the television, licking a stick of butter.

Warning bells started ringing.

She tried to revamp their diets, labeling foods by color. Green labels were good foods, yellows were acceptable and reds were diet destroyers.

But the effort was derailed by Caris, who became adept at sneaking food. They stalled completely when Nikki became pregnant two years ago and was in and out of the hospital.

And it was easier to think of reasons not to exercise than it was to make the time and find the energy.

Caris continued to gain weight.

Nikki’s next wake-up call came after her daughter Trinity, now 19 months, was born and Caris returned home with his grandmother from a doctor’s visit for a chickenpox shot.

Caris weighed more than 300 pounds, the doctor said.

That’s when Nikki realized how much they needed help.

“We’ve got to do something,” she remembers thinking. “I am going to lose my son.”

At his heaviest, Caris weighed 330 pounds.

Besides again trying to overhaul their diets, this time by cutting out carbohydrates, Nikki took Caris to a doctor in Livonia who gave him shots and pills to suppress his appetite. In a month and a half, Caris lost about 30 pounds.

“I know it’s controversial,” Nikki says, “But at that point, I needed him to lose some of the weight so he could get motivated.”

She came across a Web site for the Wellspring family camp. A two-week summer program combining traditional camp activities such as canoeing, campfires and hiking with nutrition and behavior management classes, as well as daily activity goals, the camp looked promising. The cost — $4,950 for a parent and a child — was too much for Nikki.

A nurse at the University of Michigan Medical Center recommended the two for a scholarship.

There is less than half a mile to go on the hike. Every step brings Caris and Nikki closer to the beach at Pictured Rocks, where a stream flows out of the woods, sliding over rocks in a shallow waterfall before merging into the waves crashing against the sparkling shore.

But it doesn’t feel close to Caris. He is still in the middle of the woods — hungry, tired and despairing of ever reaching the beach. The campers who started off at the trailhead with him have long since moved ahead.

When a counselor walking with Nikki and Caris tells them that the clover abundant along the trail can be eaten, Caris asks hopefully: “Do they taste good?”

It’s just one of many lessons about food — most not as impromptu as that one — Caris and Nikki learn at the camp.

“It’s like food rehab,” says Nikki one evening, poking at her plate of rice, shrimp and vegetables. Caris sits down next to her with a salad — his second — doused in Italian dressing.

In the Wellspring program, campers are each given a small book in which to write down everything they eat each day. In the camp’s log dining hall, there is a Dry Erase board next to the serving window where each meal’s nutritional information is posted.

The idea is that by journaling about what they eat, the campers will become more aware of their eating behaviors and therefore be more likely to change them.

Wellspring cooks serve up entrees like enchiladas, fish, stir-fries or turkey dogs on a bun, which are called controlled foods. Campers can usually have just one serving of controlled foods. The goal for Caris and Nikki — and most of the campers — is about 1,200 calories each day and 12 grams of fat from controlled foods.

There’s no limit on foods like soups, salads, fruit and fat-free yogurt and cottage cheese, although campers track those foods in their journals, too.

Even at this camp, there’s room for s’mores, enjoyed around a fire, of course. Except these s’mores are made with fat-free graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate syrup.

By allowing campers some leeway in choosing their foods, the goal is to promote healthy decision-making, rather than a particular diet.

It’s a big change from the way they used to eat, says Caris, who likes tracking numbers, but manages to only sporadically record his meals at the camp. Back home, the goal is to have less than 20 grams of fat per day.

“For breakfast, I used to have a croissant, sausage, egg and cheese and that would have 650 calories and 45 grams of fat,” Caris says, his eyes wide as he looks at a book listing nutrition information on all sorts of food, including items from many popular restaurants. “And you’re only supposed to have 20 grams of fat per day!”

Caris and Nikki say they also learned more about controlling portions — something they tried to do before with little success.

“We used to say ‘OK, we’ll just have three pieces of chicken,’ ” Nikki says.

“But it was three pieces of fried chicken!” Caris chimes in.

To prepare the campers for life after camp, counselors offer sessions on grocery shopping — including a group field trip to a nearby store — and ordering healthy foods at restaurants.

The trail is nearing its end. Caris and Nikki know because they can hear the waves rolling onto the beach. But first, there’s yet another obstacle. A bridge.

Nikki walks quickly across the simple structure — planks nailed together and supported by beams. It has no railings and spans about 10 feet over a shallow waterfall that flows toward Lake Superior. She turns around to see if Caris has made it over.

He is frozen on the opposite side.

“I can’t go over that,” he says, his face screwed into a frown.

“Caris, you have to,” says Nikki, a twinge of impatience in her voice. The beach beckons.

Slowly, he shuffles across the bridge. It sways slightly and Caris stops in the middle, a small moan coming from his mouth. Then, about 10 seconds later, he starts again, putting one foot in front of the other until he reaches the other side.

A few steps more and at last he steps onto the soft sand beach. Other campers scamper in the water and along the shore, marveling at the blue lake that looks like an ocean.

Caris settles down on the sand to rest and to eat a granola bar and fruit snack.

His break is short-lived. Encouraged by the others to get up and explore the beach, Caris pulls off his black sneakers and white socks, rises and walks toward the water where he attempts to skip stones across the choppy waves.

Camp counselors soon are rounding up the group and preparing for the hike back.

“Already?” Caris asks.

The “keep moving” mantra is one that campers have become intimately, if sometimes maddeningly, familiar with. It’s another of the Wellspring keys to a healthy life: lots of activity.

Nikki swears that even the camp policy requiring them to carry water bottles and drink consistently is really meant to get them walking more — to the restrooms.

Back on the trail and heading into the woods, Caris lags behind the other campers. Shoulders slumped, he complains about leg cramps, but continues walking until he catches up to the group, which has stopped to wait for him.

A counselor summons Caris to the front of the line that forms along the narrow trail.

“Come on, Caris,” the counselor says. “I want you to lead us. You’ll set the pace for all of us.”

For two miles, Caris walks almost continuously, stopping just twice to catch his breath. He treads mostly silently, listening to the chatter of those behind him, especially his mom, who is carrying on a lively conversation about science fiction and fantasy books with the counselor.

It is a relief to have company on the hike back. And that solidarity is something else the camp is providing Nikki and Caris, who say that one of the highlights is meeting families from across the country who know what they are going through on the road to a healthier life.

The hike is complete. Tired, hungry and proud, Caris leads the group into the parking lot, where the camp’s two vans await. It is late afternoon and dinner beckons.

There will be more hikes. Maybe not along the same trail, but on days when walking 10,000 steps sounds torturous, when hunger eats away at willpower and when pressing on toward the goal requires being pushed by the encouragement and sometimes-tough love of family and friends.

At least now, Caris knows he can do it.

“Feel my heart, Mama,” Caris says to Nikki.

“It’s beating baby, that’s what it’s supposed to do,” she responds. “I am so proud of you.”

Epilogue: It’s been one month since Caris and Nikki returned home. After losing about 15 pounds during his two weeks, there, Caris has gained back about six pounds; he’s up to 304. Caris says he has avoided high-fat foods, but has struggled with logging his food intake regularly and with exercising daily. The two have decided he needs to be in a more structured environment and are raising money for Caris to attend a boarding school for overweight teenagers run by the same group that runs the Wellspring Weight Loss Camp.