Trail Talk

Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne wrote and filed this blog for MichiganTrailMaps.com on Friday morning, Jan. 27. That evening five inches of snow had fallen on most of Emmit County and on Saturday Mother Nature added two more. There is good Nordic skiing from Gaylord through most of the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. For an update snow conditions report contact the Petoskey Visitors Bureau (800-845-2828; www.petoskeyarea.com) or the Gaylord Tourism Bureau (800-345-8621; www.gaylordmichigan.net).

By Jim DuFresne

When I left on my journey to find snow in northern Michigan, there was none around my house in Oakland County. Brown grass and fallen leaves were covering the ground.

Jim DuFresne

It’s been horrible year for cross-country skiers in Southeast Michigan. At Independence Oaks County Park, my home trails, we’ve had exactly one day skiing when three inches had fallen the night before. Not enough for the park staff to groom and barely enough for some diehards to show up with their rock skis and take a loop around Crooked Lake.

So last week I jumped on I-75 and headed north and saw nothing for the first 100 miles. Then at Mile 191, there it was, in the woods, small patches and mounds of white.

Snow, it’s what allows some of us to endure everything else about winter.

By the time I passed West Branch the ground was white, at Grayling there was four to five inches and at Harbor Springs, my base of operation for the next five days, almost foot in most places. But a thunderstorm (you read that right; a thunderstorm with lightening and heavy rain) had occurred two days before I arrived and the snow was hard and icy.

The first trail on my list was more ice than snow so I ditched the Nordic skis and stepped into my snowshoes. The second was further north in Emmet County and further inland but the snow was still hard and crusty and the skiing was laborious. On the downhills I was taking my life into my hands, on the climbs I had work at my herringbone to dig the edges of my skis into the crust.

A cross-country skier on the beach at Petoskey State Park.

I was ready to call it a day when suddenly the sun appeared and on impulse I pulled into Petoskey State Park.  The park has such a limited trail system that in the winter it’s where the locals go for a quick ski. Everybody else who has driven this far north searches for something more extensive.

This year the staff has set up a 1.4-mile loop, a ski trail that winds through the closed campgrounds, into the woods and then back along the unplowed park road. The trail is used enough that there is usually a decent set of tracks for classic skiing.

In the time it took me to park at the trailhead and step into my skis, the sun had already softened out the snow. I marveled how fast conditions can change in the winter and then glided into the woods on tracks that required only a few strategic kicks to keep the momentum up. Under a blue sky and with large pines whisking pass me, I found that Nordic rhythm that makes cross-country skiing such wonderful activity.

 It was my first ski of the season and like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it never gets better than this. Even if you are only in Petoskey State Park.

When the trail entered Tanner Creek Campground at the south end of the park there were tracks everywhere. To add additional mileage some skiers where heading east into the dunes for more challenging elevation. Most headed west to check out Little Traverse Bay.

I headed west and skied between tuffs of brown beach grass along the low fore dunes. On a rounded, white mound that are the dunes in winter I stopped to take in the view; Little Traverse Bay with a shoreline of jumbled ice formations that were slowly taking on the pinks of January’s early sunsets. As far as I could see nobody else was around.

It was quintessential northern Michigan. Without snow spring can’t come fast enough. With it, summer and those humid days in July can wait.

            *                         *                    *

 In every room at the Best Western of Harbor Springs there is a sign asking skiers “to please use caution with boots, skis and poles.” No doubt about it, this motel knows its clientele in the winter and caters to them shamelessly.

If you’re looking for a place to stay in Petoskey area, this Best Western (231-347-9050) is an excellent choice. The rooms are large, the breakfast will provide enough carbs to keep you going all day, there’s an indoor swimming pool and, more important, a hot tub.

 The Best Western is located on M-119 just south of Harbor Springs, making its location ideal for both the downhill areas and major ski trails. I highly recommend it.

Editor’s Note: This blog entry by Jim DuFresne was suppose to appear  just before Christmas but technical difficulties prevented us from posting it until now.

By Jim DuFresne

Jim DuFresne

This is the time of the year when we often pause to reflect, remember and give thanks. Despite these tough economic times, at MichiganTrailMaps.com we have much to be thankful for.

Conceived in 2009 and launched in 2010, this small publishing company and web site had its best year so far in 2011. We ushered in our first book, the fourth edition of Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, signed up our first two sponsors, laid the foundation for an e-commerce shop and our first commercial map, both which should occur in 2012.

And along the way we managed to research, map and upload almost 140 trails on the web site. That’s a lot of afternoons spent in the woods and for that we are eternally grateful.

But the more we thought about it the more we realized it’s the trails themselves and the organizations and agencies that plan, build and maintain them that we are particularly thankful for. Groups like the North Country Trail Association, the Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Top of Michigan Trails Council, all the nature conservancies around the state that work tirelessly to preserve a small tract of woods and build a trail across it so we can enjoy the natural setting.

As a way of showing our appreciation, we decided to start an annual tradition of selecting one group at the end of the year and giving something back to them. This week we sent a check to TART Trails.

It wasn’t large – we’re young, we don’t have much to spare – but we sent what we could because this group has done so much for trail users in the Grand Traverse Area.

The TART Trail in Traverse City.

Formed in 1998 when four local groups merged to create a stronger voice for recreation trails in northwest Michigan, TART has almost single handily turned Traverse City into Trail Town.

They currently oversee six multi-use trails in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties that total 55 miles of trails and are used by 200,000 people annually. The heart of their system is Tart Trail, a 10.5-mile paved path that begins in Acme, heads west through the heart of downtown Traverse City and ends at the M-22/M-72 intersection. The year the popular trail celebrated its 20^th anniversary.

Where Tart Trail ends their Leelanau Trail begins and heads north 15.5 miles to Sutton’s Bay.  On the edge of Traverse City in the Pere Marquette State Forest is the Vasa Pathway, a series of loops ranging from 3 kilometers to 25 kilometers that TART grooms for cross country skiers in the winter and maintains for runners, hikers and mountain bikers the rest of the year.

Among the projects the organization is focused on is the complete paving of the Leelanau Trail, the construction of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that someday will  extend from 27 miles from the northern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to south of Empire and linking the village of Elk Rapids to the Tart Trail in Acme.

That’s a lot of trail work. They could use our help.

If you bike, hike, jog or ski in this beautiful corner of Michigan, you can help by sending them a donation. Even if it’s a small one, they’ll gratefully accept it now or any time of the year and will put the money to the best possible use.

Building a trail somewhere.