New Years:
We left on 12/31 for our winter vacation up to the UP of Michigan. We were able to spend New Year’s Eve with Mike’s friend Mark. We had a great time chatting and drinking some awesome brew generously shared by Mark’s friend “The Brewer”. On New Years’ Day we set off on our 8 hour drive to Christmas, MI for a few days of awesome winter wonderland. We arrived and checked into White Pine Lodge in Christmas. The woman behind the desk told us we could have no unauthorized pets, so we promised to keep our zebra in the truck. Oddly enough, an unauthorized zebra is not even original. She said she’d heard that one before. She asked if we planned on visiting the casino, and we said “only if they have good food.” She said “yeah, its good” so unenthusiastically I personally was afraid we’d end up with food poisoning if we just looked at the place! I asked about the place “Foggy’s” across the street and she beamed about how great their food was. Lucky for Mike, Foggy’s had amazing 16 oz cuts of steak fresh from a farmer in Wisconsin. Lucky for ME, Foggy’s also had an open grill so you could cook your own food. This meant that I would have delicious steaks because Mike would do the grilling. Weeeeee! What could be better!? This first set of pictures are from our drive up.
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- As we crossed the Mackinac Bridge, we realized we had a camera. This is frozen Lake Huron, on our return trip across the bridge, the ice had become much thicker.
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- This was taken in the UP as we passed along the north end of Lake Michigan.
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- Stopped along the highway at the North shore of Lake Michigan. No water here, just ice and snow.
Day one of snowmobiling – 1/2/14:
We grabbed our snowmobiles, a camera, a map, absolutely NO survival gear whatsoever (because we are dumb) not even a compass, and headed out on the trails. Our goal was to make it to the ice cave. It was supposed to be only a few miles west, but our directions had us go east to get there. Basically, we took the longest route possible! Included was a stop in the middle of nowhere trying to determine which direction was which. I actually have a really good internal sense of direction, but rarely do I trust it. At this moment we needed gas, and couldn’t afford a 6 mile mistake of direction either! Why didn’t we bring a compass? Or some food? Maybe some water? — well that would have frozen anyway. We chose correctly, found gas and finally made it to the cave and had a mile to hike in. The “trail” from the parking area to the woods was horrible, it was nothing more than a field that had crazy wind blowing snow and ice in our face while we post-holed across. Once we hit the woods though, the trail was compacted well, easy to follow and not windy at all. Some scampering and butt-sledding required but it was a fun trip in. The ice cave is not a “true” ice cave, in that it isn’t a cave during the summer. The location is more of a rock overhang that seeping water turns into an ice cave during the winter. Very cool indeed. We hung out a while and took some pictures before hiking back. Because we’d taken the long route, we knew we were going to have to snowmobile in the dark, but I wanted to get as close to “home” as possible before dark. Pictures from Day 1 Snowmobiling:
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- Michelle was having WAY too much fun.
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- Apparently Mike thought I would run over him with a snowmobile. I’m not sure he was incorrect, I mean I was a crazy-driver.
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- You can’t see the rooster tail Mike left as he flew by me, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Camera was cold and taking slow photos so all the snow fell. 🙁 I believe it was about 3 degrees this first day of sledding.
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- I think Mike is realizing that the longer he stays here, the more likely one of these icicles is going to break off and fall on his head. Be afraid, be very afraid!
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- A view looking up at some of the smaller icicles.
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- Begged someone to take a few photos of us. We were standing on some slick ice. If you just shifted your weight a little, you might fall. see next photo….
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- Mike shifted his weight…. There he went falling into the abyss. You can see I was really concerned. Laughing and it seems rather than reach out to help, I’m motioning, “what the hell, don’t grab my FACE!!”
Day two of snowmobiling – 1/3/14:
We got up early on Day 2 and decided maybe some basic things should go with us. A compass, a rocket stove and container for melting snow if necessary, some snacks, and a few other little things got strapped to the back of the snowmobile. This time we headed out in the opposite direction to try and get to Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior. From the map it looked like we’d find some cool views of sandstone as well as maybe find a frozen waterfall. By now we had figured out that one of the trails was like a secret snowmobile highway allowing you to get from city to city really really quickly. 50 mph was about average speed for us, and getting to Pictured Rocks was really fast. We rode out to the Miners Castle viewing area, and then down to Miners Falls where there were plenty of stairs to butt-sled down. While looking out over Lake Superior I joked about not seeing any polar bears out on the ice. Mike told me they were hanging out with the “Grissle Bears” and wouldn’t be back until “FurBerry”. Not sure why, but Grissle Bears and Furberry was hilarious. On the hike back we saw some bald “ergles” that flew by too. We took a new trail into Munising and had dinner in town. After dinner the wind and snow started to really pick up and we headed back to the Lodge. It was such a great and fun twisty trail into Christmas, that we turned around and did it again just for some fun night-riding before returning the sleds and turning in for the night. Pictures from Day 2 Snowmobiling:
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- This frozen river was on the way to Pictured Rocks. We hadn’t seen a single other snowmobile on the trail that morning until we stopped to walk across this narrow bridge for some photos. Suddenly the trail became a freaking highway and we were nothing but in the way. Must have seen 15 other sleds go by. Crazy.
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- Cool view of the ice forming at Pictured Rocks. If you were willing to take off enough hat type coverings and listen carefully you could hear the ice clinking together from the wind and current pushing it around. It sounded exactly like ice cubes in a soda glass.
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- I was cold. That is all.
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- On our hike to the Miners/Pictured Rocks area, there were more than a few sets of stairs that… well… why would you HIKE down them?
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- We hiked about a half a mile down to see this frozen waterfall. It is much larger than you can tell here, but this photo shows the two contrasting colors of the frozen water very well.
AWESOME pictures!!! I haven’t had a chance to read the story line yet – but I love what I see so far. Thank YOU for posting.
🙂
Becky, Thank YOU for the camera! These pictures would be non-existent if it weren’t for you. <3