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All winter long some pals and I planned on going up north to ski the challenging Jordan River Pathway come springtime conditions. It’s usually an ideal time, with a big snow base yet a sunny corn topping, to make the technical hills enjoyable on the long Big Day trail.
Then the snow all melted.
And rain was forecast for our set-aside weekend. We waffled. We hemmed. Hawed.
What to do?
Go anyway!
We loaded up boats, bikes (and skis) and met up for dinner Friday night at Dick’s house in Roscommon. (What a host!)
The other guys had been skiing Jordan for a few years now. This was to be my first. What’s more, the downstate threesome of RadNord, Rosso and Scott had been pals for decades. A neat thing was that they all discovered backcountry fun and tele-skiing by way of the same East Lansing shop that inspired me back in the day! — Kyle Clack’s “Great Lakes Mountain Supply,” circa 1980.
(Digression: That’s when East Lansing really was something. Why quibble? That single block had: in one building…Kyle’s shop, a great bike shop next door (Velocipede Peddler), a great record shop next to that (Flat, Black and Circular — still there!), the Bicycle Co-op in the basement, a magazine and book store (Community Newscenter); next door was/is a great bar (Peanut Barrel), restaurant (Bunches); and on the other side was the Campus Corners II: “Buy or Die” party store cum head shop and Grateful Dead innoculation center. I’m even thinking there was a used bookstore and even a second used record store. And the Bagel Fragel shop. And a wide open alley! I’m even forgetting some shops, for sure. The first cafe in town opened there (Castellani’s). It was hang-out central! It was the LEARNING STATION. Cities and towns need THIS KIND OF THING again or they’re sunk. Franchises DO NOT CUT IT.)
So, Saturday morning found me with a totally plugged up nose–slammed by a cold! …Then we headed out into a cold wind to paddle the Mason Tract of the South Branch of the AuSable River. (Minus our host, who saw sanity in other directions, namely indoors.)
Most of the day had a cold headwind but that just gave us a good Up North feeling. Then the sun came out. Oh yeah!
Saw 3 minks, too!
The Mason Tract is a wild place. (And it’s only a couple hours north of Lansing.)
Because RadNord was our tour director, when we finished paddling it was time to head an hour further north and see if Nub’s still had any snow. …Not that we needed much encouraging. We were ready to push! We figured we could do hike-up tele runs on the man-made stuff if the woods were empty.
And indeed we did!
We put in a half dozen tasty runs on our skinny touring skis after the lifts closed. I never did so much herringboning! But the velvety corn corduroy was worth it!
If you don’t believe me…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MYMjb9EQ3w
Then we went to watch the sunset beyond the top of a lot of stairs at a platform overlook on an old dune in the woods at Petoskey State Park near the beach.
I hadn’t done a trip with these guys before but I liked how they were into the big multimodal days like I also like. But, darn, they hardly ever stop to eat!
I’d called my Petoskey pal David to let him know we were in town and he almost joined us for the (likely shaky) after-hours skiing, but when we’d been relaxing at the overlook a few minutes, I heard some brush crackling and here he came up through the woods from the backside! So David got to meet the downstate gang. What’s more, he then pulled out glasses and shared some Short’s all around. Oh yeah!
The sunset was getting nice but was still cloudy when RadNord had to pull the plug and blast south for home at the end of his big one-day getaway.
I planned to meet up with John and Scott the next day for more fun then went to David’s house near the beach.
When we got there the sun broke through on its final settlement into the Bay. I scampered down to the nearby beach and caught its final blip. Actually, I missed it. It was looking all fat on the horizon and I looked down to hop down a few rocks and when I glanced up it was gone. And so was the rosy glow that had been saturating the shore and town for just the last 10 minutes of the day.
We hit the town for burgers and to meet other local friends.
On Sunday we downstaters met up and paddled the Jordan River. What a delight! It’s a bit like the Sturgeon only it won’t kill you. It’s mellow. The sun baked us all day into a nappy dreamstate. Then we visited the nearby Dead Man’s Hill overlook of the huge Jordan River valley far and wide. It’s like you’ve stepped out of Michigan into the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Then John and Scott headed home.
On Monday I played hooky. Hey, it was my only trip up north this winter and the weather was rocking ever harder in the good direction.
David took me out for a mtbike tour of the Chandler Hills. They’re as big as “hills” can be! …Any bigger and they’d be mountains. We rode the North Country Trail from the north to the south of them. Got lost. In a good way. David showed me 3 separate and vast tree-glade ski areas for the picnic-based hike-up tele crowd. These slopes went up a good half mile, offering varying pitches on either side of their watersheds. I wouldn’t call them ravines because they were bigger and more open than that. They were within a half mile of parking, too. Man, what a day it would make to head out and lay out a picnicky base camp set-up at the bottom of a nexus of, say, 3 of the huge pitches then romp all day.
This is big slope, big picture country — not like the rest of Michigan.
We checked out the headwaters of several river systems. It was neat seeing the water well up out of the hillside and turn into a 10-foot-wide creek in a 100 yards.
5 sunburned hours later we reached our shuttle car and I zoomed off for home.
It was kind of different doing a weekend getaway during such a “shoulder” season time of year where none of the usual activities were in-gear yet. We only saw a couple fishermen the first morning, otherwise nobody was out and about during the whole time.
Actually, I stopped in at an MSU Outing Club meeting on my arrival to town. I’d been wanting to say Hi to them and see if any of them wanted to get outside for local (eastside) fun. I probably looked pretty crazed and windblown!
3 days: AuSable > Nubs > Jordan > Chandler
Oh yeah!
XC ski gang. Why ski at a resort? Coz that’s where the snow was.
The Bear river a few hundred yards down from where it came out of the hillside.
Got lost. Climbed a tree. To see. Saw a field. Got out of the prickers.
These hills go up a LONG way further! Can you say TREE GLADES SKI FUN?
We’ve biked up this watershed a half mile already. We’re magnetically attracted to the top, beyond our view, and don’t mind push-a-bike to get there. We even abandon our marked trail, lured upward…
Lunch break at a streamhead in a hemlock grove. I filled my water bottle.
Our first big view approaching the Chandlers.
Horseflesh at my host’s house.
After you work…
Rosso once saw that a pal always carried a saw in his canoe, so ever since then that’s what he does, too. A good citizen! And a good idea!
Day two on the Jordan.
Quite a sunset after a day of cloud…
Setting out on a cold, windy morning. What nuts! (Rosso, RadNord, Scott with their Verlen boats. My beater in foreground.)
