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Where do ya go if you want to go big for skiing in SE Michigan? That’s easy! — Stinch!
Stinchfield Woods is a square couple miles of hilly forest accessible from the corner of No. Territorial and Dexter-Pinckney roads. It has the biggest hills in SE Michigan. And it’s shady, so it holds snow better than anywhere else (but our yard).
Four of us met up out there and had a nice, brisk couple hours of skiing. There must be 20 miles of trails there, if you do it all.
The trails run up about a dozen valleys a half mile long. These are big hardwood valleys, with nice views. You don’t get good long ski hills like those elsewhere around here. Best in the region.
Locals have singled out prime snow-holding slopes in a couple of those shady valleys for hot tele action — one is called “Tele Central.” You can see traces of all sorts of fun there. But they don’t seem to have yet tackled the BIGGEST valley…
Most skiers near Lansing haven’t heard of the place. It’s 40 minutes away. It’s the best skiing within 3 hours of here.
It’s the home of the UM Observatory and a large radar dish.
Here’s a link to a ski report that also contains the only online map I can find. It’s pretty good. shows how confusing the area can be!
michigan.sierraclub.org/huron/stinchfieldski.htm
RadNord showed up for the outing by surprising us with a jump-turn tele run down the steepest trail there. We’d been waiting for him then there he was. It was a good show. That’s what skiing is about, right?
He then showed me/us a few new trails as we skied along. I’d skied there dozens of times and still there was something new… That’s always fun.
The only problem is that 2 of us left before having lunch on the trail. That’s the other thing that skiing is about: finding a great sunny piece of trail overlooking a huge valley and laying out a tasty spread.
I s’pose I coulda brought a jacket to sit on, but I did wonder what would be an easy way to make a chair that packed as small as an apple… OK, I shoulda looked for a nice warm log…
Here I am skittering down the Big Hill at Tele Central that RadNord came bumpin’ down awhile later. Photo by Michael “Big Lens” Niemi
Lunch on the trail. Oh yeah! You can’t see the white wine in the water bottle, but it’s there, you betcha.
Here’s a couple of us getting near the top of one of the many valley hills. After several minutes of hard climbing, but lovely gliding, up.
