Topic

Into a land of rock and ice


Forum Posting

A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!

Home Forums Campfire Member Trip Reports Into a land of rock and ice

  • This topic is empty.
Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #1299204
    Ike Jutkowitz
    BPL Member

    @ike

    Locale: Central Michigan

    I’ve never been one to let the weather dictate my activities. Changing weather patterns are an immutable fact in wilderness travel and, as such, acceptance is generally a better strategy than cursing, fighting, or running from them. I guess that’s why I found myself back in the slop again this weekend, an amalgamation of sleet, snow, and freezing rain. “A wintery mix”, the meteorologists had forecasted, as if it were some delightful blend of the best the season had to offer. Skiing conditions had been glorious earlier in the day, with deep untrammelled powder, but now things were deteriorating rapidly. As I plowed through the heavy, wet oatmeal snow, it clung tenaciously to skis and poles, slowing progress as I pushed towards my chosen campsite for the night.

    Miraculously, my wife had given me a weekend pass even though I had been out in Ontario for 4 days last week and would be travelling for work next week. I was only in hock for a week of bedtimes with the girls (we usually alternate) and a night out for my wife. Fair enough. I had made the nocturnal drive to Pictured Rocks, arriving not too long past sunrise to give myself a full day for trekking. I parked on the snowy Chapel Road, skied in to the trailhead, and took off on the Mosquito Falls trail.

    ski
    Ski conditions were perfect at first, with about two feet of fresh powder snow on the ground. I initially followed in the path of a lone skier until her tracks veered off onto the Chapel River trail, leaving me to break tracks through miles of beautifully untouched snow. I marveled that I should be the only one to have travelled this route in recent days, but I didn’t have to wonder for long. As I approached the Falls, the route became twisted and narrow, with numerous steep ups and downs. I was just in my baselayer and windshirt at this point, but between the exertion and a few falls in deep snow, I was starting to get pretty damp. I tried not to be too disappointed when I reached the sign marked Mosquito Falls. After all of that effort, the river was completely frozen over with not much to look at but some pretty blue ice.

    falls2
    Continuing upriver, I came to the main falls, a little better but not much. I crossed the river above the falls and soon lost the trail in the deep snow. After wasting precious time trying to relocate it, I ultimately decided to cut cross-country in a west-northwest direction until I hit the cliffs. Crossing a frozen creek, I intercepted the remnants of an overgrown logging road heading in the right general direction and life was suddenly good. I was coasting downhill through perfect snow with wide sweeping turns and loving the ride. The logging road eventually connected with the Mosquito Falls trail and soon I was at Mosquito Beach.

    shelf
    I was thrilled to see that an ice shelf had finally moved in. I’m not ashamed to admit that I am something of an ice junkie, and I had been hitting the Superior shoreline as frequently as possible since winter had first set in, hoping to get my fix.

    volcano
    Checking out a huge ice volcano, formed as a result of powerful waves that undercut the ice and force water up through the crust.

    formation
    Ice formation at the shelf’s edge

    rocks
    Rock and ice

    cliffs
    Ice covered cliffs northeast of Mosquito Beach

    forest
    Entering the petrified forest past Lover’s Leap, created by spray from waves battering the cliffside

    tortured
    Looking out over the tortured landscape

    twisted

    stunted
    Trees stunted and twisted by years of long winters

    icy
    An icy portal

    rainbow
    Caves beneath the Rainbow Ice

    pancake
    Pancake ice on Lake Superior. These are formed as random collisions and compression by the waves pile ice and slush onto the rims.

    bb
    Obsidian ice cliffs

    indian2
    A trail of pancake ice leads to Indian Head

    140

    tree
    A study in perseverance

    gpp
    Atop Grand Portal Point

    singing
    Singing in the Rain, a yellow ice formation resulting from minerals in the sandstone

    tarp
    The morning’s navigational challenges and the afternoon’s sloppy weather conditions prevented me from covering as much ground as I had hoped. Still, as the rain intensified, I was all too happy to make camp for the night, huddling snugly under my tarp as I waited for the hot dinner and drink that would soon be ready.

    whitehouse
    Post trip thoughts: I much prefer exploring new places over returning to familiar haunts, but Pictured Rocks holds a special place in my heart. While it would have been easy to sit this one out given the expectation of “bad weather”, one could argue that these same conditions contributed to a trip that was fresh and new precisely because of the weather and the changes that it wrought. The route I followed on this trip overlapped significantly with one that I took just a few weeks ago, so I’ll let you be the judge.


    Some other trip reports by Ike Jutkowitz

    http://tinyurl.com/Coastal-Trail-in-Winter
    Lake Superior Provincial Park, January 2013

    http://tinyurl.com/Anatomy-of-a-24
    Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, January 2013

    http://tinyurl.com/North-Country-Trail
    Porcupine Mountains, Trap Hills, Sturgeon River Gorge, September 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/Negwegon-Pure-Michigan
    Negwegon State Park, September 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/crgb5fh
    Packrafting the Islands of Yakutat Bay, Alaska, August 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/Bike-Hike-Paddle
    A self-propelled exploration of Michigan’s Manistee River, May 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/cl67blp
    Saving Sophie and a Trip Gone Badly, Greyson Highlands, March 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/PR-in-Winter
    Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, February 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/Tahquamenon
    24: Tahquamenon Falls, January 2012

    http://tinyurl.com/Nordhouse
    Nordhouse Dunes: Where the Wild Things Are, December 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/acftwt8
    Failure to Launch: A Misadventure Along the Michigan Shore to Shore Trail
    Huron Manistee National Forest, November 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/bfmt9qn
    From Past to Present on the Northville Placid Trail, October 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/Situk-Lake
    Tongass National Forest, Alaska. August 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/Shipwreck-Coast
    SUL on the Shipwreck Coast, May 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/ac5dgmp
    Mount Mitchell Masochist’s Trek, Mountains to Sea Trail, March 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/Hoist-Lakes
    Huron Manistee National Forest, February 2011

    http://tinyurl.com/coz8nqo
    Black River and the Porcupine Mountains, North Country Trail, October 2010

    #1953903
    Brendan Swihart
    BPL Member

    @brendans

    Locale: Fruita CO

    Killin it lately Ike! Your pics are looking really, really good.

    #1953921
    Andrew F
    Member

    @andrew-f

    Locale: San Francisco Bay Area

    No cheese spread this time? :)

    There's something special about seeing a familiar place in unfamiliar conditions. Some of the best adventures I've had are in places I had been to many times before when I wasn't expecting to have an adventure at all.

    #1954037
    spelt with a t
    BPL Member

    @spelt

    Locale: Rangeley, ME

    Great pics. I love the ice volcano. First time I've heard of such a thing.

    #1954039
    W I S N E R !
    Spectator

    @xnomanx

    Good stuff Ike. You hike in some very surreal winter land.

    #1954043
    Dan D
    BPL Member

    @txbdan

    Locale: Boston, MA

    Wow, great pics.

    #1954048
    Stephen M
    BPL Member

    @stephen-m

    Locale: Way up North

    Top marks Ike :-)

    #1954092
    David Lutz
    Member

    @davidlutz

    Locale: Bay Area

    Dude, do you ever get tired?

    Do you walk around in your BC boots or bring a change of footwear?

    Can you post a close photo showing how you attach your skis to your pack, please?

    Another awesome trip, thanks for sharing!

    #1954102
    HkNewman
    BPL Member

    @hknewman

    Locale: The West is (still) the Best

    Pretty out of worldly pics. Its the same place but sometimes you get into the groove with that familiar place.Gotta say the campfire and hamburger stand look pretty inviting after all that snow and ice.

    #1954110
    Nico .
    BPL Member

    @nickb

    Locale: Los Padres National Forest

    You're on fire Ike! Another great set of shots from your overnighter.

    It's fun to sometimes go back over the seemingly familiar and give it another look. A change of seasons, the aftermath of a storm, etc; there's so many ways a familiar place can change, sometimes drastically in even a short period. I recall a particularly pretty stretch of creek along a trail I hike a few times each year. I stopped one time and took a nice long exposure shot of the creek winding it's way through a thick stand of alders. A few months later I went back and this same beautiful shaded stretch had been obliterated by a microburst wind storm that blew through and snapped all the trees off halfway up their trunks like toothpicks. It looked more like a war zone rather than a peaceful creekside scene. That stretch will probably never be the same in my lifetime which makes that initial photo now a little more meaningful to me. Anyway, just food for thought.

    I'm liking all the detail shots, especially the pancake ice… looks almost like a bunch of amoeba.

    You've got an otherworldly landscape there in the winter. Looks like a unique place for a trip.

    #1954125
    Leigh Baker
    BPL Member

    @leighb

    Locale: Northeast Texas Pineywoods

    Simply breathtaking Ike,
    Thanks for sharing!

    @ Andrew
    +1 "There's something special about seeing a familiar place in unfamiliar conditions."

    #1954198
    Dondo .
    BPL Member

    @dondo

    Locale: Colorado Rockies

    Great shots, Ike! I especially like the closeup of the pancake ice.

    #1954255
    Ike Jutkowitz
    BPL Member

    @ike

    Locale: Central Michigan

    "Dude, do you ever get tired?"

    Yeah, man. I work a pretty demanding job, and at the end of the day, I still need to be at my best for two little girls who value playtime with their dad. I do all the cooking for the household and most of the cleaning. On weekends, I usually go into work for a couple hours, do the grocery shopping, then take the girls out to a park. Tiring as hell.

    On the other hand, the time I get to spend in the backcountry is a gift. If I ever fail to use that time to its fullest, or worse still had the bad taste to complain about any part of it, I hope someone would have the sense to beat me with a carbon fiber trekking pole.

    "Do you walk around in your BC boots or bring a change of footwear?"

    Depends. I hate boots. If the trip is mostly about skiing, as this one was, I walk in them when circumstances dictate. If I'm just going to be skiing up a snowed in road, hiking a shoreline or trail, and returning via the same route, I'll stash skis and boots and hike in trail runners. I would never carry the boots. For what it's worth, I have the lightest boot in the alpina BC lineup. Not great for downhill control, but more comfy to walk in.

    "Can you post a close photo showing how you attach your skis to your pack, please?"

    No real trick. The HMG compression system provides a very stable platform for skis. I vary the height based on overhead clearance.
    The bindings provide a raised surface for the straps to grip. Hopefully this shows it.

    straps

    Thanks everyone for the feedback.

    #1954263
    Evan McCarthy
    BPL Member

    @evanrussia-2

    Locale: Mid-Atlantic

    I loved the pictures and the trail write-up. It inspires me to spend more time out here on the shore in Latvia and not cry over my beer that there are no mountains around.

    #1954265
    Alex H
    BPL Member

    @abhitt

    Locale: southern appalachians or desert SW

    Beautiful job Ike, there is something about old places seen in a new light.

    #1954305
    David Lutz
    Member

    @davidlutz

    Locale: Bay Area

    Thanks for the response and photo…..I'm gonna play around with attaching skis to my Exos 58 this weekend.

    #1954444
    Tom Clark
    BPL Member

    @tomclark

    Locale: East Coast

    Imposing, beautiful, and stark photos. I particularly liked the color and composition in the added "beefcake shot" of you and the skis…you should blow that up and frame it for yourself.

    Thanks for sharing,
    Tom

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Forum Posting

A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!

Get the Newsletter

Get our free Handbook and Receive our weekly newsletter to see what's new at Backpacking Light!

Gear Research & Discovery Tools


Loading...