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Ski Weekend with the Guys - Wilderness St Park
January 2001
Mackinac City - Carp Lake , MI
posted by Smitty3238
Wilderness Ski Weekend With the Guys
This is a story of an ongoing ski weekend I have been going on for the past 24 years. This is a recollection of that very first time I started this annual event. It is all true and I still can't wait to go each and every year!
It all began with a phone call Wednesday night from my brother Randy, asking me if I'd be interested in going skiing up north for the weekend. One of the guys had backed out at the last minute and there was a spare bunk available if I wanted it. We'd be heading up to Wilderness State Park in the top of Michigan's lower peninsula, staying in one of the log cabins there. He said it would be a lot of fun, but pack for the cold weather and bring a good sleeping bag. Sounded like fun to me too, so I said " Sure... count me in."
We talked for awhile and he explained that the cabins are true "wilderness cabins". The one we would be staying at was out in the middle of the woods, about 3 miles from the parking lot, and we'd be back-packing in all our gear. These cabins
are basic, very basic, with no heat, electricity or running water. As long as the hand pump wasn't frozen up... we'd have water. Keeping the woodstove stoked would prevent us from freezing to death he assured me. He would be bringing in a camp stove so I wouldn't need anything like that.
After talking with Randy about all the cool stuff we'd be doing, I got to thinking about what I needed to bring. I've done some camping, and over the years I've managed to accumulate a large collection of camping gear. Lots of good stuff there to choose from. I'm not a back packer by any means, I don't even have a back pack come to think of it. I do have a big knapsack I've used to carry stuff hiking and while on vacation with the kids. That'll have to do.
I've done the cross-country skiing thing for quite some time, so I have plenty of warm clothes and know how to layer them for the best results to ward off winter's cold bite. I had no idea though just how cold old-man-winter was going to make things that weekend.
I went down the basement and pulled out the big box marked "Camping Shit". I started laying things out on the table. My Coleman double-mantle lantern and extra fuel can, a coffee pot and camp cup. 2 flashlights, extra batteries and an ax. My old boy scout knife-fork-and-spoon set. An old aluminum mess-kit from scouts too. Couldn't forget my swiss army knife. Grabbed the sleeping bag and a blanket and added it to the collection. What would I eat off ? Oh wait, never mind I told myself, I have the mess kit. I needed cooking stuff. Picked up a big fork and spoon and a pancake flipper. Next to them I saw the First Aid Kit hiding in a corner of the box. I threw it on the table too, just to be on the safe side.
Next I went upstairs and collected all the clothes I thought I'd need for the weekend. Brought down a huge arm load of flannel shirts, sweaters, turtle necks, jeans, wool socks, gators, gloves, hat and coat and oh yes...ski boots... dumping them all in a seperate pile on the table. I stood back, gazed upon the mountain of stuff before me, and realized there was no way all this stuff was ever going to fit in the "backpack" I had to use. Got to thinking, as I stood there staring at this huge pile of stuff , "hey... I wear most of these clothes skiing. I don't need to pack them in the pack"... a seperate bag of "ski clothes" now began to take shape in my mind.
Well, somehow, I managed to get everything I thought I would need packed into the knapsack, except for my sleeping bag. My seperate "ski clothes bag" (aka... garbage bag) was also on the table. That'll have to do I told myself. I put my skiis and poles on the table, shook my head, turned off the light and went back upstairs. What was I getting myself into I wondered?
I was excited all day Thursday and couldn't wait to get on the road the next morning. I asked my boss for Friday off, and after I told him what I was going to do, he said I must be crazy and have a good time. I seemed to get that same reaction from allot of people that day. No one could quite understand what would possess me to go up north to the middle of the woods, in the cold, to stay in an old drafty log cabin with no heat, and cook off a Coleman cook stove in the dark. I thought of it as an adventure, and couldn't wait to get started!
It was hard for me to sleep that night. I was excited and anxious for my upcoming adventure to begin. Randy was coming by at 3:00 in the afternoon to pick me up. All my gear was ready and waiting by the back door. Had I forgotten anything I wondered? In my head that night, I went over and over the gear list, trying to think of anything I may have over looked. I came up with nothing.
At about 2:30 that afternoon the phone rang and it was Randy telling me he was running just a little late. It would be about an hour before he would be there to pick me up. He asked me to think of a good spot where we could stop for dinner.
2 hours later the van pulled up in my driveway. Randy got out and went around the back to open the doors. He apologized for being so late and said he got stuck at work and couldn't leave early like he was planning. Oh well, its done and you’re here now. He opened up the back of the van and there in the back was a big duffle bag, a backpack, a cook stove and a cooler. Plus a small plastic child’s sled with a rope tied to the front of it. I looked at the sled and laughed to my self thinking "now that's a good idea".
I added my gear and we were off. As we drove away, I commented on the sled to Randy, and he chuckled and said "How do you think we're going to get the beer all the way out to that cabin?" 3 miles pulling a sled full of beer shouldn't be all that difficult I told myself. It’s a 5 hour drive up to the park and we were making pretty good time.
We stopped in Gaylord to pick up whatever food supplies we would need at the grocery store. We had made up a small list of the items we wanted to pick up, thinking this might stop us from getting more than we really needed. It almost worked. The bags of groceries were carried out to the van. The meat, eggs, sausage and milk were put into the cooler, along with a bag of ice. We got back into the van and we were off once again.
We pulled into the parking lot a short time later and started unloading our gear. It was now 10:00 pm. The cold air was a shock from the warmth of inside the van. Snow was slowly drifting down from the sky above.
It was cold, still and oh so quiet. I stopped and looked out at the woods and the darkness before me. The snow crunched beneath our boots as we walked about.
Randy pulled out the sled and laid it down on to the snow. He put the cook stove on the bottom of the sled and placed the big duffle on top. Randy stuffed whatever groceries he could get into the duffle. We placed the cooler next to it and then placed the 24 pack of beer at the very end of the sled. I propped my sleeping bag on the very top of the gear sled. Randy began looking all over the back of the van and I asked him what he was looking for. “The bungies” he replied. He only could find two. “That’ll have to do” he said and began to attach them around the gear, one at the front… the other at the back.
I reached into the van, grabbed our cross-country skis and poles and placed them in the snow bank up at the trail head which was just a short distance from where the van was parked. I tugged on the sled and slid it across to where the skis were stuck into the snow bank. Went back to the van, grabbed my “trashy gear bag” and changed into my ski clothes. We both stayed in the van and looked over the ski trail map we picked up from the ranger station on our way in. Waugoshance cabin was up this trail about 2 and half miles.
We both slung the packs onto our backs and headed off towards the skiis. We stepped onto them and snapped the bindings onto our boots. Randy grabbed on to the rope of the sled and tied it around his waist. We shuffled off into the darkness, the sled skimming along the snow behind us. In a little while our eyes adjusted to the darkness pretty well, which was nice because just then the sled hit a little banked snow and tipped over. I slid backwards on my skis and righted the sled. Randy started to move forward once again. I followed close behind.
I quickened my pace a skied up next to Randy. We both were looking around at the woods on either side of us and enjoyed the quiet and still of the night. After awhile we stopped once more to rest and drink some brandy. We’d been on the trail now for almost an hour. I took out my map and looked to see where we were. There was a smaller branch of a trail off to the left we had not come to yet. It appeared to be about a quarter of the total distance away from Nebo cabin. We looked at each other and decided we better get skiing.
In just a few minutes we were at the little trail we saw on the map that intersected the main trail we were on. That means we still had like 2 miles to go before we would come to our cabin. I was just a little concerned. As we passed the trail I thought to myself I sure hope that map was not drawn to scale! A couple minutes later the sled tipped over once more and we switched who was pulling it. I now pulled that sled behind me and noticed right away the difference in the weight I was trying to pull. With each glide I made with my legs, the sled caused the glide to quickly dissipate. I now know what a “gimpy glide” felt like.
After 10 minutes, I had a good rhythm going when coming up to a curve in the trail, the sled slid sideways and toppled over, spilling the sleeping bag into the snow along side the trail. I took off my skiis and pulled the sled upright, reattached the 2 bungies and slipped the sleeping bag under my arm and trudged off. I was getting tired and cold. I looked down at my watch, which now read 11:25.
As we stopped to rest, and take in a little more Brandy, I was amazed at how well I could see in the darkness of the night. There was no moon to light the way. I looked around and saw the pines and bushes all covered in a fresh layer of new fallen snow. I t was cold out, maybe about 10 degrees, yet I was perfectly comfortable as I pulled the sled. I got to thinking how much easier it would be to ski without the pack on my back or me pulling the sled. I took a long drink from my water bottle. It was ice cold an tasted so good.
We trudged off once again and slowly glided away on our skis. It was not too long before that damn sled tipped over again and I had to stop, shuffle backwards, and get it back right side up. I do think we had too much stuff piled up on top, making the sled top heavy and once it started to lean, it was all over and it would tip to one side and fall over. With every curve in the trail, I slowed down and tried to keep the sled sliding along without tipping. It was slow going.
About an hour later we stopped once more for a water break. I had stopped the brandy thinking it was not the best idea. I pictured the ranger finding us slumped over in a snowdrift along side this trail frozen to death if we didn’t come across our cabin soon. Randy and I both kind of agreed if we didn’t come up on it soon, we’d ditch the sled, turn around and ski back to the car and find a motel room in town for the night.
We skied off on down the trail looking into the woods on both sides of us for a cabin we knew had to be there somewhere. I asked Randy what it looked like and told me he had never been here before, but he was told all the cabins are right off the trails. I reached into my jacket pocket and took out my mag light and shined it off into the woods just ahead of us, after realizing we could very easily pass this place up in the darkness. My light shown upon a little structure off the trail to my left. It was an outhouse. That meant the cabin had to be really close here somewhere, so I flashed my light all around and there in the distance on top of a little hill stood our cabin. Dark as could be. If we would have missed that outhouse, we would have skied right on by.
Randy said “I’m not sure if that’s our cabin Doug?” I looked at my watch and it was now 1:30 in the morning.
I replied, “I don’t care, we’re staying here tonight and I’ll sleep in the stupid floor if I have to. Enough of this skiing in the dark already.” We unclipped our skiis and walked up the little hill towards the cabin. As we got closer, a voice rang out “Is that you Randy?”. There was Ken with his head stuck out the door. “Hell, I blew out the candles in the window back around midnight. I was sure you guys wouldn’t try to ski in here in the middle of the god damn night!” You guys are crazy was his next statement. I kind of agreed with him.
We pulled the sled back up the little hill and unloaded our gear. Ken looked at the cooler, opened it and then saw the bag of ice and just stared laughing out loud. “I can’t believe you 2 guys hauled in a big old bag of ice. Don’t you know it’s winter man?” I guess we could just leave it outside the cabin. It would have stayed plenty cold.
The cabin was warm and cozy. There were 2 big candles on the table Ken had lit which cast a real nice glow over the place. I looked around. The walls were all long round logs and there were 3 big fat logs for the eaves that formed a triangle of a roof.. Two sets of bunks with mattresses, a big wooded table and a counter with shelves beneath it along the left back wall of the cabin. I thought there must be the kitchen. In the back of the cabin was a woodstove with piles of split wood lining the back of the wall to the right of it. I could see half a dozen windows in this cabin, but it was pitch black outside of them. We talked awhile and then turned in for bed. I don’t remember my head hitting the pillow that night.
In the morning the light shown in the windows of the cabin but it was still dark inside. Didn’t know what time it was really but I got up and walked over to the woodstove , opened it up and there was just a hint of glowing embers from the last log that was put in late last night. L reached over and threw in 3 nice logs and watched as the fire began to jump and dance all around them. The sounds of the crackling fire must have awoken Randy and he complained “It isn’t morning already is it? ” I told him I’d get the coffee going. “Can’t do a thing till a guy gets that first cup of coffee” I told myself.
We had breakfast that morning of eggs, sausage, toast and coffee. The propane cook stove worked perfectly. Just like the gas stove at home
I thought, except maybe a little different. We sat around for a long time and drank coffee, telling stories and laughing at our ordeal from the night before. Ken was the first to crack open one of the beers we had dragged in with us. I asked him if he needed any ice?
To be continued… Check back soon.
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