6 Days of Skiing

This week Erika and I took a few days vacation and headed North in search of better snow and good skiing. It takes a special kind of sick individual to head north in March for vacation but that's just how we are. The snow around Grand Rapids is gone and what is left to ski on at Cannonsburg is slush and ice. With the rain we have now I would imagine the ski season in South West Michigan will come to an end this weekend.

We loaded the car Tuesday morning and made the 6.5-hour trip to Marquette. We had a beautiful day for driving and the sun was out the entire way. The trip actually went by fairly quickly and was pretty enjoyable. We pulled into Marquette and I wanted to take Erika out to Presque Isle Park before we checked into the hotel room and then went skiing. Unfortunately only part of the park was open and you couldn't get out to the lakeshore unless you hiked the 2-mile snow covered road around the island. We didn't have time for that as there was skiing to be had so we drove around the park the best we could. As we drove down the street we looked into the woods and found a TON of deer. 

They looked like there were very well fed, despite the signs all over that say don't feed the deer. These deer weren't even afraid of the car and let

 us take picture after picture. They just looked at us with as much amusement as we had looking at them. 

We took a few more pictures and then headed up to the Super 8 Motel to check in. We got the rooms for a cheap rate so we figured it would be kind of a dumpy place. We were surprised when we got there and noticed it was well kept and even had a pool, hot tub, and sauna. 

We  changed into our ski gear and drove the 3 minutes down the road to Marquette Mountain Ski area. Unlike most ski areas in Mi, Marquette Mountain is actually a Mountain. Granted, it's pretty small but there are some beautiful rock outcroppings around the hill and there are beautiful views of Lake Superior. We headed to their patrol room and checked in with the hill leader and showed him our credentials as patrollers. All of the patrollers there were so nice and welcomed us with open arms. They gave us a radio incase we had to call in any accidents and they told us to go out and have fun. We skied for about 4 hours on Tuesday evening and had a blast. There was some good steep terrain and some nice long runs too. The snow was beautiful packed powder and had no ice at all in it. Just what we were looking for.
We left about 9:00p.m. in search of some dinner. Apparently all the good local food places in Marquette close at 9:00 so we settled for Wendys instead. Then we went back to the hotel and soaked in the hot tub for a while and went to bed. After the drive and skiing for a few hours we were both pretty beat.

Wednesday morning we woke up and got ready for skiing. We were at the mountain and skiing by 10:30. It wasn't as sunny as the day before but still a great day for skiing. We met up with another patroller and skied with him for a few runs, again everyone was so nice and welcomed us to their mountain. It was really cool. We skied until lunch and then went down to the patrol room and ate with a few of the other patrollers. Then it was back to the slopes.

Marquette Mountain has this great little area called "The Back Door" on top of the mountain. It is located down a trail back in the middle of some woods that have been cleared away. The Back Door is an adult’s tree fort that is sweet. The area was made by the locals and each summer they haul wood to the top of the mountain and stack it for the winter. But they don't just stack it in piles; instead they make a sweet wintertime picnic area and shelter out of all the stacked wood. The Back door is complete with a ladies restroom, gentleman’s rest room ( or area with a lot of yellow snow) a wall of wood to block the cold north wind coming off the lake, a room made of stacked wood for days it's really cold, a fire pit with grill and cooking utensils, chairs for around the fire, two pantries to store food and condiments, and hundreds of old skis used as fencing around the area. It is really a neat place and a skier’s paradise. We stopped into The Back Door twice during our trip and had some good conversation with some local yoopers. They too were very nice and offered us food they had cooked over the fire. We spent the rest of the afternoon skiing until about 6:00p.m. Then we said goodbye to our new patroller friends and headed into town for dinner at The Border Grille, a fantastic little Mexican restaurant.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up so we could head to the casino. I wasn't a big fan of the idea of wasting my money but Erika wanted to go so we did. Once we got there we started playing some of the slot machines. I quickly blew through $10 of the $30 I planned on gambling with and was getting discouraged. I found an old time slot machine that actually had the crank handle instead of all the electronic buttons and had a seat there. I put in $3.00 and tried my luck. After a few minutes I was down to about $.75 left when after pulling the lever the machine started dinging and making some sweet noises. Turns out I won $120! Sweet. We played for a bit longer and ran out of luck and money so we left with $120 cash in hand. A little more and we would have almost completely paid for the trip.

We left the casino and headed back to the hotel. My legs were sore from skiing all day so I jumped in the hot tub while Erika read a book for a bit. We didn't really want to head back to GR in the morning but with the hotel and the cost of boarding the dog was getting more expensive than we wanted. We left early Thursday morning and made the trip back home. We stopped in Mackinaw City for some photos, fudge, and pasties. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long in Mackinaw City, as we needed to get back to the kennel by 6:00p.m. to pick up Porter. We pulled into the kennel at exactly 6 and took our tired little puppy back home. It was his first time being at a kennel but he did great. I'm not sure if he didn't sleep well or if he was playing too much, but he was asleep on Erika's lap in the front seat of the care within 5 minutes of leaving the kennel.

All in all we had a great trip. For me it completed 6 straight day of skiing and gave us one last shot at good snow before we get into our marginal spring skiing conditions. I wish we could have stayed longer but we got to see some beautiful scenery and met some really nice people. Marquette is a long ways away but both Erika and I agreed we wouldn't mind moving to this little northern Michigan paradise if the opportunity ever came up.