Skijor for psychos

In honor of the triumphant Norwegian Olympic nordic skiers, this afternoon I donned my best red ski clothes and went out skiing. With the poodle. But it was not skijoring.

Now skijor is a Norwegian word, meaning "ski-drive." Basically, some animal pulls you around the ski trail. In Montana, people skijor with horses. In Minnesota and in Norway, people skijor with real dogs. Dog and people are smiling as the husky or malamute or Marmaduke strains ahead and runs like the wind.



I am stuck with the poodle. The willful, paranoid, psycho poodle. Who does not skijor. At least not for long.

This is the same dog who, when out for a walk on the city sidewalk, strains at the leash to the point of suffocating herself just to get out in front. Do not dare to walk in front of her, you will kill her.

Out on regular ski trails that wind through the forest, she's okay. But on the open fields of Lester Park golf course today, there was, in the words of Bob Dylan, "No direction home." What fun to run circles around your owner...and tie him up in the stretchie leash! What fun to stop for a massive dump right in the middle of a downhill run!

Finally we figured out that someone had to ski ahead and challenge her to catch up.



At the top of the Ninth Hole, with a big view down to Lake Superior, we paused to soak in the sun and the scenery. The older son skied away and ahead, almost out of sight but not quite. Chloe watched him go. Then, with the target of a beloved boy in sight, it was time to run. I had the best 20 seconds of my whole winter as dog and I careened down the fairway toward the clubhouse and the lake.

Then she got all crazy again as all four of us people regathered at the clubhouse. Go to Mom? Dad? The baby in the sled? Poop again? Lasso the big guy?

Too much fun. I loved it all.

Goodbye, Moab Man

Over the years, your car becomes you. All those miles driving with friends and family. All those arrivals at trailheads and put-ins. And, of course, the stickers you apply.

Moab Man joined our Honda CRV after a particularly fun road trip three years ago through southeast Utah. It's a very simplified version of a real petroglyph just outside Moab, Utah. We LOVED Moab Man. He was like a family pet, only one you didn't have to feed or walk. He was our freedom and our wanderlust.

Moab Man, and the car he was attached to, went to the junkyard last week.

All four of us were packed into the car and on our way to Ely for the week. A car ran a red light in downtown Duluth and bashed us hard, sending us into oncoming traffic where we got bashed hard again. Air bags went off, it was way too loud and way too scary.



Moab Man made it through the accident without a scratch, unlike me (burns and bruises) or Sally (bruises all over). We also left the Minnesota state park sticker attached to the car.

The car was totaled, and now we're wrestling with the insurance adjusters to replace the vehicle. But there's no replacing Moab Man.

Gooseberry was JAMMIN!

At the cusp of a dark February evening, a North Shore state park is normally a quiet, serene place. But last night, Gooseberry Falls State Park was the absolute center of the universe for North Shore winter enthusiasts. It was the annual candlelight ski event, and the park was abuzz with activity.

This event has grown over the last 10 or 15 years to include more trails and more people and more fun. Dozens of volunteers set out real candles on five kilometers of ski trails. Campfires are lit and tended in remote corners of the park. This year, a Two Harbors High School jazz group filled the Visitor Center with dance-able tunes. There was a HUGE case of BIG cookies. And I was there to sign copies of Skiing the North Shore. It was the grooviest booksigning I've ever done.



The first sign for me that things were crazy was when I pulled into the parking lot...on a dark Saturday night...and could not even find a parking place. It was already overflow parking, like a fall colors weekend in winter's black and white.

Two loops had been lit. The Campground Loop runs right from the Visitor Center and down through the lower part of the park. A 1.6 km loop ran across the highway, across the river and up into the Center Fields area. Despite this winter's marginal lakeshore snow, the Campground Loop was in better shape, with decent ski tracks. The upper loop had been well used by snowshoers and the ski track had been demolished. Apparently, some park staff had told hikers to walk "in between" the ski trails, and that meant hikers were trying to walk on that narrow ridge between the right ski and the left...destroying the track.



I struggle with nighttime photography, especially since I don't use a tripod. I finally caught the light trail of a skier with a headlamp passing the Visitor Center, by resting my camera on a wooden post.

I talked with families from Duluth, a big pack of Rovers from the Twin Cities, and a couple from International Falls who had skied nearly every place I have and still wanted new ideas.

This is a great event and I was really glad to be part of it. Something about the jazz group and the big box of baked goods made the whole thing perfect. See you there next year!

Stopped at the gates of heaven

What does it take to enter heaven? Would a bag of M&Ms make the difference, if offered at just the right time?

When you stand by the pearly gates of heaven and St. Peter decides your fate, does he check out your posse too? When you want to head out onto the big back loops of Sugarbush, should you be stopped by the beginners you're skiing with?

I took my sister's family cross country skiing this weekend at the North Shore's famous Sugarbush trail system. Helen had skied a lot in high school but her urban art and architecture career has kept her off the ski trails. None of her boys (husband and two preteens) had ever XC skied.



The Sugarbush trails at Britton Peak start with three perfect beginner loops. From the last of these, Piece of Cake, some of my most favorite ski trails take off. But before we even got to Piece of Cake, the younger cousin had demonstrated his love for falling in the bottomless snow enough times to tire even himself out.

The Homestead Loop starts with the big bomber downhill of Bridge Loop. That's where our group stopped. My oldest son skied to the lip of the big hill to check it out. I had a BIG bag of M&Ms at the ready.



I chatted and schemed a bit. I had a bag of candy for rewards or bribes. Maybe the better skiers could just take the first bit of Bridge Loop around and catch up with the crowd on the way back. The cousins were ready to turn the corner, stay on the easy trails and loop back to the car. I was ready to go go go.

In the end, we all stuck together. I stood at the gates of heaven and I turned away.

They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But what if you had the chance to love again, to ski that trail one more time...but cannot? Is that better?

Of course it is better...we were out on a gorgeous day on a great ski trail. We had a great time. The Sugarbush trails worked their magic.

But next time I stand at the gates of heaven, I'm going straight through them. Maybe St. Peter would like some M&Ms.

North Shore snow forecast, emphasis added

..SIGNIFICANT LAKE EFFECT SNOW POTENTIAL CONTINUES ALONG NORTH SHORE...MAY REACH TWIN PORTS TONIGHT...

..WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TUESDAY...

* POTENTIAL FOR MORE SIGNIFICANT SNOW THIS EVENING IF LAKE EFFECT SNOW DEVELOPS. A WINTER STORM WARNING MAY BE REQUIRED.

* LIGHT SNOW WILL CONTINUE WITH 1 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW BY AFTERNOON. WINDS ARE THEN EXPECTED TO BECOME MORE EAST TO NORTHEAST THIS EVENING. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT HEAVIER LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS MAY PUSH INTO THE TWIN PORTS LATER THIS EVENING. ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE HIGHEST ALONG THE ELEVATED TERRAIN NEAR LAKE SUPERIOR.

Cascade: The Bridge is Back

As Elton John sang:
"The Bridge, the Bridge, oh the Bridge is back
Stone cold sober as a matter of fact."

If you're planning to hike up the North Shore...

If you want to reach Lookout Mountain...

If you're staying at Cascade Lodge...

You'll be glad to know that the footbridge over the Cascade River has re-opened. During the late October windstorm, a huge tree came down on the bridge and broke most of the railings at the est end.



Now you can hike the Cascade River Loop. Once again, if you're camped at Cascade River State Park campground, you can venture across the deep gorge of the river for a hot meal at Cascade Lodge.

THANK YOU to whomever stepped up and, in a time of state budget cutbacks, found the time and funding to fix this important link.

It's FREEZING here!

It's February on the North Shore. While all the other lakes in Minnesota froze over in December, big deep Lake Superior had stayed open. For one below-zero morning after another, sea smoke rose from the open water.



In the last few days, winter cold finally has the lake in its grasp. What was open water two days ago off Duluth is now a vast field of ice. The satellite maps are showing a ring of ice 20 miles wide around the entire coast.

The good news is, the ice is beautiful. A few more cold days, and ice anglers will take the first tentative steps out, followed by skiers and skaters.

The bad news is, this will cut off lake-effect snow on both the south and north shores. No open water means no evaporation, and no evaporation means no piles of yummy snow.

This morning, the vast ice sheet was not quite frozen in place. Waves from somewhere far away were still moving the ice and grinding it quite slowly against the shore.

But it was freezing.

Even the poodle, normally frenetic when she's offleash on the beach, froze for a moment:



It gives me a kick to see how big deep Lake Superior fights off the freeze for all those months. But nature eventually wins, and the lake begins to freeze.

The deer have come down...early

When the snow on the North Shore ridges is deep and the snow right by the lakeshore is thin, deer move to the lakeshore to feed. It's normally in March that the deer really move to the lakeshore, when early spring sun has melted the snow off the south-facing slopes.

The great deer slaughter on the North Shore has already begun. With the weird rain/snow blends we've had, the snow inland is as deep as ever and the snow by the lake is almost absent. The deer have come down. Early.

Yesterday there were at least five fresh carcasses between Duluth and Grand Marais.

Personally, I don't mind the loss of deer. There are too many deer on the North Shore and not enough white pine or cedar trees. I'd rather have way fewer deer, so that the pine and cedar trees can grow again.

I just worry about the cars and their drivers...including myself!

Be careful out there!

Come chat with me!

Party time, Ski People!

That's a rough translation of "Volks Ski Fest," the name of the annual event celebrating Cook County's great North Shore ski trails.

At last year's Volks Ski Fest, I had one learning experience after another after another. I learned about discretion, valor, family dynamics, and a certain surly stretch of ski trail.

Volks Ski Fest got underway again last weekend, in the middle of the rain and snow. Fortunately, the storm left Cook County with more snow than rain and the trails have been groomed into great shape.

I'm doing two programs this Saturday, January 30th.

From 1:00-3:00, I'll be at the Lake Superior Trading Post in Grand Marais, signing copies of Skiing the North Shore and Camping the North Shore and swapping tales of great cross country ski adventures. I've met some great folks at the Trading Post, and owner Eric Humphreys is a tireless advocate for North Shore adventures.


From 6:00 to 7:00, I'll be at Lutsen Resort doing a Fireside Chat about...you guessed it...Skiing the North Shore. This is an informal gathering in Lutsen's great homey lobby, where we'll sink into big chairs near the fireplace and share tales about nearby ski trails.

Please PLEASE come to one...or both!...of these events. As much as I enjoy researching and writing these guidebooks, I enjoy even more talking with other skiers and hikers and campers and North Shore aficionados.

After all, it's party time, ski people!

17 (chicky) reasons to Cross Country ski

This list is from the website for Athleta, a mail-order company that specializes in groovy outdoor/exercise clothes for women. I see my lovely active wife on every page of the catalog, romping outdoors, off at yoga class, and it was she that sent me this link.

Enjoy...and get inspired to get out there. The snow is back on the North Shore and the skiing is great from Duluth to Grand Marais and beyond.

1. Cross Country skiing is the best FULL BODY workout — arms, legs, core, heart!
2. XC skiing is low impact on your body. If you have joint pains or injuries, Nordic Skiing is body-friendly.
3. No lift lines!
4. You won’t get cold on the chairlift ride up.
5. It’s way more affordable than downhill skiing.
6. At certain trailheads you can even take your dog.
7. It’s peaceful and allows for an opportunity for stress relief and/or self-reflection.
8. It can be fast-paced and daring if you want it to (steep hills with big turns on skinny skis and no metal edges!!!).
9. Spandex while skiing is fun (but also highly optional).
10. Skiing in fresh tracks feels like cutting through silk.
11. It’s a great family sport for all ages.
12. There are many places to do it – established areas with groomed trails, a neighborhood park, or a Forest Service trailhead.
13. There are two totally different techniques to choose from – skate or classic.
14. Cross Country skiing is aerobic (it will work your heart!) but it will also work your muscles!
15. You can ski and pull a small child in a Chariot (the skiing equivalent of a jogging stroller).
16. You will have earned your glass of red wine and cheese at the end of the day!
17. XC skiing is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint.

Planning to ski the shore? Connections are down

Thanks to a broken steampipe in Duluth, long-distance telephone and internet service has been out most of today on the North Shore.

Funny, I noticed just last week that's not the only connection that's missing.

Here's what used to be the ski trail from Oberg Mountain east to Lutsen. Deadfalls cross the trail and raspberry canes have filled it in.



Here's the trail connecting Lutsen Sea Villas with the rest of the North Shore Mountains XC system. Actual trees are growing where skiers once glided back down to the Sea Villas swimming pool.



In both the ski trails and the communications cabling, lack of ongoing maintenance has led to the loss of connections.

The North Shore ski trails were once a interconnected network of 200 kilometers of trails. Lately, major hubs like the Sugarbush trails and the Cascade trails have been very well taken care of by community groups and resort owners. But the interconnections have broken down. Who grooms the Lutsen connector trails?

If you're planning a North Shore ski trip and hoping for a big point-to-point adventure from say Tofte to Lutsen, inquire before heading out. Those connector trails may not be groomed or even cleared.

If you want to make a phone call...well, those connections should be fixed a lot sooner than the ski trails.

Zoetrope Mountains

Yesterday, I skied through a 19th-century optical illusion. Skiing the 1800s? No wonder I couldn't get my wax to work.

A zoetrope is a spinning barrel, invented in the 1830s, with slits in the side and a series of "moving" images inside. By spinning the wheel you see the images appear to move and become real.

That's exactly the sensation I get when I'm skiing through the maple ridgelines of the North Shore, and distant ridges appear through the trees. If you stop and look, you can't ever pick out the whole mountain. Ski along, keep looking, and as you move you can see the whole thing.

I skied the Oberg loop, up off the Onion River Road in Tofte, Minnesota. It's part of the Sugarbush trail system. Though I hadn't skied it for years, I think of this 8K loop fondly. The trail heads off the Onion River Road, snaking between Oberg Mountain and Oberg Lake.



I never had a full view of Oberg Mountain itself, just a series of views through the trees. After passing below Oberg, the trail climbs up to a ridgeline that, typical of the North Shore, is blanketed in sugar maples. With the leaves off, the maples couldn't fully hide the distant ridges, and I got tantalizing, incomplete views of Oberg, Moose, Eagle, Leveaux mountains and even distant Carlton Peak.

Of course, it's dangerous to combine seeking the zoetrope views of the mountains with skiing curvy downhill runs. I had to give up my hunt for more peaks as I came down off the ridge, for fear that I'd end up plastered to one of those same maples.

River Season with Bryan Hansel

It's frozen river season on the North Shore. People are snowshoeing the Onion River and exploring other winter cathedrals tucked into the forest just upstream from Highway 61. North Shore river skiing is an extreme sport, especially when there are waterfalls to descend or open water to skirt.

The Devil Track gorge is frustratingly inaccessible, even invisible in summer. as I discovered hiking it this spring.



I am so glad there are people like Bryan Hansel (above) and Ilena Berg, who can not only head up beautiful North Shore canyons in winter but can post photos like these to share with those of us stuck in town. Through Bryan's lens, the Devil Track River can be seen for the deep, wild and challenging gorge it is. Check out his pictures and read the labels for a sense of the adventure.

Thanks for sharing the pix, Bryan!

Good Harbor, Good view, GREAT geology

In a land full of amazing geologic stories, this might be the best and most easily understood geology stop on the entire North Shore of Lake Superior. It's right at the big curve that swoops down about five miles west of Grand Marais, with the new Cutface Creek wayside down below.

I'm sort of colorblind. For decades I've driven by this rock face at Good Harbor. Maybe I was distracted by the big view of the Grand Marais harbor just up the lake, but I never EVER noticed how deep and luscious RED the lower layer of rock was. It's a 120-foot thick layer of sandstone, siltstone and shale, turned red, I assume, by the oxides of the billion-year old rock below it (Law of Superposition: look it up).

Driving there earlier this winter, before the big snows, I had to stop. Perhaps the gray overcast sky made the difference, but that red rock was really red.



Stop by yourself sometime. Read the plaque that explains the formation of the red rock and gray rock. This is may be the coolest, easiest geology spot on the entire North Shore.

This is embarrassing

From the DNR's Conservation Officer weekly reports: "CO Matt Miller checked ice anglers, skiers, and snowmobilers during the week. Cold weather hampered the recreational efforts of many. Cross-country skiers continue to log a much higher violation rate than any of the other user groups checked."

Thanks to Sam Cook for pointing this out on his blog.

I'm glad the skiers are out there in the cold, but...

GET YOUR SKI PASSES! THEY ARE THE BEST DEAL AROUND!!

Skiing with Yo Mama

Yo Mama so dumb, she got locked in a grocery store and starved to death.

Yo Mama so slow she can't even catch her own breath.

With all apologies to my own Mama, who is neither dumb, fat, or mean, that's what I tolerated from Noah as we drove to and skied around the ski trails at Boulder Lake this afternoon. The trails, by the way, were lovely, with a few inches of fresh fluffy snow in the woods.



My other son and my wife Sally, knowing how slow and goofy we will be, take off and leave us. Noah starts skiing carefully and end skiing goofy. Impersonations start to roll out. The Yo Mama jokes spout from his imagination and from the Yo Mama gadget on his iGoogle homepage.



I couldn't really do Yo Mama back at Noah, especially since his Mama is fit and smart and was outskiing all three of us guys. So I teased him a bit with a new nickname today: Pokey-man (like the videogame, get it?).

Hey, Noah: Yo Mama so fast she beat you back to the car after skiing nearly twice as far as you.

Faceplant therapy

A few days back, I took a spill on the ski trail at Hartley Field in Duluth. It was a decent faceplant on a totally flat trail. Embarrassing? A little bit, but I was alone out there.

What if THE WHOLE WORLD WAS WATCHING??

Viewing this video from the World Cup race in Duesseldorf was quite therapeutic. Caution: the soundtrack is...well...therapeutic as well.



If I fall in the woods all by myself, no one needs to know. Especially when I was on the flats, so there was no great story to tell about, say, whipping down a huge turn and avoiding the moose.

But when you're on an artificial ski track in the middle of a major European city and there's six other skiers and twice as many cameras beaming you live across the continent...well, that's hard to keep a secret.

When you catch a ski tip and spin out like a rag doll...

When you are on the ground only a few seconds from the starting gate...

May as well let the whole world know.

Camping: Stuff White People Like

This is a great entry from the hilarious, tongue-in-cheek "Stuff White People Like" blog. Enjoy, and join the conversation in the comments!

For example, "In theory camping should be a very inexpensive activity since you are literally sleeping on the ground. But as with everything in white culture, the more simple it appears the more expensive it actually is."

Hanging the midday sun

In a North Shore winter, in early January, the sun is low all day long. At noon today, the Duluth sun was 27 degrees above the horizon. We're ten days past the equinox, but the midday sun hasn't climbed more than a degree.

No, I was not out there at 2 below with a sextant to measure the angle. I looked it up at NOAA's Solar Position Calculator. I was out there at 2 below, but with skis and a camera instead.

I skied the 5K of trail at Hartley Field (that's page 42 in Skiing the North Shore) at midday. Halfway around the Outer Loop, I noticed it had suddenly become dark. I scanned the sky for a cloud, thinking a big dark one must have passed overhead. But it was only blue sky as far as I could see.



Instead, I'd skied alongside a small Duluth ridgeline. Here, at 11:30 AM, the sun had already set for the day and the snow had turned a dusky purple.



The low sun makes for high beauty. As I skied along, camera ready, I kept looking through the trees and snow for shots of sunlight working its magic. Doing this reminded me of a favorite Japanese poem from Steve Van Matre's collection The Earth Speaks:

Experimenting,
I hung the moon
on various branches of the pine.

I imagined the ancient Zen poet doing exactly the same thing as I was doing, using the forest to frame the light, "hanging" the sun like another Christmas tree ornament off in the woods.

Maybe I'm a performance artist after all.

Seen along the trail

It's been a long cold stretch here on the North Shore. Even when the high temp for the day is 3 below, I'm getting out for an hour or so each day, just enough to ski a loop at one of my local favorite XC trails.

After a blizzard that turned to rain and back to snow, you find funny things in the woods.



At the Piedmont Ski Trail, it looked just like someone had been ice-fishing in the middle of a trail junction. The hole was just the right size for a tip-up, right down to the open water and slush. The groomers came through the next day and the icefishing hole was still there. The forest fisherman must have re-augered the hole. Maybe there's a trout that feeds on ski wax shavings.



Still at Piedmont, there's a great sign for the truly lost. If this sign doesn't orient you, what ever would?



Then, at Bagley Nature Area at UMD, the Superior Hiking Trail got a good grooming...by a joyriding snowmobiler. Note the blue paint blazes that mark the SHT all the way up to Canada. Could it be the SHT's first thru-Skidoo?