Michigan: A winter wonderland of snowy fun
MICHIGAN | 200 inches of snow a year in the Upper Peninsula and a slew of al fresco activities throughout the state make this the place for cold-weather fun
Forty-two ski areas, 840 runs, 40 terrain parks and more than 3,000 miles of cross-country trails.
Sound like Colorado? Utah?
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LAKENENLAND SCULPTURE PARK: Fifteen miles east of Marquette, this free sculpture garden is a fun winter destination for families, snowmobiliers and skiers, seven days a week. It's on Highway M28, across from Shot Point Road; www.lakenenland.com, (906) 249-1132.
BOYNE RESORTS: Name a winter activity and chances are you'll find it at Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls, about 5½ hours north of Chicago, and Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs, about an hour further. At Boyne Mountain, you can stay in an Austrian-styled home, hotel or rugged cabin. At Boyne Highlands, you can find a town house or hotel room right on the slopes. Get a full list of winter activities at www.boyne.com/Winter/SnowSports or call (800) 462-6963.
CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN RESORT: Thompsonville, Mich., is home to this first-class winter resort, about five hours from Chicago. It has been ranked the Midwest's No. 1 ski and snowboard resort by Ski magazine and recently debuted its new spa. For $149, the new "pick-a-day season pass" lets skiers and snowboarders select one day, Sunday through Friday, to hit the slopes each week throughout the season; www.crystalmountain.com, (800) 968-7686.
HOUGHTON: Home to Michigan Tech University, whose winter carnival is scheduled for Feb. 4-7. Carnival-goers at the free event can tour ice sculptures, take in a broomball game and watch contestants in the beard-growing competition vie for awards for best beard, goatee and sideburns; www.mtu.edu/carnival, (906) 487-1885. Houghton, the gateway to the Keweenaw Peninsula, is a 7½-hour drive north of Chicago. Several hotels are walking distance from Michigan Tech and the downtown; www.cityofhoughton.com, (906) 482-1700.
MUNISING: Also in the Upper Peninsula, Munising puts on a fantastic ice-climbing event called Ice Fest, Jan. 30-Feb. 1; www.downwindsports.com/ice_fest.html, (906) 482-2500. Headquarters for the event are at Sydney's Restaurant, 400 Cedar St., (906) 387-4067. Stay next door at the Days Inn, where you can grab breakfast before hiking out to the climb and warm up in the hot tub or sauna in the evening; www.daysinnmunising.com, (800) 329-7466. Munising is 7½ hours north of Chicago. December through March is prime time for ice climbers, snowmobilers and skiers; www.munising.org. For snowmobile conditions and maps, visit www.munisingsnow.com/TrailReport.php.
GENERAL MICHIGAN INFO: For information on winter events all over Michigan, visit www.michi gan.org or call a Michigan travel counselor at (800) 644-2489. For a list of hotels, cottages, cabins and B&Bs, go to www.michi gantravel.org.
Try much closer to home: Michigan.
The Wolverine State is full of reasons to bundle up and get out in the snow, which can average more than 200 inches a year in the western Upper Peninsula, a k a Big Snow Country.
You'll find no shortage of traditional winter activities -- sledding, skating, snowboarding, skiing, snowmobiling, snow-shoeing, and ice fishing -- complemented by some quirky events such as frozen fish tosses and the annual outhouse race in Trenary, a 6½-hour drive from Chicago.
I stumbled upon one of Michigan's winter escapades at the unlikely hour of 2 a.m. on a cold, January night. My husband, Mark, and I had been driving through the silent, snowy Northwoods on the way to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a weekend of pristine cross-country skiing.
As we entered Houghton, home to Michigan Tech University, the quiet, frigid air suddenly was pierced by the roaring buzz of chainsaws. Students wielding saws and axes were hard at work under the glare of spotlights set up along Houghton's main street, sculpting enormous, elaborate ice statues on fraternity house lawns. They were gearing up for Michigan Tech's annual Winter Carnival, where students at one of the best engineering schools in the country compete in the month-long construction of ice statues famous for their intricate detail and design. The flurry of construction culminates with a February weekend festival packed with plenty of activities, from ice bowling, curling and a beard-growing competition to a human dog sled race, where six runners pull four riders and a musher.
After visiting Michigan for years, I'm convinced you could spend all winter traveling the state and still miss out on plenty of al fresco fun.
The Upper Peninsula truly is a winter-lover's paradise, with so much snow that virtually every town boasts trails for skiing and snowmobiling, frozen lakes for skating and forests and fields for snowshoeing.
Any trip to the U.P. should include a stop in Marquette, site of the 20th annual U.P. 200 Dog Sled Championship Race this February. The three-day race covers nearly 240 miles, attracting more than 15,000 visitors along the way. The event starts in downtown Marquette on Friday night. While waiting for the mushers to return, you can try your own dog -- or child -- on the smaller sled races.
Ten-year-old Dillon Bennetts of Marquette suggests taking a walk on frozen Lake Superior and exploring the small ice caves that form near the shoreline. Just make sure you're safely attached to a rope if you venture down into the pits.
On your way out of town, Dillon recommends a visit to Lakenenland Sculpture Park, 15 miles east of Marquette. Filled with art built from scrap iron by owner Tom Lakenen, the free park is open seven days a week. Kids can climb the sculptures and tour the park in a canoe pulled by a snowmobile while mom and dad warm up near the huge bonfire.
Ski midweek at Marquette Mountain to save on ski lessons, lift tickets and rental equipment.
In fact, skiing all around Michigan can be a downright bargain. The Michigan Snowsports Industries Association (MSIA) "White Gold Card" lets you ski once at each of 29 ski areas for $189 throughout the 2008-09 season (holiday blackout dates excluded). The program is in its 15th year. It includes one ski or snowboard tune-up at a participating MSIA retailers.
For downhill skiers and snowboarders in the lower half of the state, Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls and Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs offer great downhill and cross-country skiing, snowboarding and tubing, among other winter activities.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Boyne Mountain, which is celebrating with a new, high speed chairlift and better powder thanks to additional fan guns that use less energy to maker higher quality snow. The Boyne Falls resort has added more than seven acres to its glade skiing terrain. When you've had your fill of the slopes, take the kids to the resort's Avalanche Bay, Michigan's largest indoor water park.
The fun can continue later into the evening at nearby Boyne Highlands, where more than two miles of cross-country trails are lit up and night skiing hours have been expanded. The resort's popular moonlight dinners, where guests ride a sleigh to the mountaintop lodge for a gourmet meal, now are offered on Friday and Saturday nights.
For the adventurous athlete in search of a chilly challenge, pack your crampons and harness and head north for Ice Fest. The annual ice climbing festival is held the first weekend of February in Munising, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Join a class or strike out on your own to one of the many climbing areas, where top ropes and belayers await you at frozen waterfalls along Lake Superior. (The really adventurous can haul their four-season tents and camp at a climb.)
Not in the mood to hack into the ice? Give your cross-country skis a workout along the area's groomed trails.
For something more upscale than crampons and ice axes, Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville offers 45 downhill slopes, 40 kilometers of cross-country trails and the newly opened Crystal Spa, one of only six LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) spas in the country. Take a class in telemark skiing, free-heel skiing using cross-country-type skis on downhill slopes.
The last Sunday in February, a few thousand folks head to the U.P. town of Trenary to go to the bathroom. The bathroom races, more precisely. It's when Trenary holds its annual Outhouse Classic, where teams try to be the fastest at pushing some pretty creative porta-potties on skis.
A little weird? You bet.
But that's what makes winter in Michigan so much fun.
Felicia Schneiderhan is a local free-lance writer.