Wisconsin Skis: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

So far it’s another low snow year for the Madison area and the majority of Wisconsin. Luckily the the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the UP) had received good lake effect snow this year, so I took a trip up north to check out their trails.

First, I went to the Swedetown Trails in Calumet, MI. I have skied here before and knew there is a nice warming building that is staffed by lovely volunteers.

A marker on the trail showed that the base was over a foot deep. The temperature was pretty warm, around 34, and the skate deck was groomed well so I had plenty of glide. I opted to ski mostly flat trails, but also checked out “Ed’s loop” which has some nice intermediate hills. I put in seven miles on my skate skis which was my longest ski in many years. Then I warmed up, while watching families sled down the nearby hill, and put my classic skis and skied a leisurely couple more miles.

The next day was much colder, but I wanted to check out the Michigan Tech Trails in Houghton because I was in the area. The trails must have been groomed early that morning because the skate deck was set up perfectly and it looked like only a couple of skiers were out on the easy loops before me.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on the Tech trails because it was cold, very windy and starting to snow and I was nervous about driving in low visibility conditions (plus my muscles were pretty tired from the day before). The trail system is beautiful and I’ll have to plan a return visit. It is an extensive network of loops and connectors though and at first I was worried about not being able to navigate the system. Now that I’ve skied a bit of it I think I’ll be able to navigate the different loops and markers (though having a PDF of the map helps). The loops I skied also have lights, so it would be fun to ski here at night.

Overall, I had a nice time in the UP. Ate a pastie at Roy’s but also ate a bunch of sweet pastries from Bread Loafer’s Bakery and NISU Bakery both of which I highly recommend.

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p.s. You’re probably thinking “Isn’t this blog about Wisconsin, not Michigan?” and you’re right. But I still don’t totally understand why the UP is part of Michigan. It’s super weird to travel north and have to roll with a time zone change. I may never understand this one.