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inanxterra · 7 years

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End of Plowed Road: Winter camping for the New Year!

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about winter, outside of those dreadful family get-togethers with the side of the family you’ve spent the last 12 months avoiding, is cabin fever. There’s nothing on Netflix funny enough and no channel on YouTube catchy enough to feed that desire of exploration that often just sits and grows when the daytimes shorten and the temperatures fall. If you’re like me, you take a bunch of awful tasting Vitamin D gummies in the morning, but still find that even One-A-Day vitamins have a serving size of two if you look at the back of the bottle. Although it’s only been a few months since our last expedition, our tolerance for the rude people of Ann Arbor has reached it’s breaking point. It’s wonderful that many dress their leased Ford Escape up like Rudolph, but at least reindeer have the fucking decency to park on the roof, rather than in the middle of an entrance to a parking lot like these assholes. Wait, maybe I’m the rude one? Regardless, it was time to escape mindless-consumer-copia, to a part of the world that haven’t been told cars are driving themselves nowadays. Michigan’s beautiful upper-peninsula.

The ride up, all 4300 pounds of truck, drove against some intense winds on US-23 that began in Brighton, and lasted even after we crossed the Mackinac Bridge in St. Ignace. The fuel mileage on this truck is already bad. Like less than 15mpg bad, but taking 15mpg and pointing it against 30mph winds for 4 hours, well, I had friends in college that wouldn’t even drink that much.

On the way up, we saw an amazing rig at a gas station fueling up. Picture a lifted Ford E-Van, with some minor exo-skeleton welded around it, an empty roof-rack, a rear spare-tire carrier, ARB-like bumper armor, and a huge tool box in the back. The license plates said Washington, but the rig looked like it was ready to go across the world. We didn’t have a chance to stop the owners for a chat, or take photos, but with a rig like that you could easily live out of it and call the whole world your backyard (ignoring vast portions of ocean of course)!

Another good sign of things to come were the number of trucks hauling snowmobile trailers. Although there are plenty of trails in the lower mitten, the real fun happens in the UP, where portions of the state become accessible to snowmobiles only.

Our plan from the start left us with 3 options for a place to stay once we reached St. Ignace (4.25 hours north of Ann Arbor): Mackinac Straits State Park St. Ignace (just over the Mackinac Bridge) DNR said this was open all year. Bathrooms/Showers?

Little Brevort Lake State Campground Charming town of Brevort DNR said maybe you could get in, even though it’s closed We hate campgrounds

Garnet Lake State Forest Naubinway (an hour west of St. Ignace) Nobody answered when we called for information What happened to the survivors at the summit?

Alternatively, because we are sleeping inside the truck after-all, we just find a spot and claim it as ours.

When we arrived in St. Ignace, we found that the Straits State Park was closed. Little Brevort, for as thrilling as it sounded, might be closed as well, and Garnet Lake was too far away. So we drove around, using our HemaMaps app to look for trails and roads that led to the coast. Sure enough, we found a spot near the Kewadin Casino, that was right on the coast of Lake Huron! It was down a dirt trail that nobody had been on in the last few snows so it appeared, and eventually turned into some deep frozen tracks that we’d need to safely maneuver to get to the point.

Finding the spot isn’t even half the battle though. When the temperatures are at 20 degrees, and the windchill is strong enough to cut even that in half, there’s still a lot of work to do. This was the first time, Maia and I, had ever camped during the winter. Sure, as kids we can each remember staying out in our snowforts well after the sun had set, but this time nobody would have a hot bowl of soup ready for us when we were done playing.

The most important and initial step in this one-night escape would be beer and dinner, in that order. Usually we’d cook, but we had an unshakable taste for pizza. On our way out of B.C’s Pizza in downtown St. Ignace, we asked the delivery driver with the lifted Jeep Grand Cherokee, where we could find firewood. Due to the danger of emerald ash borers, an invasive ash-tree murdering beetle, it’s illegal to transport wood from the lower peninsula, into the upper peninsula, but luckily there was a “guy.”

Jim, who’s retired, but sells firewood on the road just before you reach the Quality 8 Hotel, has a red and white spaniel with a nub for a tail. It’s a delightful dog, and will even open the door of Jim’s mobile home to say hello to you if you’re in need of lumber, before Jim is even aware you’re at his home. I had interrupted his night of women’s basketball, a sport he repeatedly told me he enjoys watching. That’s great Jim, but why? Why does this sport fascinate you to the point you’re explaining to me who’s playing who while standing in freezing cold temperatures in your pajama pants as your spaniel also has it’s own fascination with sniffing crotches and poking butts? Jim finally admitted that he likes women’s basketball because it’s slower and easier to watch; part of me feels like he may have come to this conclusion because he doesn’t pause men’s basketball when it’s on television.

Nevertheless Jim was a huge help in finding cedar, that would light quick, and burn hot for us while we setup the truck. Maia was set on bringing a thousand blankets and sleeping bags. I argued before we left, it would be a waste of space to carry that much, and the camp-detector-test determined, I was wrong.

When you winter camp, everything you attempt takes a few extra steps. Unlike previous camps, we couldn’t just throw things on top of the truck overnight, or else they would freeze or blow away. Running around barefoot, was also an obvious, but big, no-no. Peeing; the second night I had to pee so bad, but the temperatures were so cold, I just said fuck this I can wait. I later regretted waiting when I had to bend my body to put pants and shoes on, with a painfully-full bladder.

As Maia built the fire with wood potentially sponsored by the WNBA, I began building the bed. We would end up sleeping in the truck for two nights this weekend, experimenting with bed setups both times. This night though, we had our usually foam padding across the platform, a comforter above those, each of us sleeping in one sleeping-bag inside another sleeping bag, with a comforter on top of that. The rear passenger windows, would have a blanket hanging against them on each side to help knock some of the cool air down. The seats up front, a thick comforter laying across it hung from the ceiling to create a small fort/room in the back to keep us warmer.

It would drop to 10 degrees with the windchill where we were parked, and although all the blankets and bags keep body warms, if you don’t fall asleep before the temp in the truck drops, the cold air creeps into the cabin in a suspicious way, like a warm fart works its way around a dining room table when the in-laws are over. It takes its time, its in no rush to escape. Everything exposed, your face, your hands, and each breath of cold air you take burns your lungs a little. It’s pretty awesome. I don’t know how people do this in tents (no I’m not going to use a pun here, but I’m aware I could).

Having a fire while you setup is an amazing mood-booster, even if it’s too cold to enjoy like you normally would in the summer. The heat coming from that flame, is so important, and you’re using it for more than just entertainment or a place to melt marshmallows. We had enough wood to burn a fire before bed, and again in the morning as we got ready to head out. For breakfast, we had a dehydrated bag of Biscuits and Gravy with a hot chocolate. With 2,000mg of sodium, it would leave us thirsty for the rest of the day. But it was delicious!

On our way out, as soon as we started to head west of St. Ignace, the snow flurries began. The lower parts of the UP didn’t have too much snow on the ground, but as we navigated further north on country roads, the the snow on started to pile up!

Many of the country roads up there, like many of the ORV routes, become snowmobile only. Not because of laws, but because of conditions. Narrow unplowed roads that still curve and dash between tall pines and cedars can become pretty tough to navigate through without getting stuck. And some of the trails, we learned, would become too narrow to even turn around in once you do go too far down the unbeaten path. But how will you ever really know how far your rig can make it if you don’t try it? Try it!

We attempted to reach the coast of Lake Superior, at the mouth of the Two Hearted River where we planned to crack open a few ice-cold Bell’s Two-Hearted Ales, and call it a night. The further north we went, the worse it became. In fact the only other traffic we ran into were folks on snowmobiles. Without even a lifed Jeep in sight, we kept going, but only made it a few hundred feet passed an enormous sign that read END OF PLOWED ROAD. They weren’t kidding. With the last little bit of light left in the day hitting the snow in a way that made it seem as though you were driving through a friendly cloud, when the trail went from road, to all snowmobile trail, I could feel the traction from the gas pedal lose grip on the land below, as we the Xterra began to dig its own grave.

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Once we became slightly stuck, I took upon myself to set the truck into 4LO, and dig us even further down, in a sort of fighting fire with fire sort of way. The snow had gone above the lower control arms, and at that point there’s not much you can do but dig yourself out. We did, thanks to our handy full-size shovel, it wasn’t too much work, but once freed from that tragedy, I somehow managed to back us further off the trail, and down into the ditch, where the truck would sit for roughly an hour, with all four wheels spinning.

Luckily for us, some snowmobilers we had passed earlier returned to help push us out of the ditch! We turned around, and went back to the Lower Tahquamenon Falls for the night! This is a campground that’s open all-year round, and even has electricity hookups. We were one of three people staying there for the night, and the only ones without an RV or snowmobile. For food, we just heated canned soup. It’s easy to pack, cheap, and doesn’t require much clean up. For drinks, the Two-hearted Ale we wanted to enjoy at the Two-hearted River went quick.

Sleeping in the truck that net wasn’t as cold as the previous night. For this sleep, we unzipped both sleeping bags, and spread them flat across both our bodies. With this technique, we’d have shared body heat, and even if the tips of the blanket did become cold, the extra pair of legs was helpful in keeping those spots far and few between.

In the morning the truck was covered in a thick blanket of snow, and we used our last few logs of firewood for breakfast, and heat, while we packed the truck. Soon we’d be ready to backtrack a few miles to the Lower Tahquamenon Falls, that still had a surprising number of people visiting it, especially since most weren’t traveling via snowmobile.

Once in Marquette we checked into a hotel because we needed a shower big-time. Can you smell that smell? It was us. You know you’ve gone far too long without touching the ivory cellphone when you can smell your armpits without lifting your arms, and they smell a lot like wet feet. More beer was also inorder.

It’s here we would celebrate the new year! Marquette, MI has a cute ball-drop downtown, where they play music from what I assume is a Now Thats What I Call Music 13 compact disc. It’s all in fun, especially when you’ve been drinking.

InAnXterra is a blog about two people in Michigan with a Nissan Xterra from Craigslist as they journey to the Dakotas!

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