I spent December 28 to January 4 at The Cabin or on route to and from it. Matt and I went up initially. Jon, Amelia, and Vittoria followed on New Year's day.
Warning: There are almost 170 pictures on this page. Although they are only thumbnails and thus only 12 kB each, it quickly adds up to about 2 MB of stuff to download just to see the main page. Further I tried to include more text since I was given such a hard time regarding the description of our last trip. If you click on the thumbnail you will get to a page with a somewhat larger picture and its caption (typical picture sizes are 30-60 kB). Finally if you click on this picture you will get the full size picture I took (typical pictures sizes are 150-200 kB).
We started preparing for the trip months in advance. In past years we had waited until the last minute to get everything ready and suffered for it. This year we bought a new sleigh and rewired the lights on the trailer weeks prior to heading out. We had almost everything in place before we set out.
The only thing we couldn't control was the weather. Briefly, the weather was awful this year. It was warm and rainy through mid December. Fortunately winter made a brief appearance about a week before we went up. Cold temperatures moved in and the winds off the warm lakes produced lots of lake effect snow (about 7 feet for Buffalo). At the cabin there was a good 3-4 feet of powder when we first arrived. Unfortunately it stopped snowing and warmed up (upper 20's to lower 30's) around the first of the year. The snow compacted and there was no new powder. Regardless, we were still able to play in it even if it wasn't ideal. We were quite fortunate to have even these meager conditions. After the original week or two of lake effect snow, very little new snow fell (at least through mid January).
Matt and I left from Livonia at 7am. We encountered a lot of snow on the drive up. From the Detroit area until near Saginaw we drove through snow. Immediately around Gaylord for it was snowing quite hard. It was a localized storm and by the time we go to the bridge it was actually clear. It is rare to see blue sky and have no wind when crossing the bridge in the winter. It is also rare to see no ice on the lakes this late in the season. Finally we also encountered snow north of M-28. All in all it took us eight hours to drive up. Somewhat long even in the winter.
We arrived at the snowmobile rental place around 3pm which is conveniently located near the trail head. Matt had rented a snowmobile which turned out to make things a lot easier for us. One of our biggest concerns was the tub sled we got to replace the old sleigh. When it first arrived I was skeptical about how well it would work. In fact, Jon was expecting a call requesting us to bring up the old sleigh when everyone else arrived. It didn't have very high sides so we wrapped everything in a tarp and used plenty of bungy cords to hold it all down (Jon conveniently drilled holes in the sides to attach the bungies). We were concerned about the strength of the plastic, in particular around the connection to the hitch. One great advantage it has over the old sleigh is that it is much, much lighter and actually rides on top of the snow. The sled greatly exceeded our expectations. It performed exceptionally well and, being much lighter than the old sleigh, frequently wasn't even noticeable while towing it. It could be used with a much smaller snowmobile and we could even handle pulling a much larger one. We never loaded it as much as I think it could have handled. All in all it made the trip in quite easy. In fact, the only difficulty was that the trail (in particular Old Seney) was rutty on the first trip in.
When we arrived we went through the usual procedure of first snowshoeing a path in. This was particularly important since there was a lot of powder and no base. Walking into the cabin in the daylight was a great feeling. I let Matt drive the snowmobile in (without the sled) to create a good path. It was hard given the snow conditions. The turn, in particular, is always challenging. As you can see from the path left behind, Matt wandered pretty far off our desired circuit. Fortunately the snowmobile has reverse so we were able to back it out even without Jon's help (who usually does all the heavy lifting).
It took a couple of hours for the first trip. We then returned to pick up the snowmobile Matt had rented and the rest of the gear. The subsequent trip was easier but the trail was in even worse shape, in fact, I would say it was terrible. It didn't have ruts, they were more like craters. That isn't too surprising given that there was no base and a lot of riders out. We spent some time riding over the path by the cabin to get a solid good base. Matt's snowmobile was much lighter but had a tendency to dig into the snow when you tried to get it moving. In the end I don't know if it turned out to be easier to use than our big, heavy one or not. We did eventually get a good path beaten down that froze well overnight.
I got a fire going in the wood stove while Matt shoveled out the important paths. It didn't take him long to shovel since the snow was so light. The fire started up very quickly too since the wood we had inside was so dry. We didn't even end up with that much smoke in the cabin; a welcome change from previous trips. We officially passed the Matt test at 7:52, about an hour or so after getting the fire going. (The Matt test, or standing Matt test if you prefer, is whether or not you can see your breath while Matt is standing, roughly 5 feet, 8 inches, from the ground.) Thus we were able to quickly get it warm in the cabin and keep it that. As planned we didn't use the fireplace initially and turned out to not need it at all. The wood stove is sufficient for heating the whole cabin (even the kitchen and bunk room).
For the rest of the evening we took it pretty easy. Even though things went very smoothly it was tiring opening up the cabin with just two people. It is much better to have at least three to do all the work.
Matt and I did a bit of snowshoeing. We started out on the trail near the Detroit Zoo sign. It heads back along the river into the marsh behind the cabin. We were careful to avoid a swimming expedition this year. We had to be particularly careful since it had been so warm and the ground hadn't frozen. For the most part we even avoided marshy places that are typically well frozen in the winter. The weather ranged from heavy snow to cloudy skies to clear skies and back again. We wandered around behind the cabin through the deep snow, sinking in quite a ways even on snowshoes. In places where the tall grass or small bushes were buried holding up the snow with an air pocket underneath we sank in quite deeply. We followed the river for a ways then climbed up a ridge that runs next to the cabin. We ended up coming down the ridge behind the outhouse.
Matt was still recovering from an illness so we took it easy in the afternoon. The weather in the afternoon was much like the morning. There were times of heavy snow and times of sunshine. Matt showed me how to use his gun (purely for safety reasons of course, we had to shoot off lots of rounds to make sure we had the feel for the guy so we wouldn't be surprised by it in the case of an emergency).
In years past we have had problems with the propane and the wood. We had a bit over a cord of wood outside (maybe another half a cord inside) when we arrived. The problem we have with the gas is that the regulator leaks. Sure enough, when we first arrived and hooked up the propane we had leakage. The first thought was to cap the pressure valve to stop the leakage. Naturally this was a bad idea. As Jon had deduced earlier, the problem is that the valve in the regulator freezes open (or partially open). Thus when it is hooked up it lets too much pressure into the system so the relief valve blows off the excess. Good for safety, bad for keeping enough propane around for us to use for a week. To solve this we took the regulator inside and warmed it up. After that we hooked it back up, turned on the gas, and there was no more leakage. We now have a new task when opening up the cabin in the winter.
The weather stayed true to form through the night. I tried to get some pictures of the moon through the trees (it was a full moon) but the clouds were moving too fast. By the time I noticed the break in the clouds and got things set up a new set of clouds would move in and obscure the moon. In the end I never did get a good set of pictures.
We decided to try skiing the loop around the cabin that we often do. We started out along McCloud Grade heading back to Old Seney and turned off like we usually do. As always the scenery was great. The snow was still quite powdery and it was a good workout to cut a trail through it. When we got to the usual crossing point (bottom left corner of the first three pictures) we found it had been cleared out. The ``bridge'' (an old door I think) that used to serve as an easy way to cross the river was gone. A lot of the logs that had collected near there had been cleared out too. There was no way to get across at our usual point. We headed upstream to look for a different way to cross, keeping in mind that we didn't want to go swimming. After wandering through some thick brush for a ways we didn't come across anything that looked like a reasonable crossing point so we started looping back toward our original trail. We came across a relatively clear trail and ended up back at our incoming trail not too far from the river. We followed it back to the cabin.
Again in the afternoon we took things pretty easy giving Matt further time to recuperate.
We decided to take a short trip so we skied the other part of the loop. We quickly found the old crossing point but no clear way to get across. This time we headed down stream. After a little while we found something that looked promising. Both Matt and I managed to get across without getting wet, not that I wanted to try crossing that way too many times. Crossing wasn't the only challenge; we also had to get up the bank which was rather steep. The sun came out for one of the few extended periods which was quite nice. We came across a logging road and started back toward McCloud Grade. Naturally it was a dead end. We turned back and headed the other way. Not too far from where we first got on it came out onto the path we had followed yesterday. In fact, we hit the path directly opposite from where we came out from our previous attempt to find a crossing point. We followed the path back to the cabin thus completing the loop. It didn't turn out to be the short trip we were expecting.
We began preparing for the arrival of the rest of the crew.
Besides cleaning the place up a bit we had to arrange all the wine
we brought up. With all the free time we had Matt came up with a
brilliant plan. I had brought up another bottle of Margaux. The
simple, yet elegant, scheme was to leave the old, empty bottle out
and put the full one up on the shelf where the empty one used to
be. To get to the punchline, Amelia and Vittoria were the first
two we brought in and left behind at the cabin. Sadly we missed
seeing the trap sprung, but by all accounts it worked to
perfection. I can't repeat what was said both because I wasn't
there and I don't use that kind of language in public. Suffice it
to say that it went down as expected. The empty was discovered, a
quick glance up at the ``old'' bottle on the shelf showed that it
was still there. At this point all #%!* broke loose. Including
the rifling through someone's unmentionables (no I don't really
understand the connection but it was mentioned many times). Amelia
had faith in us and knew that we wouldn't actually have drunk that
bottle. Vittoria on the other hand, well, I would be offended if
it weren't so funny.
By this time we had the woodstove working perfectly. As proof we
put the thermometer in a typical sitting/sleeping spot (you will
see below that many people took naps there). As you can see in
the close up we had the place at a balmy 72 deg F. Much warmer
than I typically keep my house. All of this without even having
to burn that much wood and without using the fireplace at all.
The weather continued much as the previous days. There were some brief patches of clear skies. Once again I tried to get a nice picture of the mostly full moon. Once again I failed. As it turned out, this was pretty much my last chance before the bad weather set in.
Matt and I started the day with a short snowshoeing trip. We wandered around a bit on the other side of McCloud Grade (that would be southwest). There are no trails on that side until you get further south so I wanted to see what was over there. The short answer is ``not much''. It was fairly thickly wooded and not much of interest to see. Coupled with the fact that it was very gray with intermittent snow showers I didn't feel the need to take any pictures. It didn't seem like we wandered all that far when we turned more southerly so we could run into some trails we knew existed. Relatively quickly we hit a trail, however we were much farther from McCloud Grade than we expected. I'm still not entirely sure how that happened, but we did end up following a known path back toward the cabin. To make things more interesting instead of going straight back we climbed back up the ridge again (this time from the opposite direction) and ended up finding our trail from our first snowshoeing trip which we (mostly) followed back to the cabin.
We discovered that Old Seney had been plowed sometime after we had come in on the 28th. At first I thought this was a good thing. The trail was in terrible shape when we came in. It would have only been worse if something hadn't been done to it. However it turns out it was plowed because they were logging along the road. In fact, they were logging just south of the one lane bridge. Quite sad. Given how little snow they've gotten up there it could be a really short season this year. With Old Seney being plowed constantly it won't be ridable once the snow stops falling (and not much fell at least through the first few weeks of January).
The rest of the gang arrived around 2:30pm. Sadly cell phones now work out at the cabin. The only benefit is that we could keep track of their progress and only go out after they had arrived. Their drive up was much easier than ours since they weren't pulling a trailer and they didn't encounter any snow. Unfortunately this was the trend for the rest of the trip.
Having two sleds and the new sleigh made the trip in a breeze. Matt and I first brought Amelia and Vittoria in, then went back for Jon. We left the cabin extremely hot for them (just to show off). It was so hot they decided to go out snowshoeing instead of sitting around (either that or they were tired from sitting in the car for so long and wanted to get out and do something). On our trip back in we encountered Amelia, Vittoria, and the snowman they built along McCloud Grade. Matt and I took the snowmobiles out a little bit for some riding, to help keep the path solid (since nobody else was riding along McCloud Grade, really, we didn't just do it for the fun of it). Sometime during all of this the wine trap was sprung to great effect.
Naturally the first thing Jon did was take a nap. The prevailing theory is that this is the only time he gets sleep throughout the year. The rest of us played dominoes. We had a few games of pretty serious dominoes over the next few days. To put it mildly Amelia and Vittoria took turns beating up on the rest of us. We did take a break from dominoes to make pizzas for dinner and drink some wine. After that it was off to bed. This was the first winter trip with the new air mattress beds. The experiment had mixed results. The problem with sleeping on air is you have no insulation under you. Even though we can get the place quite warm there is a large temperature gradient (at least 20 deg F) and it cools off a lot at night. Furthermore we didn't do such a good job inflating the mattresses (overinflated at least one of them). Two of them sprung leaks, fortunately we had a spare for the large bed. Unfortunately all the support comes from the mattress so once it starts losing air the bed is pretty much unusable. The mattresses that came with the beds weren't very thick so we haven't given up hope on the idea yet.
Jon continued to relax while the rest of us went out skiing. We headed toward the Lucky Buck and took the fork to the right off of McCloud Grade. We skied along some standard trails, in fact someone had been back there on a snowmobile. We followed the snowmobile trail for awhile before deciding to circle back (and had to cut our own path in the process). Somewhat off the trail we found a marsh or pond or ...? Given the weather conditions we decided not to venture onto it and try to find out what it really was. When I got up near the edge of it and it appeared to be marshy under the snow I figured I had gone far enough.
We continued looping back until we found our snowshoe path from the quick trip a couple of days before. We also came across an interesting bug on the path walking on the top of the snow. No, it wasn't a spider, still, it is a good thing Jon decided to stay behind. On the way back we also came across some nice hills that made the trip back to McCloud Grade more interesting. Even the trail off McCloud back to the cabin can be death defying (or not).
For lunch Vittoria made some homemade soup while the rest of us took it easy. After lunch we still sat around and didn't do too much. Finally Vittoria kicked the rest of out so we went skiing.
This time Matt, Jon, Amelia, and I headed down to the Lucky Buck. Along the way we came across the area where a lot of dirt was dumped that makes a nice hill. Matt decided to climb up it and ski down. It is short and steep and I don't think Matt thought the climb was worth it. We went down to the Lucky Buck along McCloud Grade. All along the trail we saw deer and some sort of dog-like (perhaps coyote) tracks (and other markings). At times it was clear there was more than one coyote walking along. It was interesting that they appeared to be going in the same direction as the deer. When we got to the Lucky Buck we cut up behind it along a trail that I'm sure is much wider than it used to be. It was getting dark and the trail was getting more overgrown so Jon and Amelia turned back. Matt and I pushed on looking for where the trails we were on earlier must link in. As it continued to get thicker and darker we finally called it quits and turned back too.
We caught up with Jon and Amelia at the steep hill where Amelia decided to give it a go. She almost made it, bailing out at the bottom of the hill. Fortunately snow is soft so sitting down is definitely the best way to stop. We then finished the rest of the trip back to the cabin.
Finally it was party time. Vittoria and Amelia took it easy while Jon and Matt did the pre-dinner dishes (you do not want to just pull something out of the cupboard and start using it). We started with some wine and cheese along with the bottle of 1990 Margaux I brought up. Since I brought it up everyone else was forced to listen to a couple of toasts from me. The first was to the person most responsible for us going up in the winter, Frankie, and in remembrance of the first bottle of Margaux we had at the cabin. The second toast was to everyone else there who do so much to make the trips possible, Jon, who does way too much, Amelia and Vittoria who let us come up and feed us extremely well, and Matt who always brings up lots of wine and is willing to go on all the crazy trips I like to take. They are the real reasons that the trips are always so much fun (even when the weather doesn't cooperate).
After that it was on to a great dinner of black beans and rice and, of course, plenty more wine. Though the subsequent bottles couldn't match the first, we still had a great time. We wore Vittoria out early which left more wine and champagne for the rest of us.
Unfortunately Vittoria had to go back early so we took her in and saw her off in the morning. Again with two sleds and the new sleigh it was an easy trip. After a brunch we decided to do some snowmobiling. We all headed out to Lake Nawakwa. Along the way we saw they were doing logging in more than one place along Old Seney so the whole road was undoubtedly plowed. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of Matt and Jon when they tipped their snowmobile. The road to Lake Nawakwa is public access, but all the land around it is private. A new addition was the signs warning that it was private property and about the armed security personnel. We didn't see any armed security personnel roaming around, but we also didn't venture down the private road (though clearly someone had, perhaps the security people).
After a quick lunch/snack Jon, Amelia, and I went out for another short ski trip. We did the original half of the loop that Matt and I had done on our skiing first trip. You can see a tremendous change in the weather. No snow falling, little wind blowing, and lots of blue sky. It made for some rather nice pictures. Particularly the reflections off the water. You can also see how little snow is left on the trees. Originally their branches were weighted down with snow, now they are almost bare.
Since there was a nice blue sky I decided to wander around by gorge/creek that runs next to the cabin and take some pictures. Some of the trees/sky, some of the cabin, some of the water, ..., basically anything I thought might be interesting.
I also got a few pictures of some of the icicles we created from all the heat in the cabin. The icicles are on the bunkroom (not the room with the woodstove). Clearly we should clear off the roof when we first get up there. All this weight hanging on the eaves can't be good for the roof. There is also a picture of the snowmobile parked with what is left of the wood. We ended up hauling in most of the cord of wood that was there when we arrived. There was still plenty inside and we did not burn as much as I would have expected given our previous experiences. We now seem to have the woodstove working as it is should.
Because it was clear out we got to see a very nice sunset which is
extremely rare. I took a ton of pictures of it in hopes of getting a
good one. Most of them are too washed out and none of them capture
the full range of colors (see below for the rest, I'm still getting
used to the camera). Regardless, it was a beautiful sight. I also
took the opportunity to get some pictures of the cabin at dusk. They
would have looked nicer if the roof was still snow covered, however,
you can still see a bit of the internal lights reflecting off the
snow on the roof and ground.
One of the final things we had to do was sort through the food to
determine what we were going to leave up in can. We removed some of
the old stuff and replaced it with some new food. This year we got
smart and actually marked the date on each new thing we put in the
can. Now there should be no more guessing the age of each thing we
have left behind (not that it bothers me).
Finally it was time for dinner so we opened some wine and put the Tofurky in the oven (actually Amelia put it in the oven). Though it may be hard to believe, it was quite good and we all enjoyed it (even Matt who tried to hide from the picture). We had Tofurky, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I thought the Tofurky was better than the wish sticks (I think that is what they were called). Things started getting a little crazy when Jon made an open-faced, hot tofurky sandwich (actually I did too). All in all we ate too much and drank plenty of wine, beer, and champagne. After dinner we took it pretty easy.
Matt left early in the morning. I took him out with some of our gear too. As it turns out we could have sent a bit more stuff with him but it all worked out in the end.
When I got back Jon, Amelia, and I did a little snowshoeing. I only recently discovered the existence of an old trail on the other side of the gorge by the cabin so we explored it a bit. It was a good choice since Jon did not want to go swimming and it is about as high above the marsh as you can get. There were plenty of places along the trail that would have been great sites for another cabin....
Sadly it was time to go. We loaded the sleigh with most of our gear. Jon and Amelia took it out while I stayed behind to close up the cabin. It took Jon about an hour to get back. In that time I had almost everything set. After a final run through the cabin Jon locked it up and we began our trek back south.
Almost everything fit in the truck, but not quite. We had to bungy the cover down since it wouldn't quite close. We also had to bungy the skis onto the trailer next to the snowmobile. They made it back with no problems.
For some reason one of the running lights wasn't working on the trailer even though we had replaced them. Since the brakes and turn signal still worked it is probably just a burned out filament in the bulb. We encountered no snow on the drive back so it went rather quickly. We started driving around 3pm and made it to Waterford at about 10:22pm (Jon's original prediction before he modified it en route).
All in all it was another great trip. The weather wasn't the greatest, it could have been colder and more snow would have helped. But most importantly I got to stay up there for a decent length of time and everybody else got to be up there together. I'm already looking forward to next year.
In case you haven't seen enough pictures already I have thrown the rest of the pictures on a separate page without comments. You can probably figure out when they were taken.
|
craig@copi.org
Valid CSS