Thursday, January 24, 2008

Porkies, here we come




The VoiceofReason and I will be joining RangerMark and the GreenThumbChef in a backcountry cabin at the Porcupine Mountain State Park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a four day retreat. All the 'fun' of winter camping without the tent and frozen clothing in the morning. At 60,000 acres (almost 95 square miles) its the largest wilderness park in Michigan and one of the largest in the midwest. It has a huge stand of virgin hemlock trees, many of which are 200 years old, as well as rivers, lakes, huge springs, and some of the finest cross country classical ski trails in the area. And it is of course, right on the south shore of Lake Superior. The basic plan is to throw your gear and provisions on a pulk or sled and either ski or snowshoe them into the cabins.


The weather is supposed to warm up to above zero F so is should be a great weekend. One of the most invigorating aspects of the weekend for me is the complete quiet. No TV or radio in the background, no annoying beeping of electronic gadgets (cell phones are banned and don't work there anyhow), and no internal combustion engines. A person needs that on a regular basis to recharge the psyche. My goal is to get some serious kilometers in on the ski trails and some serious reading and relaxing in on the cabin bunks. There may even be an adult beverage or two thrown into the mix. I'll be back at my blogging post on Tuesday.

1 comment: