This weekend Dave and I drove up to Michigan for a bit of Spring skiing. We knew it might be the last weekend of "skiable" snow of the season. When we arrived we found two feet of snow still in the woods. The roads were now mostly snow free, so no more snowmobiling unless we wanted to trailer the sleds to a trail( too much running around for just a few days we thought). We decided to ski on the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore seasonal road to Miners Falls. There are so many waterfalls in the U.P. and they are beautiful. And to my surprise, well it was an interesting ski to say the least.
We drove to the Park road, only a few blocks from our house. I decided to wear my old set of waxless skis( waxless x-c skis are used best when skiing in melting snow conditions and temps in the 30's) as we were not skiing on a tracked trail, just open seasonal road that is not plowed but used just for skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling into the park. It was snow covered and there were some random ski tracks we tried to use but a bit slow going. It was a beautiful sunny Spring day with temperatures in the thirties,and the snow was still "skiable "and not slushy on the road, at least when we started our ski . My older skis were a bit wider and i thought they would slide a bit easier on the old snow with few tracks to use. It was about 2 miles to the park road that led to the Falls. We turned to ski down the road to the falls parking lot and then took the hiking trail , another mile or so, so three miles of skiing all together. The hiking trail was a challenge, as it was not designed for skiing and very narrow and winding between the trees ,so some of it was simply walking on skis to get around obstacles on the trail, actually better suited to snowshoeing.
Soon we saw the fence at the top of the ravine and the stairs that would take us to the Falls for a closer look. We stopped to remove our skis ,but my skis were giving me a problem ,as the bindings were older and i had to stamp my feet to get it to release. I got one off and just as the second one released......... it shot forward, straight ahead ,which meant sliding under the fence by the stairs and quickly down the steep ravine ,all in about 10 seconds!! I jumped for it, but only managed to jam my finger on my left hand into the snow on the trail.
What just happened I thought??!! It all happened so fast i could not believe i had just lost my other ski!! Dave just looked at me and said maybe he could go down the ravine a bit and look for it. I was oddly not that upset just dumb founded by the whole stupid thing i just did. So i said to Dave that he should absolutely NOT go after it as it was clearly too dangerous. and we were very isolated out in the woods today- not one other person had we passed on the road. So we proceeded to walk down the icy steps, very carefully i may add . It was not an easy climb toward the waterfall , as very slippery and bad footing with half melted snow on the steps but we tried to look over at the ravine for the ski as we went- no ski was in sight. It was clearly gone and we were not going to be able to retrieve it!! So we took our photos of the falls and headed back up the stairs to begin our "walk" back to the car.
Ah the ah- ha moment, when I realized I would be walking back the three miles i had just skiied- oh oh!! Good ol' Dave kept his skis off and started to walk, although i kept urging him to ski and i would eventually get caught up with him. I think it was kind of like "weight gain sympathy" when you are pregnant( when the husband begins to gain weight like the expectant wife). I think Dave didn't want me to get discouraged with waking vs skiing back to the car, and knew he would get too far ahead of me if skiing ,so he offered his gentleman's version of doing it too- walking that is. What a sweetheart, although i really felt it "unnecessary niceness"( i really would have been fine as not too mad at myself just still in disbelief of what had transpired). The hiking trail back to the falls parking lot was best walked anyway so that was ok, but then began the longer trek to the car about 2 and a half miles.
I decided to try to ski on one side and hop along with the other foot, using my poles as best i could. At first it actually seemed fun, that is until my leg started cramping up from all the weight being only on one leg, so i had to trade off feet every 15 minutes or so. That is to say, i put the ski on my left foot for 15 min and then my right for then next 15( luckily most x-c skis are interchangeable as to which foot they go on). I clearly had better balance and stamina on my right foot, as years earlier i used to ski with one ski when water skiing I used my right leg for this type of water skiing( but i am talking when i was in my late twenties- yikes) . Anyway i at least knew i had better balance on my right foot and that helped a bit.
Well needless to say it was a long ski with all that foot changing and odd new technique of
"ski- hopping"( maybe i have created a new Olympic sport- ha ha). Dave was somewhat impressed i could do it at all and it really did speed up the trip back ( if i had walked all the way it would have taken at least another hour longer due to the snow conditions on the road ,which were clearly half melted and very uneven and slow to walk.
Ah yes, another adventure in the woods!! It was worth it though, as it was a gloriously sunny spring day and it was a blessing to be out enjoying it!! Dave says we will hike that ravine this coming summer from the low side in to the falls, and look for my ski. He actually thinks we will find it! I however, think it went all the way down to the river and if we do find it by some miracle, it may certainly be water soaked by then and unusable for skiing(but you never know!!). But that is the difference between me and Dave--- he is the optimist and i am the pessimist of the family i am sad to say! It would "be a hoot" if we actually do find it- wouldn't that be something!!
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