Harmony in the Woods

What do Joan Baez, Jason Mraz, Sehla and Copland have in common???? Well, they all accompanied me in the woods today while x-c skiing!! Yup we have added a new dimension to our skiing and snowmobiling along in the upper peninsula winter wonderland of trails, that of listening to music on an mp3 player while in the woods. We now enjoy the visual beauty of the north woods in winter with the tunes of our favorite music artists coming along for the ride...hehe

It is really something to ski along in that beauty with the lively sounds of Jason Mraz, Sheryl Crow, Annie Lennox, or Cademons Call( India cd) to help me keep up the pace in the uphill sections of trail, or music like Appalachian Spring, Latifha & Sehla (hymns), Patsy Cline, Anne Murray or Joni Mitchell on the lovely downhill stretches, or the thoughtful lyrics of Joan Baez, Judy Collins, or Sara Groves to just coast along the snowy ski trails in upper Michigan. After two large uphill climbs ,I came to a lovely but somewhat difficult long downhill section of trail called "Heaven"( ski trails often name their biggest down hill sections of trail)and low and behold what song comes on my MP3 player?...."Be thou my vision"! It is amazing how the "shuffle" program that takes a different song from different cd's we have recorded, mixes up the music in a rhythmic and fun order. Another time when I hit the long up hill climbing section of trail ,"Great is thy faithfulness" buzzed in my ear to give me the stamina I needed just then. For me God is so present in the woods whether with music of without,as it is just so very beautiful that one cannot help but reflect on the many blessings we have in our lives with a deep sense of gratitude. I guess when we slow down our pace of living it helps to focus back to a sense of praise vs. request in our prayers of life.

We are up in the UP for our annual winter week of vacation. We try to take a week and two weekends in mid February or early March when the snow is so very good.The ski trails are in superb condition and we only passed one skier in three days of skiing the trails so far even thought the parking lot was full!! The snowmobile trails however were surprisingly busy mid week but i guess it is because Wisconsin is lacking snow this year and riders come up to the U.P. as well as those coming from lower Michigan as there is always snow here. So we have both Michigan and the more than usual Wisconsin riders making the trails busier than usual. Although busy on these U.P. trails cannot remotely compare to the always busy trails of places like Eagle river,Wi or Houghton, Mi. !

We rode up to Grand Marais from Munising with our friend Mike who was here for a few days . It is about a 100 mile round trip(4 hours by snowmobile). Because of the traffic on the trails we opted to take some alternate rural unplowed roads (that paralleled the actual trail) that Dave found on the GPS ...it worked great no one was doing that!!It was peaceful and direct route without the hazard of other fast riders whizzing by.We are cautious riders as there are just too many serious injury accidents not to be conscience of safety first. We are out for the beauty of the ride not the distance like alot of riders.We went out for dinner last night as a restaurant that draws alot of riders and met a group of three men that were riding from Houghton to the town of Christmas nearby. They were riding 675 miles in three days!!! I cannot imagine that even being fun ...more grueling if you ask me...but each to their own? Sometimes I do thing we Americans always think "more is better". I don't know if I could call that a vacation??

We used our snowshoes to explore parkland that used to be old railroad grades to find streams and reach coastal cliffs to Lake Superior views. Dave uses his hand held GPS to find routes off the local roads that parallel the Hiawatha State Forest areas or the National Lakeshore lands. It is just us in the woods tromping through two feet of snow with our snowshoes and poles to help pace our walk to the rhythm of the woods. All you hear is the wind howling in the oh so many tall trees alongside where we are walking. It sounds a bit like surf as such a large area of undeveloped woods here in the U.P. We also see lot of animal tracks in the snow...no humans here except us! We also saw alot of deer tracks on a trail we like to ski,i guess they like the hard packed trail vs the deep powder snow as easier walking for them I am sure. I used to have a book on identifying tracks for when I led nature hikes in my first job out of college. I will have to hunt for that book and bring it up to Michigan for my pocket on shoeshoe hikes. This walking is a good workout and we usually go for about an hour a few hours after a good ski that day. We certainly get our days worth of exercise here in the U.P.! It is just so beautiful and it beckons you on till dark!!

There was an "Icefest" celebration in town over the weekend. Many novice and experienced ice climbers came to Michigan to climb these inland icy cliffs. We hiked over the climbing areas to get these photos. It looked fun but also alot of waiting around for your turn i think?Watching them climb the waterfall was neat! I might try this ice climbing next year?? You can sign up for novice lesson that includes equipment rental for just $25. I would have to get back to my weight lifting to strengthen those arms of mine though!

When spending time indoors there is time for cooking, baking and eating, along with some fun playing of Boggle, Stackable Scrabble, dice games, a hand of poker with cards, or watching old movies. I also get a chance to read some of the many books from my reading pile at home. I chose one about autobiographical stores of Native American women called "Messengers of the Wind" by Jane Katz 1995, which fits in well with this vast area of undeveloped land here in the U.P. It talks of the struggles and triumphs of of grandmothers, mothers and daughters to give a perspective on some of the shocking truths of growing up Native American in the USA. I have always had a deep respect for how Native American culture values the earth and all of nature. Much of this book talks of Native American traditions that were embedded in this culture of many tribes and how most s of this has had to vanish in the Americanizing of the "American Indian". So much loss and sadness in their lives and history of such a gentle and earth respecting nation of peoples. These are stories of the "survivors" of this on going history. I used to do Native American storytelling for groups of young children at schools to reflect and share the amazing gentleness of these people and their loving care and respect they show the earth they live on and all of nature . It was inspiring to read of these nature based stories reflecting much of their earth friendly culture and traditions. We could all take a lesson from their respect of this earth that is quickly being destroyed by the current day practices and greed of others.

For now however I will enjoy my week in the wilderness and the peace on the trails in the woods, to reflect on the true beauty of nature and all things given to us by God.