Michigan Ski Trip 09

Michigan (U.P.) Ski Trip 2009

This year I headed up north for a ski trip with Al and John. We left late Thursday afternoon and got back on Sunday night. We got to stay at Al’s uncle’s cabin in Mercer which was great.

The first day, we went to Whitecap Mountain. Although confusing at first, it was a pretty good day of skiing. The snow was sort of sticky and soft, which made it hard to really ski like you wanted to but we found some good runs. We took one rest at a wine hut they had set up and then did lunch there as well. The sky cleared up at the end of the day and it got even warmer and sunny. We had a few rounds outside on the deck there at closing time. Nice.

 

On the way back to the cabin, we found a great little pizza place which just had amazing homemade pizza. Wow. Well, after a day of skiing about any food tastes great but it really was some good pizza! I forgot the name of the place. If I remember, I’ll edit this post. I know it was before we got to Hurley, WI or it might have been in Hurley.

Day 2 it was a little cooler but still at 30 degrees when we got to Big Powderhorn Mountain in the morning. We skied to the right for a bit but then found that the left side was really nice. After an early lunch, we stuck to a few trails on the left that we really liked. I did 3 runs on their Giant Slalom (GS) course. My time wasn’t that great, but I didn’t miss a gate and shaved 1 sec off my time. It wasn’t NASTAR, but pretty much the same thing. I did about 2 hours of snowboarding at the end of the day, which really wore me out but it was fun. We had one round outside and another inside while we mocked an infomercial about some kind of floor sweeper.

We ate at Tacconelli’s that night in Ironwood, MI. I’ve been there before with Karl. I had a chopped sirloin, salad and corn bread. That hit the spot. Al and John seemed to enjoy their meals as well. We then headed back to Mercer and set our clocks back that night.

Day 3 was at Indianhead. Before taking the 45 minute trip up there, we got packed up and cleaned up the cabin. I think we were on the snow about 10:30 and skied until 2 since there was a snowstorm going through parts of Wisconsin – although it was partly cloudy up in Michigan. I got to do my favorite run, Geronimo, 4 times. I would have done it more but they still have it on a t-bar lift, which takes a bit out of you on your third day of skiing. We had a quick lunch there and ended up skiing some of the blue runs at the main lift, which were in nice shape. They didn’t have NASTAR running for very long or I might have taken a few runs on it.

The roads weren’t too great heading back after Wausau but we took our time and got home safe. It probably only took about an hour extra, which wasn’t bad.

All in all, it was a fun trip. It was great to have a guys weekend. I liked Indianhead the best still, then Powerhorn, then Whitecap. Before I took my trip, everyone was telling me how great Whitecap was. I don’t know if I had high expectations or what and conditions weren’t great but I didn’t feel like it was kept up very well and even the grooming was shoddy. I didn’t see any ski patrol there either. I don’t think I’d plan on going there again but wouldn’t doubt if we did go there for one day next year. It was nice to go to 3 places instead of just one.

Some pictures are below (or click into the story to read more). I’ll update this again when I get more pictures from Al.

Only a few weeks left of the season this year. It’s sad. The warmer temps will be nice though as it was a cold winter.

-Tony

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