Winter Adventures

    I debated about going outside for my early morning walk. The cold weather had finally arrived, and the memory of the sharp, piercing wind that had greeted me the day before was still fresh in my mind.

  “What hurt would it do to skip a day of exercise,” I told myself. Or perhaps, I thought, I could wait to take my stroll this afternoon, after work.”

   Familiar with my urge to procrastinate or equivocate, I fought the temptation, got dressed, and headed outside. As it turned out, the weather—at least for this outing—was not nearly as frightful as I’d feared.

   As I circled the track of the football field, having the place to myself and each step bringing me closer to my goal of completing a mile-and-a-half distance, I thought about how I’d stayed active during previous winters, forgoing the choice of hibernating indoors 24/7.

   For much of the hour before, as I drank my coffee, I stared at the blank page of the legal pad, trying to think of some topic to write about for the newspaper column. Different thoughts and possibilities presented themselves, but nothing persuaded me enough to actually write a sentence.

   I’d suffered the same writer’s block the morning before. Had the well temporarily run dry? Would I be better off taking time off and allow some moisture to seep back in? Writing just for the sake of writing, without having anything too compelling to say, seemed a poor choice. Maybe the problem was that I haven’t been stimulating myself enough with new experiences or testing myself with new challenges—both physical and intellectual. Maybe I’d gotten into a rut, following the same well-worn path, become too comfortable with the habit of following this routine, and had now reached a point in the journey where I had nothing fresh or interesting to say.

   I recalled the image evoked by Ernest Hemingway in the Preface of his collection of short stories.

   “In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with,” he stated. “But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.”

  

   Compared to Hemingway, my life experiences have been pretty tame. Still, the point is well taken: Experiences—particularly new and challenging ones, both deliberate and unintended, found in the physical as well as intellectual realm—are the wellspring for a writer. From it we make observations and form judgments, compare it to what we already know, mixing the ingredients together for what’s hopefully a refreshing brew.

    One of my more pleasant winter getaways was a weekend many years ago at the McGuire Resort in Cadillac. We had just purchased snowshoes earlier in the season and decided to try them out at this northern outpost. Shortly after checking into the hotel, the three of us--Dawn, Bradley (who was then in middle school), and I--headed over to the golf course where cross country skiing was allowed. We followed the marked trail, careful not to step into the ski tracks. A few places, we veered off into a different direction, not worrying about sinking too deep into the snow.

    One of the amenities of the resort was a horse-drawn sleigh ride around the grounds which we enjoyed later that evening. Another was the lounge, complete with an open fire. The main drawback (for me) was that the place was noisy with roaring engines. Cadillac, I learned on that visit, is a favorite spot for snowmobilers, offering easy access to a couple of popular trails. In fact, most of the people at the hotel had their snowmobiles parked outside their respective doors.

   The next day we drove to a public access spot in the Manistee National Forest, directed there by one of the locals. We had planned to park the car at this location and hike in the woods on our snowshoes. The problem was that the driveway hadn’t been plowed, a fact that I didn’t realize until we’d gotten stuck. Fortunately, with me pushing, Dawn driving and Bradley directing the operation, we were able to get back onto the main highway.

    With that option gone, we headed back to the state park on M-115, located on the south edge of the city. There we left the car in the parking lot that had been cleared of snow and, put on our snowshoes, and walked out onto the frozen surface of Mitchell Lake. We shared the spot with several snowmobilers, but they stayed mainly in the middle of the lake, racing up and down its length, while we hugged the shoreline. Ice fishermen were also out and about, although most of them stayed inside their shanties.

   I remember the day being pleasant, without much wind. An added treat was being able to see the various cottages up close as we walked past them.

   In subsequent years, we took our snowshoes to the Old Mission Lighthouse north of Traverse City and walked amid the woods on that public land. We also ventured over to the state park at the northern tip of Leelanau Peninsula for another wintertime adventure.

    CLOSER TO HOME WAS the Yankee Springs Recreation Area, situated about 12 miles west of our home in Hastings. The place offered several marked trails; paths that wound through the forest, went up on the spine of the ridges, and alongside some of the lakes. We were familiar with the place, having gone on hikes during earlier visits—both during the warmer weather and in the winter.

   When Bradley and the grandsons were young, we had a tradition of taking them to Yankee Springs for a hike on New Year’s Day. The route we usually took started and finished at a public access parking lot off of Briggs Road. Highlights included Hall Lake, the Devil’s Soup Bowl (a deep depression with steep sides that had once been a lake after the glacier melted, but was now littered with trees and brush, and finally Graves Hill, a high point that provides a scenic view of nearby Gun Lake.

  It was to the Rec Area and that parking lot that I headed to late one Sunday afternoon in January. I was by myself.  My intention was to use the snow shoes to get away from these familiar trails and explore the dark recesses of the wintry forest and maybe sneak up on some wildlife.

  I drove west on Chief Noonday Road, turned south (left) on Briggs Road, went past the entrance of the (Yankee Springs) Gun Lake State Park, and then reached the lot

   The problem, which I didn’t realize until after the fact, was that Briggs Road, while starting off towards the south from its intersection with Chief Noonday Road, curves back to the east in its winding course before resuming a southerly course. I had driven on this road numerous times, but never paid attention to it this fact.

    I’d do a lot of walking as a result of that oversight.

    My plan was to start from the car, using it as my western point of reference, and make a big circle through the woods. While I thought my sense of direction would be OK since I was acquainted with the area, I did bring a compass to keep me from getting lost in case I got turned around. So, off I went, wandering happily though the trees and around the vines and over the fallen logs, checking the compass to make sure I was headed in the planned circular direction.

    After a time, as the sky began to darken, I wondered why I hadn’t found the car and why the area seemed unfamiliar. I had not passed any of the hiking paths or a two-track roadway that went from the parking lot into the interior of the Rec. Area.

    I did not wish to panic, yet neither did I want to spend the night lost in the woods. I noticed a blinking tower light and was pretty sure that it was located on Chief Noonday Road, near the intersection with Briggs. However, going in this direction would leave me, once I reached the road, a fair distance from where my car was parked. I would be going north when I should be going west.

   Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I headed towards that guiding light and soon came upon a two-track roadway. Now I finally had a familiar landmark. I was pretty sure it would lead me to Chief Noonday Road if I continued to head north. What confused me was that I was also certain that this was the same road that was connected to the parking lot and, based my assumption, went eastward into the interior of the Rec. Area. I still thought my car was somewhere west of me. “Maybe, the two-track is L-shaped,” I thought. But with the darkness descending, I was not up to testing my theory.

   So, I headed north, passing by a small lake, and eventually reached Chief Noonday Road. But that was not the end of my journey. With evening now upon me, I took off the snowshoes and spent the next hour walking back to my starting point. After I reached Briggs Road and had passed the state park entrance, I realized the highway was curving back to the east.

   When I reached the welcome sight of my vehicle, foot sore, but much relieved, I took out the compass. What I had thought was west at this spot was indeed south.

   The following weekend I returned to the Rec Area, only this time without any snowshoes. I wanted to figure the situation out. From the parking lot, I began walking along the two-track and soon came upon the small lake. Had I gone south rather than north, I’d have saved a good deal of time. I was figuratively within spitting distance of my car. But then, had the matter resolved itself in this easier fashion, it would have not been nearly so memorable of an experience. I’d have had nothing to write about.