Searching for Ski Trails in Northern Michigan

When snow fails to fall, ski resorts must improvise--even on their cross-country trails

By Hal Higdon

"There's snow to the east and snow to the west," complained Mike Terrell, a ski friend from Traverse City, Michigan. "We're just caught in the middle."

Indeed, looking out the window of our condo overlooking the golf course at Crystal Mountain Resort in Northern Michigan, all we could see was bare grass. This might have been acceptable were it June and were we golfers, but it was January, and we were skiers! We had come to Northern Michigan to ski--and you can't ski very well without snow.

Our ski trip was a Christmas present for our grandchildren. We chose Crystal Mountain, located near Thompsonville, one of our favorite ski destinations. Despite a splendid sprinkling of snow near our home in Long Beach, Indiana that provided us with a White Christmas, and despite winter storms that socked other parts of North America (a friend from New Hampshire claimed four feet in her back yard, and she didn't sound happy), the upper Midwest remained bare as we moved into the New Year. Each morning I would check Crystal's website and learn that the cross-country trails were closed for lack of snow.

That was less of a problem for our ski vacation plans than you might have suspected, because the same website reported 56 inches of artificially-made snow on the downhill trails. Our grandkids (being kids) prefer downhill over cross-country; their grandparents are more content sliding over flatter trails through the woods, where you are less likely to get hit by an out-of-control snowboarder. Our plans included two days skiing at Crystal, followed by two more days at Garland, a golf resort where cross-country skiing is the main winter bill of fare.

Ambience and proximity

Early afternoon on New Year's Day, a Wednesday, we headed north up I-96 through Holland and Grand Rapids, connecting with 131 (also an expressway) to Cadillac, where we shifted to two-lane 115 for the final part of the journey. We like Crystal Mountain not only because of good skiing and the ambience around that skiing, but also because of its proximity. Four hours after leaving Long Beach, I was lighting a fire in the three-bedroom condo we had rented for our stay. Crystal offers several fine restaurants for dining (Wild Flower and the Thistle Pub & Grille), but we had forgotten to secure reservations. At the end of the busy holidays, both restaurants were jammed with an hour's wait for tables. We settled for pizza at the Little Betsie Bistro in the main lodge, not a bad option when it comes to grandkids, and I made reservations for Wild Flower for the following night.

Thursday morning was taken up with logistics: renting equipment and signing up for ski lessons. The two youngest grandkids, Wesley and Holly, were eligible for the Crystal Kids program, limited to those 12 and under. The oldest, Kyle, was not. His mother Camille bought him an hour-long private lesson, and he spent the rest of the day skiing with me. Although they are expensive, I am a strong believer in ski lessons, particularly early in the season. Too many novices injure themselves because they have no idea how to ski in control; getting "lessons" from a well-meaning friend often does more harm than good.

In the years we have been skiing together, Kyle and Wesley have long bypassed me in skiing ability. We first took Kyle with us to Park City, Utah at age five. As our other grandchildren, based in Long Beach or elsewhere, passed that magic age, we integrated them into our family skiing plans. Fortunately, all seem content to "ski slow with Grandpa." On the second day, that's what the two boys did. Holly, meanwhile, had connected with a friend her age in ski school, so they spent the day together.

Perfect for cross-country skiing

After skiing on Friday, we headed for Garland, which is in the center of Michigan, near Lewiston, a two-hour drive east of Crystal. We were meeting a group of ski writers there for a weekend of meetings and skiing. With 48 holes, Garland counts golfers as its principle clientele, but the tree-lined fairways prove perfect for cross-country skiing--again, when there is snow!

Little snow was on the ground--or even in the immediate forecast--but we had another option. Just as downhill ski resorts have learned that to survive they must manufacture artificial snow, a few farsighted cross-country ski resorts have come to the same conclusion. Saturday morning, we jumped in vans to travel to Cross Country Ski Headquarters, a half hour south of Garland near the town of Roscommon.

The "Headquarters" is more specialty ski store than resort, featuring equipment, clothing and nineteen kilometers of trails out the back door. When faced with snowless periods, owner Bob Frye manufactures snow, a revolutionary approach for a Nordic center. While Crystal Mountain has more than eighty snow-making machines for its downhill slopes, Frye uses one, which when the temperature is below freezing is enough to manufacture a mound of snow that he can push around a kilometer-long loop. This was enough snow for our group, not all of whom were skilled in Nordic technique.

Even without snow, my wife Rose would have considered a visit to Cross Country Ski Headquarters an unqualified success. She found two sweaters in the shop at bargain prices: one, a tan turtleneck; the second, a knit sweater with moose decorations. You can't get more North Woods than that. Rose couldn't figure out which one to take. In the spirit of Christmas, I advised her: "Take both!"

Attractive packages

Garland offers packages attractive to guests who have no interest in skiing. One is the Zhivago Night (as in the Boris Pasternak novel and David Lean film, Doctor Zhivago), consisting of a sleigh ride to the Buckhorn Lodge with a gourmet five-course meal and a mandolin player awaiting you. Naturally, the mandolin player strums "Lara's Theme" from the movie. The cost of $439 per couple is not cheap, but it includes lodging as well as the feast. How often does Garland present its Zhivago Night? "As often as enough people want to go," says manager Barry Owens. In winter, that usually means four or five times a week, but reserve in advance at 877-4GARLAND.

On Saturday night, our group went ice fishing on a frozen pond. To fish in winter--for those of you who missed the Matthau and Lemmon movie Grumpy Old Men--you cut a hole in the ice. Rainbow trout, we were told, were lurking below the ice eager to gobble our bait, but it seemed like an hour passed with nothing but nibbles. I shifted between a bonfire and the ice to see if anyone was catching anything other than a cold. Rose yielded the pole she was using to another person, who soon after yanked a trout nearly a foot long from the pond. We might have thought our family cursed, but our son Kevin soon caught a similar-lengthed fish. A weekly activity most winter weekends at Garland is the Gourmet Glide, a cross-country ski event with stops every few kilometers for eating treats along the trail. Catch a fish during the Gourmet Glide, and they'll cook it for you on the spot.

Sunday morning, I went for a run on the golf course and realized that enough snow (a trace) had fallen overnight so that I might have been able to ski if I carefully picked my route. We had breakfast in Herman's Dining Room in the main lodge, the largest log structure east of the Mississippi River. Stuffed animals glare down at diners from beams, including a mountain goat over the fireplace. Grandson Wesley ordered oatmeal with brown sugar both mornings. Real oatmeal, not Instant. He remembered it from a previous visit to Garland several years before.

Following breakfast, we piled our ski equipment--downhill and cross-country--into our van and drove south along I-75 and 127 to home. The return took us maybe five hours. As we were exiting the expressway near New Buffalo, we saw snowflakes in the air. The ski trails that were bare of snow during our visit a few days later were deep with snow. If you're tired of staring out the window and cussing the cold weather, try a trip north into Michigan to escape those winter blues.