Skiing in Ironwood

In preparation for the American Birkebeiner, Ali and I have been skiing all over the place: Gov. Nelson State Park on the far side of Lake Mendota (debris-filled trip w/ Hoofers), Stoney Swamp and Gatineau Park outside of Ottawa (spectacular scenery w/ Ali's family), Blue Mounds State Park (once w/ Therese after a good snow, once with Hoofers after a bad sleet), and a couple times to our after-work/bus-accessible favorite, Elver Park.  In lieu of Christmas presents, Ali & I decided to take the MLK weekend and head up to Ironwood, MI (which is on the NW side of the UP, spittin' distance from the Wisconsin border).  We planned for two days of XC skiing, and since the snow is plentiful and soft along the UP, one day to introduce me to downhill skiing. 

Chilly morning

There's this fantastic private XC ski area in Ironwood called ABR that  has nearly 70km of well-groomed XC trail.  With the 54-kilometer Birkie in mind, we were hoping to ski at least 20 miles on Saturday, and though the last several kilometers were exhausting, we made it!  I can't begin to describe how lovely it was on Saturday.  The morning started off a little chilly, but we had our thermos of tea and a day-pack full of warm layers and world-famous pastys.  (Seriously, the iron-mining regions of Wisconsin and the UP are known for their pastys.)  The sun was out, and the woods had recently been filled with really big flakes of sparkly snow.  If you paid close enough attention to the mounds of snow on the evergreens, you could still see individual flakes.  Additionally, ABR was far enough out that there wasn't the usual rumble of snowmobiles.

Awesome ABR Tracks

We covered approximately 37km/23mi of ground, including nearly all of the classic-only trails.  The track was laid a bit too curvy on some of the classic trails (I'm looking at you, Otter Slide), and if I really wanted to complain, the classic+skate trails could have skipped classic tracking on some of the steep and twisty downhills.  (There are two type of cross country skiing techniques that require different skis and different snow grooming.  For classic - aka striding - technique, there are generally two parallel tracks that you keep your skis in while you move your legs vaguely like you might be walking or jogging.  For skating, you push off with one foot and glide at a ~45 degree angle before planting the next foot and gliding off in the other direction.  If classic track is too sharply-curved, your ski won't fit in the track, and if there's track going down a steep and winding hill, it takes a fair amount of skill to not careen off of the track and into the woods.)

Aptly named "The Wall" - we had to sidestep up most of this one

Kibitzing aside, ABR was awesome.  They groom nearly every day; they have enough trail for several good days of skiing before you have to repeat any route; the terrain is varied, quiet, and beautiful; and they have all the amenities you really need.  I would go back in a heartbeat.

Thankfully, though cross-country skiing can make you tired and sore, you never feel like you've been hit by a semi the next day.  We had a leisurely morning on Sunday, and made it out to Whitecap Mountains Ski Resort (30min west of Ironwood) for their half-day ski.  The edge of the UP does have some pretty nice hills, but this is the Midwest.  At a place like Whistler, you can expect ~5000ft of vertical; it's closer to 3000 at Vail/Breckinridge; and the best place in the Midwest (the Porkies, an hour east of  Ironwood) weighs in at a whopping 600-something feet.  According to my in-house downhill expert, this just means that the easy/intermediate runs may be similar in difficulty, but corresponding runs will be much shorter in Flatlandia.

Going really slow

Until this year, I was not thrilled about the prospect of downhill anything.  Skiing and snowboarding are notoriously injury-prone sports; I don't like going fast; I haven't been very good at snowplowing on cross-country skis; and I'm not a huge fan of mountains that have resort-induced stripes.  Within the past year, however, I've become much better at stopping and steering on XC skis, so I decided to give downhill a try.  I'm kinda glad that I did.  (And I'm really glad that I learned XC first.)  Thanks to some stellar instruction, I could handle the green runs pretty quickly.  (You might just want to ignore my assessment; I could avoid falling, but I'm still probably terrible.)  And though I may not be great at staying upright on blue runs yet, there's definitely a glimmer of hope.  Every time we hit a Goldilocks hill that was steep enough to be fun but not steep enough to be terrifying, I would descend yelling "Whee!" at every turn.  I'm sure that Ali was quite thrilled to be associated with me.

XC Skiing:  Hot & thirsty work

Though my muscles weren't complaining much about downhill skiing, the weekend caught up to me on Monday.  We headed part of the way home before picking up our second XC ski day at Nine Mile Rec Area outside of Wausau, WI.  They also have a large, well-groomed trail system (about 30k).  Nine Mile isn't too hilly, though they do have a small loop nicknamed "The Alps" that zigzags up and down a ridge.  The weather had gotten chilly for our last day, and since the terrain was largely flat and definitely set up for logging, the winds cut right through us.  After 15-18k, we decided to call it a day.  I felt a bit bad cutting our ski short, but there are several more weekends before Feb 22.