Candle Luminary Ski and NCT Snowshoe to Lookout Mountain

Christmas day we hosted a dinner with friends here at home in Chassell. Julie prepared a ham and scalloped potatoes while five our friends brought other dishes to share. Ahead of dinner our friend Jennifer came over and the three of us went for a snowshoe on the Chassell Snowshoe Trails.

The snowshoe trail comes alongside the ski trail at a few points along the way and I could not help taking in the view of my most recent tracking of the trail!

On Thursday I attended the ice rink reorganizational meeting at Centennial Park. The meeting was well attended and provided the Recreation Committee an excellent opportunity to delve further into the issues raised during our most recent meeting. The DPW staff and members of the public were able to highlight their concerns about recent vandalism by hockey players, rink hours, rink flooding, and rink rules. Based upon the input, the Recreation Committee will be reaching out to the Houghton County Sheriff as well as developing new draft rules and rink hours for further discussion at the upcoming Chassell Township Planning Commission meeting.

Julie and I then headed up to Hancock to help set up for the Hancock Trails Club’s Candle Luminary Ski at Maasto Hiihto. We had a great volunteer turnout so the set up went very quickly.

Once we had all the LED lights bagged and loaded on the ice fishing sleds, we snowshoed out onto the St. Urho Loop to place them along the trail.

There were easily between 300 and 400 participants at this year’s event as we would count over one hundred cars in the parking lot at one point between 6 and 8 p.m.

We had two fires going with hot chocolate and cookies available inside the Four Seasons Chalet.

After the completion of the event we snowshoed the trails once again to pick up all the luminaries to bring them back to chalet to pack them up for next year.

The temperature would rise above freezing overnight and rain would move in on Friday. I talked with Jim Tervo and we decided quickly to put the word out on Keweenaw Trails and on social media encouraging people not to ski the Chassell Trails in order to protect the structure of the trail.

The pool was open again at MTU so Julie and I were able to put in much needed swims. I knocked out 2,500 yards recognizing that skiing would be out of the question over the coming days. Saturday would then be focused on getting things done around home and stopping in to see our friends Lisa and Steve.

Sunday our hiking group would venture down to Old Victoria where we would snowshoe the North Country Trail to Lookout Mountain. The above freezing temperatures resulted in fog which provided an eerie backdrop to this mining ghost town.

The Victoria Mine Hoist House is the only place over the 4,800-mile course of the North Country Trail where the trail goes through a building. You can see how this works in my GoPro video from the hike on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:

From the hoist house we would make our way to the top of Lookout Mountain which provides a commanding view over the Victoria Dam and Reservoir.

After making our return snowshoe we would drive down near the dam and hike to the waterfall at the dam’s spillway. Treacherous would be a good way to describe the conditions you will encounter if you decide to go here this time of year as the fall’s mist coats everything with ice.

Driving homeward we would stop at Krupp’s in Twin Lakes to grab pasties for dinner! Their pasties are definitely one of our favorites here in the region.

As 2024 comes to a close and with the recent receipt of our Hike 100 patches for completing the North Country Trail’s Hike 100 challenge, I put together a reflection to celebrate the miles, times, and companionship we enjoyed on the NCT over the last year that you can find in a GoPro short at this link: https://youtube.com/shorts/YBS-vwYhYYI?si=8HUJK3d518wPU9mo

Do you embrace winter and have the ability to work remotely? Consider locating in the Keweenaw where you will find ubiquitous natural beauty, no congestion, and lower crime! Learn more by visiting Remote Workforce Keweenaw at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com.