Welcome to 2022!

I would like to wish all of my followers a happy and prosperous 2022! Hopefully once we get past the spike due to the Omicron variant we will be at a point that Covid will finally be in the rear-view mirror!

The first Sunday ski of the new year found us on the Chassell Classic Ski Trail. This awesome 10k ski trail is for classic skiing only on three loops that span from the behind the Chassell Heritage Center almost all the way up to Paradise Road. Just ahead of Covid, I was successful securing a grant from the Keweenaw Community Foundation’s Portage Health Foundation Outdoor Wellness and Recreation Fund to develop new signage for the trail. MTU’s Director of Research Computing, Gowtham, GPSed both the ski/fitness trail and the snowshoe trails with assistance from Julie and me. Subsequently with input from Jim Tervo (who does an amazing job of maintaining the trail) and the Chassell Township Planning Commission, we provided the data and text to Marc Norton at Copper Island Printing in Calumet who was able create the outstanding map below.

The Chassell DPW staff installed the new signage at the two trail cutoffs and at the trailheads located at the Heritage Center, the old ice rink, Marinette Street, and at Archambeau Road where this sign is located and where our group started its ski.

We broke up into two groups with about half skiing the entire system and half sticking to the upper loop. The lowest 2k loop has a run along the cemetery where you first have to navigate some turns followed by a stretch where you can gain a great deal of speed. Our less confident skiers chose to pass on this portion of the trail on this day.

One of the reasons I enjoy skiing at Chassell is its narrower trails. This creates a much more intimate forest experience than you will receive on the trail systems widened for skate skiing and adds to the beauty you will see after a heavy snow.

Monday brought a beautiful sunrise over the frozen Portage Lake. The ice has gained enough thickness for the ice fishermen to start taking up residence on its surface.

With a second dry day in a row, I was able to strap the Yaktrax onto my trail shoes to run the snow packed Lakeshore Drive and the partially open US 41 shoulder (and more importantly a dry US 41 so I wouldn’t pick up spray). Breaking in a new pair of Yaktrax resulted in a more tentative stride and slower pace than usual, but it was great to get in this first run of the new year!

The garage project moved along this week with more of the siding going up, but the snowstorm coming in midweek would slow further progress into next week.

We picked up a good eight inches in the snow that fell midweek. Much more fell up on the spine of the peninsula. I heard about totals around 17 inches in some places, but in the highlands above L’anse to the south of us there was upwards of two feet! I used the snow as a good excuse to catch up on township business in preparation for Thursday night’s planning commission meeting and to work on promotional items for the Remote Workforce Keweenaw initiative.

Friday saw a beautiful clearing of the skies! I got out my rock skis and skied on the snow covered ice near the lake’s shore. The wind during the recent storm resulted in some really cool patterns in the drifts. I skied out to see my friend Eero to see how the ice fishing was going. It had been a slow day so far for him.

Looking at the weather forecast for Sunday, the high temperature was set to only be around 12 degrees with northwest wind over 20 mph. This created some urgency to get in a good ski during the nice weather today. I met up with my friends Mark and Ken at the Tomasi Road Trailhead at Maasto Hiihto and we skied for a solid two and a half hours. The conditions were spectacular! We experienced awesome glide and great kick!

I had one battery’s worth of GoPro video that I captured from today’s ski that covers highlights from just under the first half of it on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:

We hope to venture farther up into the Keweenaw for some skiing action this coming week so stay tuned! If you embrace winter and have the ability to work remotely, you will not go wrong by locating in the Keweenaw! Learn more about the Remote Workforce Keweenaw initiative at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com and learn about those who have made the decision to locate here by following our ongoing series of vignettes on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RemoteWorkforceKeweenaw