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Published: January 18th 2010
Snowhawgs
Here's a picture of Ben, me and the Snowhawg trailer a few years ago.Ray, my next door neighbor, joined me on this trip to Land O' Lakes, WI. We met my good friend and past co-worker, Rich at the Gateway Lodge on Thursday evening. Rich is one of the original Snowhawgs and founder of the Snowhawg Racing Team. In the past, Rich campaigned sleds in drag races around Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. He had a lot of success and his favorite was winning the beer can trophy for the championship of the Delaware Days Races organized by the Range Snowmobile Club in South Range, MI. He has since retired from racing and limits his snowmobiling to trail riding. I guess we are all getting a little older.
It's probably time to explain the origin of the nickname "Snowhawg" that I use for email and was the name of our loosely organized club. The Snowhawgs were a group of 7 friends who started sledding together about 22 years ago. I was the one who got the guys together and started our many sled trips together. I was such a fanatic for the sport that if it was snowing anywhere in the midwest, I was on the phone trying to put together a trip. My
Ray & Rich
At the Firesteel Tressels north of Mass City. Those balaclavas are quite flattering. good friend Ben's wife Rosalie started calling me Snowman because of those many late night calls and my love of the sport. Ben was born and raised on a farm in Arkansas and really loved snowmobiling. I was always amused that a farm boy from Arkansas would love snowmobiling. Since the University of Arkansas sports teams are the Razorbacks and sometimes called the Hogs, I combined my Snowman nickname with Ben's Arkansas background and came up with Snowhawgs. Unfortunately, a back injury ended Ben's snowmobiling several years ago. I sure miss him on these trips. We created a lot of great memories on those many trips together.
One of the few prerequisites of becoming a Snowhawg is that you love to have fun. Rich is surely one guy who makes our times together a blast and I was excited about our planned overnight trip to Copper Harbor together. One of the other original Snowhawgs, Kevin was supposed to make this trip, but a January warmup in the Chicago area forced him to work in the roofing business and couldn't make it. Kevin also provides about a million laughs on these trips. We missed having him.
So, it was
just the three of us, Ray, Rich and me making this ride. The weather forecast was for warm, sunny weather and it was 27 degrees and sunny when we left. We started out about 9:30 AM from the Gateway Lodge in Land O' Lakes Wisconsin, right on the UP border with full gas tanks. We rode Trail 3 to Watersmeet, MI, home of the Nimrods, and then continued up the trail to Bruce Crossing, MI. From there we continued to Mass City, where we gassed up and had a short rest. After our break in Mass City, we continued up the Bill Nichols Trail to the Mosquito Inn in Toivola for a late lunch. The Mosquito was recently bought by a couple folks from Dekalb, IL, named Don and Donna. They've really fixed up the place and are big supporters of snowmobiling and the trail system. Don makes some of the best sandwiches around and we had a great lunch break there.
After lunch we rode the 15 miles to Houghton, where we stopped for a couple pictures. The canal is safely frozen and is a quicker way to get across, but we decided to take the bridge since
Ray had not been here before and I think it's a cool experience to ride across an 1/8th mile bridge set up for snowmobiling. We then headed north for about 15 miles to Calumet, where we made our final gas stop of the 170 mile trip. Rich and I figured we'd like to stop at the Cliffview Inn for a rest since we were probably about 25 miles from Copper Harbor. Holly, the owner was tending bar and is a friendly gal to shoot the breeze with. The Cliffview is always on the itinerary when we get up this far. There are 2 main snowmobile trails to Copper Harbor. Trail 3 goes over Brockway Mountain, one of the highest points in the Keweenaw and Trail 134 goes through the woods. Since it was now dark, we decided to take Trail 134 and take Trail 3 the following day.
We arrived at our destination, The Mariner North around 7:30 PM. We had a nice cabin reserved at The Mariner and moved our gear in for the night. We then walked to the restaurant at The Mariner for dinner and massages. Rich had made prior arrangements with the Mariner to have
Johanna meet us at 8:00. Johanna is the owner of Spirit of the North Wellness Center:
Her business is right down the street in Copper Harbor. Johanna will meet you at The Mariner if you make a reservation with her. She is an excellent masseuse and a real friendly person. What a great way to end the day. You can't beat a good massage after a long day of riding to get the aches out of the old muscles. Check out her website and call her or The Mariner North for a reservation. I highly recommend it.
We had a few well earned cocktails and discussed the days events and riding. The trails were perfect and the weather was beautiful with temps in the mid 30's and plentiful sunshine. Ray is becoming a more experienced rider and did a great job of riding all day. Tomorrow, the trip back to Land O' Lakes.
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Tim Dowling
non-member comment
Copper Harbor Trip
Let me see if I have this straight. A man with a prostate the size of a cantaloupe; practically gives himself a hernia trying to whizz each time, jumps on a snowmobile for a cross the Arctic trip in Arctic Temperatures. How do you do it? Are you permanentally catherized? Seriously, it looks like a great trip.