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Sierra Club Wilderness trips and expeditions
   Chapter: Michigan (Mackinac)
   Group: Central Upper Peninsula (CUPG)
   Leader: Michael Neiger, Marquette, Michigan (Web site; e-mail; bio)

Review journal no. 1 and journal no. 2 from this completed trip.

Jan 15-19, 2004
(date change; updated 10-19-03)
   Intermediate-level winter camping
   Beaver Basin (Pictured Rocks), Fox River Trail,
      & Kingston Plains area
   Alger County
   Upper Michigan, east of Munising

-- Strenuous off-trail route; only suitable for those with good aerobic endurance and stamina.

We will travel by snowshoe, hauling our gear with either backpacks or lightweight sledges (five, first-come, first-serve, $5-rental club sleds available by prior arrangement).

We'll explore the Beaver Basin, which is up for Wilderness Designation in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, as well as shoe along the north end of the Fox River Trail and through the expansive, wind-swept Kingston Plains. Final route depends on conditions and current camping regulations within the National Lakeshore.

Instruction in map and compass use, snow shelter building, and winter fire laying for those interested.

Sledging--
one of the more efficient
ways to move gear
in the winter.
Members of the
WomenQuest Polar Trek 2001,
an all-woman
North Pole expedition,
train with the Central Upper
Peninsula Group of
the Sierra Club
and Mary Powell of Flint
in the Pictured Rocks area,
March 2001
(Photo by Mary Powell)

This is not a basecamp trip. We will move each day and bivouac in a different location deep in the bush each night, far from roads, dry & level campsites, potable water, toilets, and fire rings.

Participants must be: 18, nonsmokers, experienced winter-campers (2 recent trips) with cold-weather (-30) experience and gear, very physically fit (good aerobic endurance and stamina), swimmers, adventurous, & fully equipped, including bivouac gear, rations, stove, and high-floatation snowshoes.

    -- Ice rescue picks required

8 a.m. Thur to midday Mon. $15.

Suggested signup deadline: January 1

1,24000 quads for land nav team:
   -- Trappers Lake, Michigan
   -- Grand Portal Point, Michigan
   -- Au Sable Point SW, Michigan
   -- Au Sable Point, Michigan
   Topo map ordering information

View trip journal and photos from '03 winter trip

View trip journal and photos from '02 winter trip

E-mail trip leader for a trip application form at mneiger@hotmail.com.

Return to upcoming trips page and read about another trip

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In God's wilderness lies the hope of the world,
the great, fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness.
 — John Muir 1838-1914, Alaska Wilderness, 1890

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by Michael A. Neiger

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