A Wintry Dawn at Old Mission: Leffingwell Point

By MIKE NORTON

How quickly things can change!

One day you’re walking around with your jacket unzipped, watching an unwary forsythia put out blooms in the neighbor’s hedge and wondering if winter is ever going to arrive. Then, the next morning, you wake up to find the landscape utterly changed - a gentle blanket of snow undulating across the ground, fluffing up the roof lines and lying in heavy clumps on the pine and hemlock branches. And over it all, a bright silver moon riding the winter sky.

I took a long walk through the snowy woods at Leffingwell Point on Saturday and spooked an enormous owl, who promptly spooked me right back by rising up on immense silent wings and gliding off into the snow-dusted hemlocks. It took me about five minutes for my heart to slow back down! At the end of the trail I found myself on a high bluff over East Bay, watching an endless succession of whitecapped blue-green waves come crashing in. I was listening to some traditional Japanese koto music on my iPod, and felt like I was standing in one of those Hokusai prints of Mt. Fuji.

I’ve already gotten my snowshoes out and stashed them in the back of the car for hiking season. The snow shovel and the snow scoop are leaning against the house, ready for the morning when we’ll need them, and the kayaks have been readied for winter paddling. Right now I’m looking out my window at Grand Traverse Bay, seeing the snow-covered boulders of the marina breakwall reflected in the still water of the harbor and watching the interplay of blue skies and gauzy white clouds out on West Bay. I know I’ll be hating winter by April - but right now I’m really glad to see her!

Already, I hear that two of our most popular ski resorts have been making extra snow of their own and will be open by Friday. Shanty Creek Resorts, over by Bellaire, will be opening their Schuss Mountain ski area, and Mt. Holiday over on the east side of town will be open and ready for business, too! By Dec. 18, it looks like Shanty will open its second hill at Summit Mountain, and TC’s west side ski area, Hickory Hills, will get into the game the same day.

There’ll be lots of Christmas shopping going on in town this week, and I also heard about a neat thing that the wineries of the Old Mission Peninsula are doing on Saturday. It’s something called the First Annual Day of Giving, and it works like this: each of the peninsula’s seven wineries -- Chateau Chantal, Chateau Grand Traverse, Brys Estate, 2 Lads, Black  Star Farms, Peninsula Cellars and Bowers Harbor — will donate 15 percent of their gross sales that day to a particular charity of their choosing. (For a list of the charities and causes, check out their website at www.wineriesofoldmission.com)

I was in the market for a case of wine anyway - it’s been a long, difficult autumn - and now I can feel like I’m doing some good while I indulge my palate!

Tags: Black Star Farms, Grand Traverse, Old Mission Peninsula, Schuss Mountain, Shanty Creek, Skiing, Traverse City

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 10:35 am and is filed under Food & Drink, Hiking, Skiing, Travel Columns, Traverse City, Water, Wildlife, Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.