Posts Tagged ‘Old Mission Peninsula’

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Suddenly, it’s Summer! A Beachcomber’s Guide to Traverse City

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Saturday Afternoon at Suttons Bay

Saturday Afternoon at Suttons Bay

By MIKE NORTON

Wow! What an amazing Memorial Day weekend. For a while on Saturday, I thought we’d skipped June entirely and gone straight to July. I’ve never seen so many people at the beach and in the water this early in the year. (The bay was so warm that I even dove into it a few times myself - and I usually wait until Cherry Festival week!)
But the whole experience got me thinking about the many beaches in and around Traverse City. Everybody has his or her own favorite, of course - but the sheer number of them can make the process of choosing the correct beach a bit of a headache.

The late Charles Kuralt may have said it best. Bewildered by all the possible activities and attractions a visitor to Traverse City might face, the famed host of On the Road once confessed that he found it hard to pick just one or two things to do. Play golf? Pick fruit? Taste wine? Take in a concert? In the end, he concluded:

“Maybe we’ll just sit on a beach and think about this. Yes - but which beach to sit on? East Bay Beach, West End Beach, Northport Beach, Lighthouse Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes? Glorious place. Too many choices.”

It’s always been that way, of course. With 181 miles of shoreline on Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan and 149 inland lakes, the Traverse City area is blessed with dozens of gorgeous beaches, from the endless golden sands of Sleeping Bear to the rock-strewn shoals of the Old Mission Peninsula. Even if we’re just talking about the public beaches in Traverse City itself, the choices can still be daunting (After all, there are two bays to choose from — urban West Bay with its parks and paths, and resort-oriented East Bay with its hotels and cottages - and each has lots of beaches to choose from.

So which beach is the best? It all depends on what you want to do and when you want to do it. Swimming or tanning? Morning, afternoon or evening? Looking for a family beach with a playground, bathhouse, picnic tables and a lifeguard, a sociable beach where everybody seems to be showing off the latest swimwear styles, or a long lonely stretch of sand where you can walk for an hour without seeing another person? Traverse City has all of those, and more. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

Best All-round Convenient Beach: Clinch Park
It’s hard to beat a beach that has over 1500 feet of sandy shore with picnic tables, lifeguards, restrooms and a miniature steam train. Prized for its proximity to downtown shops, restaurants and parking, Clinch Park is the most popular of Traverse City’s many beaches. And although it can get particularly crowded on hot midsummer afternoons, all you have to do is wander down the shore a little ways to find a quiet spot closer to the mouth of the Boardman River.

Best Sunset Beach: Empire Village Park
It’s hard to find a place anywhere on the Lake Michigan shore of the Leelanau Peninsula where the sunsets aren’t spectacular, but this generous beach at the end of Niagara Street has lots of advantages. It’s surrounded by the majestic Empire Bluffs, and close to food and other beach necessities. Best of all, when the sun goes down you can find your way back to Traverse City without getting lost.

Best Morning Beach: Haserot Beach
Tucked away in the tiny village of Old Mission, Haserot Beach is still pretty much a neighborhood hangout on weekdays, but on weekends it can get pretty crowded - especially for a beach that’s 20 miles from town! The attraction? A south-facing beach in a sheltered, crescent-shaped harbor that starts getting sunshine as soon as dawn breaks over the horizon.

Best Family Beach for Afternoons and Evenings: Bryant Park
This most easterly of Traverse City’s West Bay beaches, boasts an elaborate playground, lifeguards, restrooms and lots of grills and picnic tables shaded by tall pines, Bryant Park offers relief from the afternoon sun and a fine swimming beach where children can be easily supervised. It’s also, hands down, the best place in town to sit on the beach and watch the sun go down.

Best Beach for a Long Uninterrupted Stroll: Good Harbor Bay
The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is crammed with wonderful, lonely beaches where you can walk for miles without seeing another person, but many of these isolated spots are hard to reach by car. An exception is Good Harbor Bay, where there are lots of places to park along the road and walk out to the beach. Once you’ve arrived, you can walk as far as you like, and the view is excellent.

Best Beach with a Built-in Fun Ride: Lake Township Beach
At the mouth of the Platte River near Honor, this beach opens onto Platte Bay and is beautiful in its own right. But an added benefit is the river, which rushes down through the sand dunes on its way to the lake. Kids of all ages enjoy floating on the stream and letting the current carry them out to the lake, then getting out and doing it all over again. There’s a nice picnic ground with modern restrooms, too.

Most Underpublicized Beach: Elk Rapids
The village of Elk Rapids has two fine beaches on East Grand Traverse Bay. One is near the town’s quaint River Street shopping district, with a great playground and fine views of the Old Mission peninsula across the water. The other is a 13-acre county park on South Bayshore Drive with wooded nature trails, a bathhouse, playground, picnic area, tennis and basketball courts and a fine strolling beach along the bay.

Best Beach for Rockhounds: Peterson Park
When you visit this isolated park near the tip of the Leelanau peninsula, you begin at the top of a high bluff with splendid views of Lake Michigan and descend a steep set of stairs to reach the water. But bring shoes or sandals! This beach isn’t made of sand, gravel or pebbles - it’s composed entirely of rocks. Fist-sized, grapefruit-sized, watermelon-sized, in a bewildering and fascinating range of types and colors, all left by ancient glaciers and rolled to clean smoothness by the endless action of the waves.

Best Beach for Amateur Archeologists: West End Beach
A small, quiet beach at the end of Division Street on West Bay, with restrooms and a small parking lot, this can be a fine place for morning sunbathing and swimming, and is popular among families with small children. But its most unique feature is that much of Traverse City’s frontier waterfront was located just west of the beach — you can still see the jagged stumps of old wharves and piers out in the water, which frequently washes up bits of sand-frosted glass and smoothed bits of planks from long-ago sawmills.

Best Beach for Contemplating the Human Form: Volleyball Beach
Just west of Clinch Park and the Open Space, Traverse City’s newest beach came into being only a few years ago when several old buildings were removed from the waterfront. It takes its name from the beach volleyball courts located here (which hosted the 2005 World Cup beach volleyball tournament, in case you were interested) and is especially popular with the young, lean and well-tanned, even those who don’t play volleyball.

Best Beach for Small Children: East Bay Park
This park at the city’s eastern edge is located in a quiet residential neighborhood that’s sheltered by lots of majestic pines. Here there are extensive picnic areas, restrooms, a nice play area, a lifeguard station and a shallow sloping beach. But the best advantage is that there isn’t very much automobile traffic nearby, and the water is extremely shallow for quite a long way.

Best East Bay Beach: Traverse City State Park
At the foot of Three Mile Road, this park offers 700 feet of splendid sandy beach near the mouth of Mitchell Creek. Since it’s a state park, visitors must purchase a vehicle permit - but there’s also a roomy bathhouse and changing room and a well-maintained picnic area. Although this is the last public beach at the southern edge of East Bay, no one minds if you wander farther along what was once billed as Traverse City’s “Sugar Sand Miracle Mile.” Now home to several handsome upscale resorts and condo developments, it remains a wonderful place for an early-morning run or an evening stroll.

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Posted in Summer, Traverse City, Uncategorized, Water | 1 Comment »

Blossom Days: Drinking Wine and Walking the Dog

Monday, May 10th, 2010
Lilacs (and a Few Late Cherry Blossoms) on the Old Mission Peninsula

Lilacs (and a Few Late Cherry Blossoms) on the Old Mission Peninsula

By MIKE NORTON
What a weather rollercoaster! First we get unseasonably warm weather, so all our cherry trees bloomed a month early - and then this past weekend we got SNOW! Fortunately it didn’t last long and doesn’t seem to have done any major damage - and now it looks as though we might finally be headed for a spell of typical May weather. Not too hot, not too cool. In short, just perfect.

The cherry blossoms are pretty much gone now, alas. But the apple trees are in bloom and looking very beautiful - and there are lilacs everywhere. (It’s one of the gifts left to us by our pioneer forebears, who seem to have planted lilacs around every barn, shed, house and outhouse. Today, a century later, you can tell where old farmsteads once were just by looking for those clumps of lovely, fragrant purple bushes.)

So it’s entirely reasonable that the wineries of the Old Mission Peninsula will still have their annual Blossom Days festival this coming weekend. Usually held to coincide with the blossoming of the cherry orchards (not that it usually does, anyway) it’s primarily a good excuse to get out, enjoy the spring scenery and try some of the splendid wine they make out on the Peninsula. It’s a great chance to sample the coming season’s wines before they’re officially released - including the barrel and reserve wines.

The event will be held Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The $15 ticket price includes a souvenir glass and tasting at all seven Old Mission wineries, and you can get tickets at any Old Mission Peninsula winery on the days of the event. (Call 231-223-4110 if you need further information.)

If you’re more in the mood for walking your dog than sampling wine, Saturday is also the day of a fun-sounding new event: Tails to Trails. This is a 5K walk along the awesome Vasa Pathway for dogs and their owners (visitors and locals) - with lots of opportunities to mingle with other dog owners, have a pet portrait taken, watch a canine training demonstration and experience a fun run/walk with your canine friend. Participating pooches will receive a commemorative bandanna (limited quantity), a goodie bag with treats and promotional dog items.

The event is sponsored by the folks at the Traverse Area Recreational Trails (TART), which hosts numerous events on their wide-ranging trail system - though this will be the first one specifically for dogs. “Dogs are the best personal trainers; they encourage their owners to get out in all types of weather year round and get moving” says TART outreach coordinator Pam Darling.

Tails to Trails will start Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Vasa Pathway Trailhead off Bartlett Road. Registration will be $20 for individuals and $30 for families. (Pets must still be on a leash at all times, and owners are responsible for picking up after their pets.) For directions and details, contact Pam Darling at pam@traversetrails.org or (231) 941-4300.

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Lighthouse Experts Gather in TC This Summer

Monday, May 3rd, 2010
The cozy little lighthouse at Old Mission Point

The cozy little lighthouse at Old Mission Point

TRAVERSE CITY, MI - This summer hundreds of lighthouse fans will gather here to discuss ways to restore and preserve historic lighthouses.

The Great Lakes Lighthouse Preservation Conference will be held June 14-17 at NMC’s Hagerty Center on  West Grand Traverse Bay. It will feature tours, panel discussions, workshops and lectures for lighthouse aficionados of every stripe - including those who want to buy and own a lighthouse of their own. (And since 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, federal officials will be at the conference to announce which lighthouses will become available for transfer to private ownership in the coming year.)

Visitors from other regions are often startled to learn that Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state in the U.S. Though it’s hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, it has over 3,000 miles of coastline (only Alaska has more) and during the 19th century its “inland seas” were among the most heavily traveled waterways in the world. More than 130 lighthouses were built to warn mariners away from their numerous beaches, shoals and headlands.

That busy time of sloops and schooners is only a distant memory today, and most of Michigan’s lighthouses have been rendered obsolete as navigational aids, but they still exert a powerful attraction. Each year, growing numbers of lighthouse enthusiasts make their way to the Great Lakes State - and particularly to the region around Traverse City.

“Michigan’s love affair with lighthouses is immediately evident,” says Terry Pepper, executive director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association. “Perhaps nowhere is this love demonstrated more than by those dedicated volunteer groups who step up to literally save these icons of our maritime heritage from being lost to weather, ice or just plain neglect.”

Many lighthouses around the country have been taken over by nonprofit historic or community groups; others serve as private homes, inns and restaurants. The Traverse City conference includes a number of “technical discussions” to help new owners cope with the unique challenges of owning and caring for them. To learn more, contact the Michigan Lighthouse Alliance at www.michiganlighthousealliance.org

The Lighthouses of Traverse City
For those who’d rather skip the lectures and do some exploring on their own, Traverse City is a convenient base for exploring five historic lighthouses, all located in a relatively compact area. Best of all, four of the five can be easily visited and are open for tours, and two even allow visitors to spend a week or two in residence as volunteer lighthouse keepers.

The most easily accessible of the Traverse City area’s lighthouses is the Grand Traverse Lighthouse. Located at the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula, near the village of Northport, it is one of the oldest lighthouses on the Great Lakes, guiding ships through the northern entrance to the Manitou Passage for 150 years.

Today it is a museum surrounded by a picturesque state park where visitors can envision the once-isolated life of lighthouse keepers and their families, with extensive exhibits and period furnishings from the 1920s and 1930s. Its popular “volunteer lighthouse keeper” program also provides opportunities for enthusiasts to spend several weeks living in the lighthouse, carrying on routine maintenance and answering the questions of its frequent visitors.

Some 45 miles to the south near the town of Frankfort, the Point Betsie Lighthouse - “the second most photographed lighthouse in the U.S.” after Maine’s Portland Head Light — marks the lower entrance of the Passage. Built in 1858, its brightly-colored buildings are clustered in a scenic dune area at the very edge of the surf. Point Betsie was the last lighthouse on the eastern Lake Michigan shore to be staffed by the Coast Guard; it was automated in 1983 and is still in operation.

Like its neighbor to the north, the lighthouse now belongs to a nonprofit group, the Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse, which recently completed a $1 million exterior restoration and is raising money to restore the interior as well. It, too, is open for regular tours.

The picturesque Old Mission Point Lighthouse was built in 1870 to warn ships away from the dangerous shoals at the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula, but was replaced by an offshore beacon in 1933. The lighthouse is open for tours daily during spring, summer and fall, and it is the centerpiece of an attractive park with popular beaches, historical exhibits and extensive hiking and skiing trails. Like the Grand Traverse Lighthouse, it has a popular volunteer lighthouse keeper program.

Even more picturesque, but somewhat less accessible, the South Manitou Island Lighthouse can only be reached in summer, after a 1.5-hour ferryboat ride from the Lake Michigan port of Leland. A classic 100-foot tower, the light rises abruptly from the shore of the island - and visitors are free to climb its 117 steps for a thrilling view of water, sky, forests and dunes. Established in 1840 to beckon vessels to what was then the last deepwater harbor north of Chicago, the original wooden light was replaced in 1871 with the current building. Today it is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and administered by the National Park Service.

Just a few miles away, the North Manitou Island Shoal Lighthouse – known to locals as “the crib” - is not open to visitors. Built in 1935 to mark an unusual and dangerous shoal, it stands by itself in the middle of the water. For 42 years this artificial island was home to a three-man Coast Guard crew who rotated on a three-week schedule (two weeks on and one week off) during the navigational season. Since 1980 it has been operated as an automated navigational light and has been taken over by a large population of cormorants. Although visitors are not encouraged to climb onto the large structure, it can be viewed up-close from the ferry that takes visitors to South Manitou.

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Posted in Arts and Culture, History, Lighthouses, Museums, Parks, Spring, Summer, Travel Columns, Traverse City | No Comments »

The Bayshore Marathon: Wine, Scenery and Ice Cream

Monday, April 26th, 2010
Running along Center Road on the Bayshore Marathon

Running along Center Road on the Bayshore Marathon

By MIKE NORTON

There are bigger footraces in the world than Traverse City’s Bayshore Marathon. Better known ones, too.

But each year, organizers of this small race turn away hundreds of runners because they don’t want to ruin the charm and character that have made it such a popular event for the past 28 years.

And each year, the Bayshore attracts more and more runners - in 2009, some 5,000 participants turned out to run in one of its three races: the main marathon, the half marathon, and the Bayshore 10K run. They included runners from 36 states and the District of Columbia, as well as Canada, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. This year’s race, on May 29, promises to be every bit as busy.

It’s a far cry from the day when race organizers got excited to see 200 runners show up for the event. Now, in fact, they regularly limit the number of competitors who can enter, simply to keep the Bayshore from growing too unwieldy. When registration for the 2,000 available spots in the half marathon opened in December, the list was filled in 19 days - and the full marathon list filled shortly afterward.

Why such big interest in a small-town race?

Mainly, it’s the setting. As its name implies, the Bayshore’s route follows the shoreline of East Grand Traverse Bay up the Old Mission Peninsula, an area that features some of the most breathtaking views available on any marathon course. On one side there’s the famous bay with its Caribbean array of jade green, cobalt blue and turquoise water. On the other side, elegant residential areas gradually fade into a landscape of vineyards and orchards where, since the race takes place in May, participants are often treated to the sight of thousands of blossoming cherry trees.

But many runners are just as charmed by the small-town cheerfulness of race spectators, who make up for their lack of numbers by their friendliness and creativity (how many marathons feature ice cream at their refreshment stops?) and by the community’s plentiful tourist amenities.

“We’ve got a place that people want to come to,” said Jeff Gaft, who manages the local Running Fit athletic gear store. “It’s a well-run race and it doesn’t have that crowded feel, and a lot of people come so they can make a weekend of it.”

The course is relatively flat and completely paved, and along much of the route it’s shaded by trees. (Not that shade is usually a necessity; temperatures for the area during May run from a low of 41 to a high of 66 degrees.) Hosted for 26 years by the Traverse City Track Club, the Bayshore promotes itself as “a marathon for runners, put on by runners.”  It’s certified as a Boston Marathon qualifier.

Races also play a prominent role in the area’s many summer festivals, including the National Cherry Festival, which has a 15K and a 5K race, and the Traverse City Film Festival. And each year the winemakers of the nearby Leelanau Peninsula hold a seven-mile fall run through their vineyards called the Harvest Stompede, which also includes tours and tastings at their wineries.

For some competitors, even a marathon isn’t enough of a challenge. Triathlons are becoming an increasingly popular option in the Traverse City, and there are now three different versions of this grueling running/swimming/cyling event going on in the area this summer.

The first is on Saturday, June 12, when the second annual M-22 Challenge takes place. Founded by kiteboarding entrepreneurs Matt and Keegan Myers, the triathlon combines a two-mile run (including a climb up the Sleeping Bear Dunes!) followed by a 17-mile bicycle race around Big and Little Glen Lakes and a paddling race (kayaks, surf skis or stand-up paddleboards) across Little Glen Lake. Registration is limited to 300 competitors.

Then, on July 11, the Inter-Rockin’ Tri, Du, Sprint Tri is held in nearby Interlochen, featuring three different options: 1.5k swim, a 40k bicycle race and a 10k run; a 500m swim, 20k cycling race and 5k run; or a 5k run, 20k cycle race and 5k run.

Finally, on Sept. 5, the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa sponsored the second annual BAREFOOT Triathlon, where participants can choose between an Olympic distance triathlon (1.5k swim, 26-mile bicycle race, 6.2-mile run) or a sprint distance triathlon (500m swim, 16.4-mile bike race, 3.1-mile run).

For more information about the Bayshore Marathon, check out the race website at www.bayshoremarathon.org.

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Cherry Blossoms, Great Wine & Some Wonderful Cookery

Monday, April 19th, 2010
Karen enjoys a flute of bubbly on the terrace at Chateau Chantal

Karen enjoys a flute of bubbly on the terrace at Chateau Chantal

By MIKE NORTON

What a strange and wonderful spring it’s been! Who would have believed that we’d see all those millions of cherry trees suddenly burst into bloom on the Old Mission and Leelanau peninsulas - nearly a whole month ahead of schedule? (If you’ve got some free time in the next week or two, this would definitely be the time to come and see them - it’s a truly unforgettable sight. And the other flowering trees and shrubs - the forsythia, in particular - also look beautiful.)

Last week, Karen and I had an opportunity to enjoy some of that spectacular display from the high ridge that’s home to the Chateau Chantal Winery and B&B. We were also enjoying something really new: the first of Chateau Chantal’s new five-course wine dinners, in which some of their finest wines were paired with some really excellent dishes prepared by chef Les Hagaman, who runs the nearby Tesoro Inn.

I’m not a big soup guy, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Les’s cream of parsnip bisque with toasted pine nuts (paired with some of the Chateau’s very buttery 2008 reserve chardonnay) was awe-inspiring. And his wok-seared duck breast with tart cherry glaze, served on a based of Swiss chard with a red wine reduction, with the Chateau’s 2008 Trio, was the best duck I’ve ever had.  (Karen was a big fan of the crème brulee paired with their late harvest Riesling, but I preferred the more subtle raspberry sorbet with their Celebrate! sparkling wine.)

Enough of this; I’m making myself hungry all over again. Anyway, theyre planning to offer these splendid dinners this summer on Wednesday and Saturday evenings from June 16th to the end of August. Cost will be $50 per person, plus tax and gratuity - which considering all that food and wine - and some sparkling conversation from the winery staff - is an amazing bargain. I think they’re going to do very well with this.

Taste-testing the Forest Mushroom Risotto at the Chateau Wine Dinner (Yum!)

Taste-testing the Forest Mushroom Risotto at the Chateau Wine Dinner (Yum!)

Speaking of wine, one of the people I ran into at the dinner was Heather Daniels, producer of the “Mary in the Morning” talk show on 106.7 YOU-FM. Together with the winemakers on the other side of the Bay, the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association, they’re starting a “Mary in the Morning Wine Club” that will offer special discounts on wines, cellar tours and other specials.

If you’re interested in discovering more, they’re holding a special launch party for the club this Thursday (April 22) from 5-8 PM at the Mercado in the Village at Grand Traverse Commons. The party will feature lots of gift giveaways, wine samples, hors d’oeuvres, and a special $15 rate to join the wine club. If nothing else, it sounds like a fun way to spend a couple of hours after work on Thursday!

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Posted in Food & Drink, Spring, Summer, Travel Columns, Traverse City | 1 Comment »

Snow Tracks: A Field Guide to Traverse City Winter Recreation

Saturday, January 30th, 2010
A Dainty Fox on the Trail...

A Dainty Fox on the Trail...

By MIKE NORTON

Sharp-eyed naturalists know that winter is the best time to look for signs of northern Michigan’s plentiful wildlife, whether it’s the familiar heart-shaped hoofprints of white-tailed deer, the dainty canine tracks of coyote and fox, or the convincing dinosaur imitations made by wild turkeys.

But there are plenty of other tracks left on Traverse City’s winter snow. By people. In fact, winter is Traverse City’s second busiest season - and once those fat white flakes start floating down from the sky, people start celebrating.

Those long, parallel grooves punctuated with intermittent circles? They’re the unmistakable spoor of Skinny-Skiers, and they’re likely to be found anywhere on the hundreds of miles of marked and groomed cross-country trails that weave their way through the region’s vast acreage of forest and parkland. The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has eight marked trails, some leading up to panoramic overlooks high above the lake. Other marked trail systems include the Lost Lake Pathway near Interlochen, the 3,500-acre Sand Lakes Quiet Area near Williamsburg and - best of all - the Vasa Pathway, one of the finest cross-country ski trails in the nation. (A great way to access the trail is from the nearby Timber Ridge RV & Recreation Resort, which has its own lighted trail system for nocturnal members of the species.)

Four Dainty Foxes on the Trail....

Four Dainty Foxes on the Trail....

A related family whose numbers have increased dramatically in recent years is the Bigfooted Snowshoer, whose staggered, toothy tracks come in a bewildering range of oval, teardrop and rectangular shapes.  These jovial winter denizens can usually be spotted close to downtown Traverse City at the 500-acre Grand Traverse Commons, whose lovely wooded campus features the castlelike spires and walls of a 19th century mental asylum, or the awe-inspiring Lighthouse Park trails at the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula, or along the Boardman River in the Grand Traverse Natural Education Reserve.

The most impressive winter tracks in the forest, of course, are made by the Northwoods Sledder, a sociable visitor that leaves its characteristic corrugated snowmobile trails in places where speed and thrills can most easily be found. Look (and listen) for them south and east of town, where more than 200 miles of the country’s finest and most diverse snowmobiling wait for them on the Boardman Valley Trail, an 81-mile trail system in the Pere Marquette State Forest, or the Jordan Valley Trail, about a half-hour to the northeast, with over 130 miles of spectacular trails.

Some inhabitants of Traverse City’s winter outdoors are more difficult to follow by tracking. For instance, a steep hillside whose slopes are polished and carved by hundreds of shallow crisscrossed paths is probably a regular habitat for the colorful Downhill Skier - but you might just as easily be looking at the trails of the acrobatic Snowboarder or the Snow Tuber. (And no, a Snow Tuber isn’t some sort of winter vegetable; it’s someone who loves flying downhill on a big soft inflated inner tube.)

Skiers, snowboarders and tubers can all be found at Shanty Creek Resorts, a 4,500-acre recreational complex in the beautiful Chain of Lakes region about 30 miles northeast of Traverse City. Ski Magazine rated Shanty Creek the Midwest’s number-one destination in value, dining, lodging, weather and après ski activities. Its ski areas feature a 450-foot vertical with 49 runs for every ability level, plus four snowboarding terrain parks and a tubing park.

A Couple of Tubers at Mt. Holiday

A Couple of Tubers at Mt. Holiday

But downhillers, snowboarders and tubers can also be found in a few smaller pockets of habitat closer to town. Mt. Holiday is a community-run ski area just east of town with 16 runs, two chairlifts, a tubing run and terrain park, a pleasant day lodge, and awesome views of East Bay. On the other side of the city is Hickory Hills, a small municipal ski area with eight runs served by old-fashioned rope tows.

One refuge set aside entirely for tubers is Timberlee Hills, a former ski resort in the hills just northwest of town that’s Michigan’s largest snow tubing hill. Timberlee has breathtaking views of Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Leelanau, and even tandem tubes that allow friends and families to hurtle down the hill together.

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Posted in Outdoor Sports, Skiing, Snowmobiling, Travel Columns, Traverse City, Uncategorized, Wildlife, Winter, Winter Sports | No Comments »

A Sunny Day… and an “Unsilent Night”

Monday, December 14th, 2009
Snowshoers and Dogs Strolling the Beach at the Old Mission Lighthouse

Snowshoers and Dogs Strolling the Beach at the Old Mission Lighthouse

By MIKE NORTON

After three days of snow, wind and clouds, Saturday’s weather was amazing. The sun was out, the sky was a bright robin’s-egg blue, and the bay was shining between those snowy hills like an amethyst nested in white ermine. I couldn’t stay inside - I had to go out to Lighthouse Point just to roam around, look out over the water and enjoy the open sky.

I wasn’t the only one, of course. Not by a long shot. There were already cross-country skiers heading out on the huge network of trails that surround the Old Mission lighthouse, and a group of almost 20 people had decided that day to toss their dogs and snowshoes into their cars and come out to the lighthouse to stomp around in the snow. The people were tired by the time I caught up to them — but those were the happiest dogs I’ve seen in a long time!

Winter is loads of fun, but needless to say, it helps to take a creative approach to the season - and the folks over at the Left Foot Charley winery have adopted a particularly creative idea. On Monday night, Dec. 21, they’re sponsoring a local celebration of Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night, a free outdoor “participatory sound sculpture” where attendees become part of the performance by roving around outdoors with boom boxes, mp3 players and laptop computers that have been programmed with parts of a complex “cloud of sound” that is different from every listener’s perspective.

In case you don’t know, Left Foot Charley is Traverse City’s one and only urban winery, and is located in the Grand Traverse Commons, on the beautiful campus of our former mental hospital, which makes it a perfect venue for something like this. Unsilent Night celebrations have been held in New York, Los Angeles, Missoula and Melbourne, but there are only two Michigan cities — Lansing and Traverse City - that will hold one this year.

The fun begins at 7 p.m. Reservations are required for the event, and you’re invited to bring your own device to play a part of the sound sculpture. (The way it works is that when you make your reservation, they give you link information for downloading to your mp3 - or they can hold a cassette/CD on reserve for you at Left Foot Charley and you can pick it up that night.) For more information, you can call the winery at 231-995-0500 or visit their web site at www.leftfootcharley.com

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Posted in Arts and Culture, Lighthouses, Music, Skiing, Travel Columns, Traverse City, Winter | No Comments »

Winter Arrives, so Amazingly Magical!

Monday, December 7th, 2009
A Wintry Dawn at Old Mission: Leffingwell Point

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!

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Posted in Food & Drink, Hiking, Skiing, Travel Columns, Traverse City, Water, Wildlife, Winter | 2 Comments »

Carter Oosterhouse “Comes Home” on Friday!

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Carter on West Bay near his Old Mission Peninsula Home

Carter on West Bay near his Old Mission Peninsula Home

 

By MIKE NORTON

 

Most of us have known about the upcoming Carter Oosterhouse holiday special, “Carter Comes Home,” since last winter, when Traverse City’s favorite son came back to town to spend several days filming a hometown version of his popular HGTV show.

 

Last week, I found out when the new program will be airing: this coming Friday at 5 p.m. with an encore performance (didn’t they used to call them reruns?) on Dec. 24 at 2 p.m. and Dec. 25 at 9 a.m. Carter, whose regular gigs on series on HGTV include “Red Hot & Green” and “Carter Can,” will be fixing up a family home and the living quarters at one of our city fire stations.

 

I remember interviewing him several years ago when he was home for vacation. What a really nice down-to-earth guy! Here’s some of what was in that interview:

 

When it comes to singing the praises of his hometown, Carter is absolutely tireless. During an appearance on “Oprah,” when most up-and-coming actors can’t resist promoting their next movie, TV special or personal diet program, Carter talked about Traverse City. He even persuaded the producers of his former show — “Trading Spaces” — to film several episodes in Traverse City just so he could show off the place where he grew up.

 

“Anybody who’s around me for very long can’t escape hearing about Traverse City, because I talk about it as if it were made of gold,” he says. “You can see them shaking their heads when I get going. It’s like, ‘Oh, great! Carter is going to talk about TC again.’”

 

The youngest son of Roland and Mary Oosterhouse (it’s pronounced OH-sterhouse) young Carter grew up on the Old Mission Peninsula, where a boy could have lots of outdoor adventures, and even the occasional misadventure, without getting into too much trouble. He and his friends spent their summer days running around the cherry orchards, jumping off bridges into the Boardman River, climbing to the top of Wayne Hill to look out over the city, and “pretty much just messing around on the beach and in the water.”

 

“It was a blast,” he says. “What a great place to grow up! To this day, I love that place.”

Carter attended Traverse City’s St. Francis High School. An enthusiastic athlete, he’s still proud of the championship football and basketball teams the school fielded during his years there, and he enjoys “freaking out” his California friends by telling them that there were only 58 students in his graduating class.

 

“We were a small school, but it was a great place to get an education,” he says. “I’m glad I had that kind of upbringing.”

 

It wasn’t all fun and games at the Oosterhouse home, however. Carter got his first paying job, sorting bottles at Deering’s Market, when he was only 11 or 12. And since he couldn’t always depend on getting a ride from his parents, he usually went to work by boat. He’d crank up the family’s old powerboat and take it into town, tying it up along the river and walking the rest of the way to the store.

 

That same year, he got his first experience as a builder, doing odd jobs for a neighbor, who happened to be a master carpenter. Carter kept working in the carpentry and construction business throughout his high school years and during college at Central Michigan University, where he graduated in 1998 with degrees in communications and nutrition.

 

“There was always a lot of construction going on in Traverse City, and the pay was pretty good,” he says. “Besides, being a carpenter looked so fun, getting to wear the tool belt and the hammer and pounding nails, I was just enthralled.”

 

Little did he know how valuable those skills would be when he headed to California in 2000 to look for a job in show business. Despite some initial success as an actor and model (he landed parts in some independent films and appearing in ads for Nivea, Lincoln/Mercury, Hewlett-Packard and Miller Lite) Carter soon discovered that he wasn’t making enough money to meet his expenses, and it wasn’t long before he was back in the building business.

 

That’s how he caught the eye of the TLC executives who were preparing a spin-off version of “Trading Spaces” called “Trading Spaces: Family.” The show’s basic premise is simple: two neighbors are challenged to remodel a room in each other’s houses in just two days without spending more than $1,000. Carter had the right combination of good looks, personality and carpentry skills for the role. He joined the cast in 2003, and became an instant hit. (People Magazine even included him in its “Sexiest Man Alive” issue.)

 

But Carter still considers himself a small-town guy. He stays in close touch with the folks back home, and when he comes to visit his family and friends he still prefers to hang out in the simple places he enjoyed when he was growing up here, lingering over coffee and dessert in favorite haunts like Poppycock’s and the Omelette Shop. Some of his best fans are the construction crew members he once worked with as a teenager, although he admits that half of them have probably never seen the show because they don’t have cable TV.

 

“That’s one of the things that makes it good to go back,” he says. “People are genuinely happy for me, and they mean it – even if they’ve never seen me on TV.”

 

But it’s the beauty, the open spaces and the relaxed pace of life that keep bringing Carter back to Traverse City every few months. He’s seen a good deal of the world since he left, but says most places simply don’t measure up to his hometown.

 

“I feel like I’ve seen every city in the U.S., and they all have something going for them,” he says. “There are beautiful places on the water, and there are places where the people are really nice. But it’s really hard to compare any of them to Traverse City. This place really has the best of all the worlds combined. You’ve got the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the cute little towns like Northport, and our own downtown. We were in Cape Cod, and there were a lot of little things that reminded me of Traverse City. But it really wasn’t the same.”

 

Kayak paddle in one hand, toolbelt in the other

Kayak paddle in one hand, toolbelt in the other

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Posted in Arts and Culture, Fall, Personal Stories, Travel Columns, Traverse City, Uncategorized, Water, Winter | No Comments »

Thanksgiving in Old Mission: Bring on the Mac & Cheese!

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Tasting the Mac & Cheese at Peninsula Cellars Last Season

Tasting the Mac & Cheese at Peninsula Cellars Last Season

 

By MIKE NORTON

Each November, on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, lovers of good food and wine flock to the vine-covered slopes of the Old Mission Peninsula for one of the year’s quirkiest and tastiest events .

 

There, in the cozy tasting rooms of the Peninsula’s seven wineries — Chateau Chantal, Chateau Grand Traverse, Black Star Farms, Bowers Harbor, Two Lads, Brys Estate and Peninsula Cellars — they ease their turkey-sated palates with tall glasses of Pinot Grigio, Riesling and Chardonnay and platters of macaroni and cheese.

 

That’s right: mac and cheese. That homely staple of family suppers, TV dinners and church potlucks. That icon of bland familiarity. But here at The Great Macaroni & Cheese Bake-Off, the food is anything but humble. Some of the best chefs in the Traverse City area — whose restaurants have been winning raves for their innovative regional cuisine — compete each year to concoct new versions of this traditional comfort food.

 

Consider for a moment the possibilities of a cheddar-ale mac & cheese. Or one made with, say, walnuts and gorgonzola, or lobster with brie. The cheesy possibilities are almost endless, and competing chefs in past years have blended such concoctions as cavatappi pasta blended with goat cheese and white truffle oil with crumbled biscotti cookies sprinkled over the top, or a Reuben mac with noodles, corned beef, and Thousand Island dressing.

 

“We call it macaroni and cheese, but it’s really gourmet pasta,” says Liz Berger of Chateau Chantal, one of the five wineries that participate in the annual Bake-Off, held this year on Saturday, Nov. 28. “The idea is a natural, because cheese pairs so nicely with wine.”

 

The Bake-Off began eight years ago when employees of the Peninsula wineries decided it would be a great way to unwind after the Thanksgiving holiday. And if they could promote their wines and raise a little money for some worthy local cause in the process, so much the better. The idea was an instant success.

 

For years, the vineyards of Old Mission have been producing award-winning Rieslings, Gewurztraminers, Chardonnays and Pinot Grigios whose fresh, crisp taste has demolished snobbish stereotypes about Michigan wine. And as it happens, they go particularly well with rich, creamy dishes like macaroni & cheese.

 

But visitors to the region are drawn as much by the magnificent setting that surrounds the wineries — the Old Mission Peninsula is a narrow 18-mile ridge of land surrounded by the deep blue waters of Grand Traverse Bay, and it hasn’t known an ugly day since the last glacier rolled out of town 10,000 years ago.

 

The way it works is, there are mac & cheese entries from at least two restaurants at each winery. Guests come in and sample a wine paired with each of them, then enjoy four more tastings before moving on to the next winery. It’s great fun.

 

It’s also a great bargain. Admission to the entire event, which lasts from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., is just $20 per person. Tickets can be purchased at any Old Mission winery, the Traverse City Visitors Center, or on the web at  www.chateauchantal.com.  Tickets can be purchased ahead of time — and you should get them well ahead of time. Space is limited to 1,400 people, and when our Visitors Center started offering them two weeks ago, we sold an enormous number just in the first day or two. (Frankly, I wish they’d add another day just to accommodate all the people who want to go but can’t get tickets.)

 

Details about other wine events can be obtained from the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (WOMP) at www.wineriesofoldmission.com/

 

 

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Posted in Fall, Festivals, Food & Drink, Travel Columns, Traverse City | No Comments »

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