This is about a ski trail. It's about an hour in the woods. It's about feeling parts of you that the other 23 hours of the day don't include. It is not about a lake. There is no lake at the McNearney Lake ski trail. Let's just get that out of the way.
Deep in the Hiawatha National Forest, 5 miles down the Salt Point Road from Lake Superior sits a small log hut with a chimney bravely poking through a cloud of roof snow. It is at the back of a deep, plowed parking lot, and next to the cabin hangs a weather-aged sign. This is the trailhead for the McNearny Lake national forest groomed ski trail.
Cross country skiing gets a mixed reception. For some it's a wonder that anyone would want to walk around in the woods lugging skis and sweating back towards a never-appearing parking lot. There's a fair number in that group. For others it's a sometimes thing — something that sounds like a good idea, usually isn't, but every year they vow to do it more often. And don't. That's a good size crowd too. The cross country skiers who take to places like McNearney Lake tend to slide and ski rather than just walk, and they somehow feel better after it's over than when they started, which sets this group apart. It's actually easy to become one of these, and a place like McNearny Lake is the place to do it.
One of the best reasons for that is that there is no one there. McNearney Lake is not a social occasion.
It is a deep-snow 40 acres of hardwoods. At one end, the trail runs under high white pines with branch covered tunnels and grottoes. The trail is packed and tracked about once a week — usually on Fridays. It begins in a young, green meadowy area, and then quickly takes a right turn up a 30-foot ridge. This is always where the questions begin, as skis slide backward, and sputtering doesn't work. The key to this ridge, and any ridge, is to duck walk — or herringbone — one step at time to the top. The farther you lean forward, and use your arms, the more traction you get from widening (not too wide) the front of your skis, and the quicker the ridge disappears. On top of that ridge is a curvy couple of miles of hardwoods and smaller ridges.
McNearney, as do most groomed trails, offers a couple of places to disembark. At the first sign of a trail split, the option to go right leads to a two mile loop through the high white pines. It means a longer trip than staying straight ahead, but it's a pretty ride.
That loop comes back to the original trail at about a quarter mile from where it departed. At that intersection, a left turn takes you back to the parking lot. The first loop, all tolled, is about a mile and half. For many that's plenty. If you take the pine turnoff and the small loop you've done about three miles.
If you go beyond that intersection you get into the meat of the ski trail, but you are on at least a 6 mile run. Don't do it unless you want more. Much more.
From here the trail follows on top of ridges and crosses logging roads — occassionally following them.
Toward the end the trial crests on a high ridge overlooking an old meadow. I always imagine an early farmstead in this meadow and wonder what it must have been like to live in this isolation and coax a life. But to get to the meadow you have to crouch low, dig in and hang on. The chute down is fifty feet of almost straight speed. No snowplows here. In any good season you get to count the sitzmarks along the chute, which are sit marks along the chute. People gave up and sat down. As I said earlier, the best thing about this trail is that there are no witnesses.
From here in it's mostly easy downhill, and the parking lot, eventually, appears. The cabin has a small stove and a pile of stove wood, and next door is a privy. The stove is small, but if you ever want to get a crowd together and spend an afternoon at the trail, the cabin will keep you warm, and toast just about anything.
This is a neighborhood trail. We're fortunate the U.S. Forest Service created it and maintains it. Use it. And after that, the next time you use it, it's easier. That's a rule.
Pat Egan is the former publisher of the Sault Evening News. He is a recipient of the William Allen White award for editorial writing. He and his wife Debra live at Salt Point.
