Snowshoeing, winter camping at Pictured Rocks

[nate]

Pictured Rocks (piro) is one of my favorite places to go. In winter you can camp anywhere your heart desires -- but, be forewarned: most roads to popular trailheads are not plowed so you have to hike to the trailhead and then to where you're going, which can add a lot of extra miles (7 in this case).

Anyway, logged around 17 miles on this trip, 7 of which were breaking fresh snow in 1-3+ foot deep depths, so to call it a workout is a gross understatement. Snowshoes were a must, and ones with good traction for a few of the more technical sections were a good idea as well. You can avoid pretty much all potentially scary cliff edge experiences on the North Lakeshore Trail but those are where the good pictures come from. I kept finding myself looking at trees and slope features for self arrest options if needed but (thankfully) never had to use it.

Breaking fresh snow with the added weight of a pack is pretty intense work, especially depending on the snow type and flotation factors. Thinking it would be easier going I took my snowshoes off at camp and walked (slid) down to the ice river to fill the Nalgenes. On the way I managed to get into a waist-high drift that I'd walked over with the snoeshoes an hour before, and only sunk in ~4-5" previously. Moral of the story is not to underestimate your snowshoes.

Full pics are available here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~olmsnj/images/outdoors/pictured_rocks_0110/


Petit Portal with some crazy ice buildup nearby.


Fairly common site: tracks on top of drifts like this.


Sandstone and snow.


Hanging out on top of Grand Portal Point. Nice thing is it is almost always windy on top of here due to the crazy exposure. You're on top of a sandstone cliff completely unprotected from Lake Superior from the West to just past North so it tends to get crazy.


"Indianhead" and lots of ice far below.


Crazy ice/snow mounds where the beach usually is.


Home!

[Ben]

Did you go alone? How cold was it?

the pic of the ice on the beach is awesome, never seen anything like that before

[Pete]

sweet photos 

[nate]

Yep, went solo. Temps were very reasonable, in the 15-25F range for the most part. My 0F bag was very comfy, with the only discomforts caused by a pulled muscle in my left leg and the cold Nalgene bottles sharing the sleeping bag with me. When going down the trail I was usually just slightly too warm which was just fine. When sitting on my duff at camp, was just slightly too cold but could have put another layer on also.

[busyfixin]

there was some serious waves around there when we came home two saturdays ago.  a friend on a freighter said 25-30 footers out on the lake.  we didnt see that big along the shores anywhere, but the pictured rocks area sees some pretty big ones since its uprotected.  probably where some of that wicked looking ice buildup came from.

[nate]

Probably a pretty good contributor to it for sure! Even when I was there winds weren't too bad (up to 15mph or so) but there were smaller waves crashing over the top slowly but surely.