Posted on August 26th, 2012
Backpacking in Michigan
Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan availab… read more
Posted on June 8th, 2012Editor’s Note: At both ends of the river weekend festivals are staged as part of the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Race. Grayling calls it’s event Au Sable River Festival and it includes the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, a 100-mile bicycle ride to Oscoda on Sunday that finishes near the end of… read more
Posted on May 24th, 2012Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.
By Jim DuFresne
Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I hav… read more
Posted on May 3rd, 2012
I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.
The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured
Jim DuFresne
Rocks National Lake… read more
Posted on April 19th, 2012Editor’s Note: Don’t forget on Tuesday, April 24, Jim DuFresne will be giving his presentation Michigan’s Top Ten Backpacking Treks at 7 p.m. at Backcountry North, 2820 N. US-31 South in Traverse City. Advance registration for the show is required and can be made by calling Backcountry Nort… read more
Posted on February 28th, 2012
Jim DuFresne
It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.
What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tue… read more
Posted on February 20th, 2012
I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.
Jim Du… read more
Posted on December 31st, 2010
The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.
Jim DuFresne
It will only shrink.
As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natur… read more
Posted on September 9th, 2010
I’m not sure what was more amazing; the look on my friend’s face the first time he saw the sweeping view of Lake Michigan from Empire Bluff or the fact that this lifelong resident of Michigan, somebody who has traveled widely around the country and the world, had never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes Na… read more
Posted on July 27th, 2010
I like to hike. Pure and simple.
I like to put one boot in front of the other in the sand dune country of Michigan, the mountains of New Zealand or the great wilderness areas of Alaska, following a path away from the chaotic noise of civilization and into the slower and quieter pace of the natural world.… read more
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