Posted on December 6th, 2012Editor’s Note:Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!
Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of F… read more
Posted on October 29th, 2012Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.
Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuF… read more
Posted on October 21st, 2012Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back… read more
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 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 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 November 8th, 2011
I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.
I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during… read more
Posted on March 21st, 2011
After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.
The river w… read more
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