Sled Dogs and Snow

Twenty years ago today my dad and I headed up to Marquette, MI to visit NMU,  one of the colleges i was looking at attending. Actually, at the time I was pretty sure I was going to attend Western Michigan with a friend, or maybe Michigan State where it seemed like 1/3rd of my class of 262 was planning on going. However, I had this conversation with a guy at this grocery store I was working at and his description of the place interested me enough to set up a campus visit. And I figured what the hell, I'd at least be able to get away for the weekend and get in a bit of snowboarding.

So, my dad and I drove up towards Marquette in a blizzard on a Friday, only making it as far as Mackinac City due to the storm. I think they might have even closed The Bridge as well.  The next morning we drove across the UP into Marquette, where i went through the typical college visit routine. Met some professors, toured the Union, walked through campus, etc. However, my mind was mostly on all the snow, and my plan to hit up Marquette Mountain the next day.

That night we went downtown for the start of the UP 200 Sled Dog Race, and I felt as if i were an extra in an episode of Northern Exposure (which coincidentally, was and still is one of my favorite tv shows). The next day, was spent riding the deepest, softest snow i had ever had the pleasure to ride. My time on a snowboard up until this point had been spent sliding around on the many icy converted trash dump/ski hills in SE Michigan, so to be actually riding a "mountain" with little cliffs to drop, trees to ride through, and some ridiculously nice people made this flatlander from southern Michigan feel like he was out in Crested Butte or some other far off mountain he had only read about in a magazine. Damn, what a magical day that was.

                               photo courtesy of Photo Yoop

I sometimes wonder what path my life would have taken had my campus visit been a couple weeks later, with no downtown sled dog race, no 2 feet of fresh snow to ride, and had been met with grey skies and a 25 below wind chill, which is quite common in those parts. Would I have still decided to move up there, or would i have instead decided to go to MSU with everyone else. Would I have then missed out on fishing the Chocolay, the Little Garlic, the Yellow Dog? Would I have missed out on the 103 days of snowboarding i put in in the winter of '92-'93? How many times would i have hiked up Hogsback to camp with some friends under a full moon? How many sub-zero afternoons would I have spent ice fishing with my buddy Mike? How often would i spend all night talking with good friends in large tipis on the shore of Lake Superior? Well, if i had decided to stay downstate and go to college with many of my friends, i can say chances are pretty good that those things most likely don't happen, and I'm also fairly certain that I don't end up here in Missoula.

So, on this night, head full of nostalgia, i tip my glass to the fair city of Marquette.
Thanks.
Yoopternal.