For those climbers who have ventured north to climb the wonderful ice formations at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, they know that the area has a history of hard to find, and easily mixed up routes. Jon Jugenheimer and I have decided to combine forces and generate a third edition to the climbers guide to Munising Ice.
Late night work sessions have made us come to realize that developing a guidebook is time consuming, frustrating, expensive, but very rewarding. The previous two guidebooks served their purpose, but with recent route development, and an increase in the sheer numbers of new ice climbers, we feel that this new book will give justice to the history of the area, and introduce “old timers” to some new climbs!
This past weekend Jon and I put in 15 miles of shoreline exploration marking GPS coordinates for the major ice formations in the park. The lake was angry with huge waves crashing up against the rocks with a thunderous booms, making for a great sound track to this productive day.
With the snow starting to fly and ice sure to follow, the new edition of the Munising Ice Climbing Guidebook should be finished by late November. The book will be available for purchase at your favorite climbing stores and we will be having a special guidebook release party at the 2013 Michigan Ice Fest!