February’s page of the 2012 Pure Michigan calendar features a photo of an ice climber scaling a frozen waterfall in Munising, one of the state’s most popular destinations for the activity. Garrett Peabody, owner of Peabody Ice Climbing Club in Fenton, shares some insights into this exciting sport and why Michigan is such a popular destination for it.

Q: How does somebody get started with ice climbing?

A: Ice climbing is a lot like rock climbing with respect to movement and belay systems. Understanding those concepts helps when getting started, though they can be learned quickly. Climbing outdoors or in a climbing gym is a great place to practice those skills in a controlled environment. That said, ice climbing requires additional considerations because of conditions and needed equipment.

Q: What equipment do you need?

A: Clothing suitable for cold temperatures with a water resistant shell is best. Harness, boots, ice axes, crampons, helmet and gloves. Eye protection helps too. The equipment is technical, and it helps to have a knowledgeable person go through its features and functions prior to using.

Q: Do you need any special skills?

A: A sense of awareness helps. Ice climbing involves inherent risk. The risk can be addressed by being aware of the situation and learning from others with experience.

Q: Where can you ice climb around Michigan?

A: Most of the climbing in Michigan is focused along the shore of Lake Superior in Munising. There are literally miles of sandstone cliff lined with hundreds of frozen waterfalls ranging from 20 to 210 ft tall.

Q: Do people travel to Michigan to ice climb?

A: Absolutely. Many come from surrounding states as we are home to one of the best ice climbing regions in the country.

Q: Do you have any tips for ice climbers – regardless of experience?

A: Communication is key. Climbing is an individual and team pursuit combined. Being aware of your and your partner’s combination of ability and experience is inherent to safety and success.

Q: How can people learn more about ice climbing?

A: The Michigan Ice Fest in Munising in early February is the best way to see and experience the sport firsthand in its true element. It is hosted by Downwind Sports out of Marquette. Interested individuals can demo equipment, participate in a clinic with a professional climber, view slide shows of their trips, do some climbing and see the scenery. There is a lot of info online. Alternatively, interested parties can contact us if they have questions.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the Peabody Ice Climbing Club?

A: Peabody Ice Climbing Club is an ice climbing venue. Two towers, 45 and 72 ft tall, are iced over in the winter to offer a place for experienced ice climbers to train. Trying out ice climbing on these towers also provides a great introduction to people interested in the sport. The club is located on an old apple orchard south of Fenton. We provide gear and instruction. See our Facebook page for conditions and  general information. Call us at (810)433-3304 or e-mail us at peabodyiceclimbing@gmail.com with questions.

Pure Michigan ads are made up of more than just those beautiful ads you see on television, we also advertise on billboards! From these, we have had some questions from fans, asking where the photographs were taken so that they could visit the locations first-hand! Take a look at the map below too! Maybe it’s time for a road trip?

Tubing  on the AuSable River in Oscoda

Kayaking by the Pictured Rocks, in Munising

Shanty Creek Resort, the Cedar River Golf Course, in Bellaire

Mackinac Bridge, as seen from the Straits  of Mackinac, Mackinaw City 

Have you been to any of these locations? We’d love to see the photos you took while visiting! Link to them below, Tweet them @puremichigan, or post on our Facebook wall!

View Pure Michigan Show and Tell in a larger map

Related posts:

2011 Pure Michigan Ads
Find These Pure Michigan Treasures

We have enjoyed sharing the latest Pure Michigan TV and radio spots with our fans on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as they became available, but there’s a chance you may have missed one or two. Or, maybe you saw an ad on TV, but when you mentioned it to a friend, they hadn’t seen it.

With that in mind, we have rounded up all of the radio and TV ads shown (so far) in 2011. We are happy that the commercials continue to feature the voice of Michigan’s own Tim Allen. You can easily share the ads with friends and family, and they too can understand why one particular ad gave you chills or made you tear up.

We will continue to add new spots as they go live but be sure to subscribe to the Pure Michigan YouTube Channel for updates!

Television Ads

Superheroes – The Henry Ford

Island Life – Mackinac Island

The Good Life – Grand Rapids

Perfect Summer

Sand

Radio Ads

Let’s Go – Kalamazoo

Call of the Wild – The Wilds of Michigan

Check back next week when we debut the latest Pure Michigan ad, Traverse City! If you want a sneak peek, check out the photos taken behind-the-scenes of the Traverse City shoot!

What’s your favorite Pure Michigan ad?

Winter is here, and we couldn’t be more excited! To celebrate, we’re giving you a sneak preview of our new winter sports radio ad – it doesn’t hit the airwaves until January 3!.

We’re proud to be partnering with the Michigan Snowsports Industries Association this winter to keep you up-to-date on all the ways you can get outside and enjoy the snow.  They have a program to help you discover Michigan skiing, share news and updates from across the Michigan ski industry, and they offer a White Gold card that lets you ski at 29 Pure Michigan ski areas all winter for only $189!

We hope you enjoy the radio ad, and that you take advantage of the winter weather to get outside and play!

Thanks to Jennifer Rees for sharing the story of her U.P adventure!

Every year, my husband rides his bike from Cedar Springs to Mackinaw City. Every year my sister, kids, and I take a trip ‘Up North’ to pick him up. This year, the group my husband rides with decided that 285 miles just wasn’t quite enough. They got to Mackinaw and kept right on going.  In fact, they went all the way to Grand Marais.

Meanwhile, we had an adventure of our own.

We headed up to Leland, where the first order of business was a stop at Carlson’s for A.P.’s favorite food – smoked fish. When we asked him how it was, he couldn’t even stop eating long enough to use words. 

We hung out on the waterfront for a while then strolled around town. After a fun afternoon, we headed to Petoskey for the night, where my husband was.  In the morning we went to the Oden fish hatchery.  We couldn’t believe there was no charge! There was, however, a gift shop. The kids came away with patches, a book about animal ‘scat and tracks’, and “I’m A Michigan Kid Passports” which, really, should be issued to every child born in our state.

There hatchery has walking trails, an interpretive museum in an old box car, and an underground stream viewing area. The highlight was the trout feeding. For a dime, we got a handful of Trout Chow and I don’t mean to bruise any fish egos but it’s time for these guys to be finding their own dinner. They were fat. Still, my kids scrounged up about $2.00 in dimes and contributed to the Trout Obesity problem.

Back in the car, we headed up to the Soo.  I have to say that although I completely appreciate having a bridge to the Upper Peninsula; I hate actually driving across it. But, the U.P. is worth the white knuckles. We headed straight for the Locks and hopped on a boat tour. It was fun to watch the kids try and grasp where the water went, where it came from, and how it all came worked.

The next morning we headed to Munising for the Pictured Rocks boat tour. It was stunning. And windy, but mostly stunning.

From there we drove back to Grand Marais, where we met up with my husband and his biker buddies. We’d all had an incredible journey were happy to be reunited in such a special place. We ate dinner with friends, then went to Lake Superior Brewing Company for a beer. We went to the beach and watched the sun set over Lake Superior. The next morning, we checked out the Gitchee Gumee Agate and History Museum, and headed to Taqhamenon Falls.

We ate lunch at the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery where, naturally, we had pasties.

We cannot wait to get back and re-visit these places, and also to discover new ones. We’re proud to be raising Michigan Kids, and thankful that a vacation like this is so close to home.

Jennifer Rees is a stay at home mom of two young children in Grand Rapids.  Jennifer writes at  TheBigBinder.com, a blog about raising kids in Grand Rapids who are active, involved, and culturally aware.

John Grochowski, Michigan Travel Ideas contributing writer, shares insider tips from his latest trip to the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.

I’ve been writing about casino games for 14 years, and I wanted to see if Soaring Eagle met my personal criteria as a place to play:

• Do blackjack rules and video poker pay tables give the skilled player a shot to win?
• Are there games that give me a good run for my money? Is the player rewards system easy to use?
• Do the rewards offset some of the house’s mathematical edge?

My journey through those questions started at the player rewards booth, where in addition to the $20 in premium play I received at check in, a club representative added another $10 for joining the club.

Looking for the best deal to use my premium play, I found an old friend: 9-6 Jacks or Better video poker, with the “9-6” meaning full houses pay 9-for-1 and flushes 6-for-1. It returns 99.5 percent with expert play, and it worked for me. Once I’d made the required $60 worth of wagers to use the premium play, I had $60 in credits that I could cash out —my premium play was now real money.

Insider Tips

• Blackjack players have three choices: hand-shuffled six-deck games, six-deck games with a continuous shuffling machine and single-deck games. The single-deck game pays only 6-5 on blackjacks instead of the usual 3-2. With fewer hands per hour, the hand-shuffled game is the best bet for most players. 
• In addition to the main casino, Soaring Eagle has a Slot Palace with more electronic games. A free shuttle takes players between facilities. One of the resort’s best games, a version of Deuces Wild video poker which returns 99.7 percent with expert play, is in the Slot Palace. 
• Premium play—free play that comes with some room packages—can be taken either in downloadable slot credits or in special table chips. Slot play is a more efficient use of it and you’ll get the most value at the best video poker games. 
• The biggest crowds are weekend nights, and minimum bets may go up during peak times. However, a blackjack dealer told me $5 tables are always available.  

Trip Planner

• Soaring Eagle Resort and Casino offers room packages such as Gas & Gamble, with a $50 gas card, plus premium play included with your room rate.
• For those visitors who want to immerse themselves in the culture, the Ziibiwing Center, a Native American museum, is next door.
• I dined at Siniikaung Steakhouse (which means “House of Stone”) and enjoyed a perfectly done, medium-rare ribeye and tasty asparagus-bacon soup.

John Grochowski is the author of half a dozen books on casino games, including the “Casino Answer Book” series, writes a weekly column and is known to Chicago radio listeners from his “Beat the Odds” tips that air on WBBM-AM, News Radio 780.

Katie and her husband under Arch Rock on Mackinac Island

For our 1st Anniversary, we decided to go back to Mackinac and maybe hit some wineries and lighthouses while we were at it. We moved to the east coast last winter and so it took us a good 12 hours to get up to Traverse City. After a good night’s sleep, we drove up the Old Mission Peninsula and found the Old Mission Point Lighthouse. It’s apparently one of those that you can apply to be a lighthouse keeper for and our delightful hosts were doing just that! We climbed the tower, got some great photos then started off to the wineries. We hit four delightful vineyards before we finally stopped at Chateau Chantal, a sprawling mansion of a chateau perched on a hillside with jaw-dropping views. My husband later surprised me with a romantic nights stay at their wonderful B&B.

The next day we drove up M-119, aka ‘Tunnel of Trees’ and saw not only the tunnel of trees forming above us, but the forest floor carpeted white with glowing trillium. We stopped to gape at the houses on the bluffs in the ever charming Harbor Springs and continued north to Mackinaw City where we found stellar views of the Straits of Mackinac at McGulpin Point Lighthouse.

Whitefish Point Light Station

The following day we went to Mackinac Island and traveled the 8 mile stretch around it’s perimeter on M-185 – me on my bicycle, and my husband running. Even though it was a snowy, chilly day, the magic of the Island got to us. It’s incredible when you get out of ‘downtown’ and find the secluded parts of the Island that seem to call to you. We spent a few days on the Island, hiking, petting horses, celebrating our anniversary and reminiscing.

Crisp Point Lighthouse

When we got off the Island, we started across the Mighty Mac bridge to the U.P. and went north to Sault Ste. Marie. We were lucky enough to get there just in time to see two freighters go through the Soo Locks. Afterwards, we drove through the quaint town of Paradise to Whitefish Point where we met up with the Whitefish Point Lighthouse. We soaked in the views of the ‘Graveyard of the Great Lakes’ and then went to the Upper Falls of Tahquamenon Falls.  After hiking around and getting refreshingly misted by the updraft of the falls, we went to what turned out to be my favorite lighthouse…Crisp Point.  This was the most fun lighthouse to find, through gravel and dirt roads winding through the U.P. When we finally got there it was so beautiful, secretive and secluded. Certainly as they advertise, Michigan’s Best Kept Secret.

We had such a great road trip to Michigan, now I can only hope to come back again soon and start another adventure!

To read a more detailed account of Katie’s journey, visit her blog, Monday Travels.

Katie Dennis grew up in northern Wisconsin vacationing for years with her family into the U.P. of Michigan. She’s now living on the east coast with her husband and starting up a wedding planning business with a bit of blogging on the side. Share your thoughts and feedback with Katie by leaving a comment below.

The response to Premiere Week was so overwhelming that we decided we had to share one more new ad with you.  This one focuses on one of our cities – one that’s a little ‘Different’.

Thank you so much for joining us for Premiere Week, and for all your kind feedback.  We appreciate it so much!

Another new radio ad that has us wondering:  What’s your perfect Pure Michigan Road Trip?

It’s Day 5 of Premiere Week, and that it means its time to share our brand new radio ads. First up today, a beach escape with ‘Mermaid Tails’. Take a listen, and let us know what you think!

If you missed any of the previous Premiere Week ads, you can go back and check them out!