Photo courtesy of Natasha Blakely
It started at 7:45am on Wednesday with a group of people lugging baggage into the Detroit Exploration & Nature Center, loading up the bright red Bus for Outdoor Access & Teaching, and making road trip sandwiches. Many of the gathered people were strangers, though some of them were not.
‘It’ was the second annual Detroit Outdoors outing to Michigan Ice Fest. Michigan Ice Fest is an ice climbing festival, held each year in Munising, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The outing was a series of back-to-back firsts for many of the attendees, some of whom had never been to the Upper Peninsula, crossed the Mackinac Bridge, or seen Lake Superior before. Folks trickled in on that first day, and the lodge was a commotion as people looked for their rooms, settled in, went snowshoeing, tried the sauna, played some very enthusiastic card games, read in a quiet corner, and – of course – tried to familiarize themselves with the group of people they would be spending the next four days in close contact with.
The group comprised Detroit Outdoors staff, coworkers, friends, friends of friends, and participants from previous Detroit Outdoors outings. Garrett Dempsey, Detroit Outdoors program director, headed up the group, but Sierra Club was also represented by Lornett Vestal – senior campaign representative with Sierra Club’s Military Outdoors campaign, who was in Michigan to work with the Michigan Chapter on developing a Military Outdoors program in the state – and Chris Hill, the senior campaign director of Our Wild America, the umbrella campaign that Sierra Club’s portion of Detroit Outdoors calls home.
Thursday brought the cornerstone event of the outing – the BIPOC introduction to ice climbing course. After picking up the rental climbing gear and checking the fit of it, everyone piled onto the shuttle and headed to The Curtains, where a range of small waterfalls had frozen over, allowing Ice Fest attendees to climb up, using the helpful additions of crampons and ice tools. For the many beginners, a key first part of ice climbing is learning to tie your rope to your harness. Then, you use the ice tools (modified ice axes that look like daggers on sticks that you stab into the ice as you go) and your crampons (foot spikes) so you can actually get traction and climb the ice instead of just sliding right down. I was so focused on being careful not to stab myself with the ice tools that I forgot to be scared of the height that I was climbing.
There’s a certain security in trying out something new with other people who also haven’t done it before – out of the 18 attending the class, only two had tried ice climbing before – and the atmosphere was purely supportive, as both fellow ice climbers and the very patient instructors cheered participants on and praised each other for any ground gained, or any ice climbed.
“It's hard, but it's a good challenge, right?” said Lorena Aguayo Marquez, one of the attendees with Detroit Outdoors. “To learn new stuff and really work and be able to little by little climb the wall. Even in practice, I fell. I fell twice, but hey, I did it the third time, right?”
Lorena is with Latino Outdoors GR in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Though the group hasn’t organized a Michigan Ice Fest trip, Lorena is hoping her attendance will become the motivation needed.
“I'm constantly telling people ‘Try new stuff,’” she said. “So when they say ‘Have you tried it?’ I'd be like ‘Yes, I did, so now come and try it with me again.’ I think people are more willing to do stuff that other people have done, or have tried. So that's one of the reasons I came, to kind of check it out.”
Thursday was capped with the Apres-Climb event that Detroit Outdoors organized. After a long day of trying new things in the cold, Detroit Outdoors provided food, drinks, and a warm space to gather for what was, at first, the Detroit Outdoors group but quickly became a crowd of Michigan Ice Fest attendees and locals who wanted to partake, meet new people, and share their Ice Fest experiences.
The Detroit Outdoors group came together in different configurations over the course of the weekend to hit the trails, marinate in the sauna, or play card games and talk, with everyone brought together for at least dinner each day, if not all the meals. The group chat kept everyone linked beyond that, with people sharing photos of beautiful views or funny moments, and it was great for keeping track of where everyone was once the group started to split up to participate in different activities.
The rest of the days were a mixed bag of winter fun – Friday saw the group divide for various hiking trips in Munising or over to Marquette, or remaining at the lodge. The groups converged for the evening presentations at the festival, partially to show support for Dom Mullins, who had been one of the introductory course instructors for our group and was presenting as part of the first all-Black team to summit Mt. Everest. The post-presentation raffle became a moment of triumph for the group as Detroit Outdoors intern Meg Matthis won a shiny new pair of Black Diamond ice tools, which she promptly used during a climbing session the next day.
Meg Matthis holds her raffle prize of two shiny new Black Diamond ice tools.
No trip is perfect, and the high highs of Friday were tempered by the adventures – or misadventures – of Saturday. Meg was injured while climbing (She’s fine now!), two of our cars were stuck in a snowdrift for hours, and one trio found themselves lost in the woods near the lodge. But even the mishaps didn’t ruin the joy of climbing, hiking, walking on a portion of frozen-over Lake Superior or sharing a meal of burgers and tots with another group of BIPOC folks who had made their way to Michigan Ice Fest. As the day wound down, conversation turned to future plans, which included summer trips and more Ice Fest outings.
“Our continuation from last year to this year has allowed us to deepen the relationships between the Detroit Outdoors and Michigan Ice Fest communities,” Garrett said. “Our instructors from the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Alpine Club and Detroit Outdoors have already begun planning a summer rock climbing weekend centering climbers of color from Detroit, Chicago, and the Twin Cities. Repeated, positive experiences at Michigan Ice Fest helps outdoor enthusiasts of color from Detroit meaningfully engage in the sport of ice climbing and to become partners in growing the community.”
Everything that happened over the weekend seemed to reinforce one big lesson, which is that doing something together as a group makes anything quicker, easier, and more fun. I wouldn’t have made it to Michigan Ice Fest on my own nor would some of the other participants. I am terrified of heights, but I made it up the wall with the encouragement of the people around me. Even loading the bus to get ready to go was a successful group activity as we formed a human conveyor belt to pack it all onto the bus.
On Sunday, the group that arrived back at the Detroit Exploration & Nature Center was tired but full of new experiences and – most importantly – no longer strangers. And based on the group chat notifications, it’s going to stay that way. It felt like a successful end to a truly epic Detroit Outdoors outing.