Start your island day on the mainland, at Cheboygan's State Street Coffee Company (211 W. State St., 231-597-9575) for a cappuccino and croissant. Buy a bag of roasted cashews for the ferry trip to Bois Blanc Island, a quiet Lake Huron hideaway only eight miles away. The Plaunt family has run their Plaunt Transportation passenger ferries out of Cheboygan for more than 75 years (412 Water St., 888-PLAUNTS). Take your car across if you wish—reservations required—or book passage for your bike. There are no rentals in Cheboygan or on the island.

On the 40-minute trip over, set your sights on the freighters plying the Straits, and a glorious view of the Mackinac Bridge.

Debark and set out: The winding dirt shore road that circles the secluded 12-by-6-mile island is a flat and easy bet for biking. The speed limit on the island is 25 miles per hour everywhere—a blessing for bikers—but still watch for cars wending around the bends.

Three miles east of the ferry docks, find Bob-Lo Tavern (231-634-7100) for chef-owner Barb Schlund's spicy dill pickle spears and a Bob-Lo Burger, topped with shredded slow-cooked ham. Before an island treat of fried ice cream anointed in Kahlua, sneak in a round of shuffleboard on the vintage board in the bar.

Another mile east, take a dip at the beach between Rosie Point and Snake Island. Locals named it Snow Beach, as it's one of the only sandy;not rocky shores on the island. Dry out in the sun before circling back the way you came past the island woods filled with chicory, ferns, Queen Anne's lace and black-eyed Susans. End up at Hawk's Landing (231-634-7375), a restaurant, gas station and general store within sight of the ferry docks. Pick up some Bois Blanc paraphernalia and a treat (owner Missy fixes fine apple pies, strawberry shortcake and banana splits to meet the whims of the islanders), then head to your ferry home. Most days the last ferry from the island leaves at 5 p.m. and the Plaunt family runs a tight ship.

MyNorth.com, the vacation site of the North, is refreshed daily by the staff of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine. Deborah Wyatt Fellows is editor-in-chief.

By Elizabeth Edwards with permission from MyNorth.com.

Whether you come by air or sea, Beaver Island's 60 square miles of beautiful terra firma beg exploring. The quiet back roads that wend out of Beaver's only hub, the village of St. James, lend themselves to mountain biking (fat tires are a must for the island's miles of clay-gravel roads). Bring your own bike, or stop by Lakesports' Paradise Bay Gifts and rent one (231-448-2166). Once your wheels are turning, set your sights on the picturesque 46-foot Beaver Head Light on the island's south end. There, you'll climb the circular wrought-iron staircase for a big blue lake vista. You might turn around before you make it the full 18 miles (remember, you'll need to ride back to St. James to catch your ride to the mainland). That's okay, the spectacular tapestry of forest, rocky shoreline and dune beaches you pass along the way are a destination unto themselves.

Stoke up for your ride at Dalwhinnie Bakery and Deli (231-448-2736), where everything from the bread to the bear claws are homemade. Pack along a ham and cheddar on cheese bread for a beach picnic. As you head south on King's Highway, take a moment to stop into the Old Mormon Print Shop Museum  (231-448-2254) to learn about this island's rich history—and why the road is called King's Highway. (Hint: Beaver Island once had a king.) Pick up Elizabeth Whitney Williams's book Child of the Sea. The author grew up at the Beaver Head Lighthouse in the 19th century. Now get pedaling. You'll want time to lounge on the beach by the lighthouse and let Williams's book make this beautiful spot come alive.

Getting to Beaver Island: The 32-mile flight over Lake Michigan from Charlevoix is less than a half hour (Island Airways, 800-524-6895; Fresh Air Aviation, 888-359-7448). The ferry the Emerald Isle takes two hours (888-446-4095), but the payoff for the extra time is freshwater spray on your face. For island lodging info contact the Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce  (231-448-2505).

MyNorth.com, the vacation site of the North, is refreshed daily by the staff of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine. Deborah Wyatt Fellows is editor-in-chief.

Hiking in late afternoon from the Gillette Sand Dune Visitor Center toward Lake Michigan, we quickly emerged from the forest to open dunes. It may have been February, but the winds off the Great Lake had swept the snow off the rolling hills of sand, which, in the low angle of the winter's sun, took on a golden brown hue.

We trudged across the sand and then stopped on the beach, stunned at the sight: Lake Michigan was open water, but the shoreline had been transformed into a thick shelf of ice and frozen formations that on this clear, cold day glittered like a jeweler’s display case of diamonds.

This is the season for ice hikes. For the next four to six weeks adventurous families and others can head to the nearest Great Lake to take in some of nature’s greatest sculpture: shoreline ice.

Call it winter beachcombing. Those long stretches of sandy shores that you love to stroll during the summer are just as interesting in February and March, after the prevailing winds have piled up ice bergs into craggy but impressive shapes and figures.

Arrive on a calm day like ours, and each jagged edge of the ice becomes a prism reflecting the sun into sparkles of light and bands of color. Better yet, try to arrive on a windy day when the surf is rushing toward you. The waves disappear under the icy shelf, and then suddenly erupt through cracks and holes like mid-winter volcanoes.

Any Great Lake shore can provide this spectacle to some degree. The most impressive ice is found in the western Upper Peninsula along Lake Superior in Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, where the volcanoes are so big, you could climb them.

The most accessible volcanoes — eruptions that can be witnessed without leaving the warmth of your car heater — are found at the northern end of Lake Michigan where US-2 skirts its shorelines just west of St. Ignace.

We ventured to P.J Hoffmaster State Park on the outskirts of Muskegon.

From just outside Gillette’s visiting center we picked up the park’s half-mile Lake Michigan Trail and headed west for the big blue. The trail begins as a massive boardwalk and viewing area that are handicapped accessible, designed to allow everybody to experience the solitude of the sheltered back dune.

From the boardwalk the Lake Michigan Trail continues as an easy-to-follow path, even in the winter, until it breaks out of the hardwoods and pines into the park’s grassy foredunes. In about three steps we went from the sheltered winter forest to a sweeping view of the beach; we headed toward the lake and then gingerly walked onto the frozen shelf and across its ragged surface.

We peered down at its overhanging edge, made smooth by the continuous slaps of the surf, and admired huge icicles pointing toward the open water. For a while, the hope that a volcano will erupt is enough to keep you warm.

Author and world traveler Jim DuFresne resides in Clarkston and is a regular contributor to Michigan Blue.  Michigan Blue magazine, Michigan's Lakestyle magazine, is published bi-monthly by Gemini Publications.

(This article first appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Michigan BLUE Magazine.)

The rustic cabins at Harlow Lake near Marquette are headquarters for a perfect winter weekend adventure.

The snow-covered forest is a patchwork of blues as the full moon filters through towering, old-growth pines. An open expanse of snowy lake is painted pastel, but deeper in the woods, shadows drip inky indigo.

Creaking snowshoes and the soft squeak of fresh powder underfoot are the only sounds this winter night as we tramp down the trail to our cabin for the weekend. The night tightens around us as the moon slides behind a cloud bank harboring another band of Lake Superior-inspired snow squalls. But the cabin's cheerful window glow guides us the rest of the way to where four friends and a roaring woodstove await.

These are the Harlow Lake cabins of the Little Presque Isle tract of the Escanaba River State Forest, just north of Marquette in the central Upper Peninsula. Though Marquette (population 20,000) is the U.P.'s biggest urban area, these cabins and surrounding acres of mature hemlocks see relatively light use, so a winter day spent in the woods at Harlow is often a solitary one.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources maintains five rustic, one-room, walk-in cabins generously spaced around the 64-acre, kidney-bean-shaped lake. An additional cabin perches on the high bank of nearby Harlow Creek. While the cabins lack electricity or plumbing and are only spartanly furnished, the surroundings are luxuriously wild. In this region of northern Marquette County, the sandy plains of the southern U.P. collide head-on with ancient bedrock slabs. The result is a series of rounded bald-rock peaks and forested valleys that parallel the undeveloped Lake Superior coastline.

Cover it all up with a couple feet of lake-effect powder, and you have the perfect setting for a winter-weekend adventure.

Our friends are thinking the same thing, poring over trail maps by candle and lamplight on the big pine plank table that dominates a corner of the small room. Everybody is stripped down to their long underwear as the woodstove chews through birch and oak splits from the overflowing wood rack outside. Besides warming us, the stove is working on a simmering stew and pot of red wine mulled with cinnamon and cloves. The food smells almost win out over the odor of our wet dogs and wool socks drying nearby. Almost.

At daybreak, four of us set out for an ambitious snowshoe hike to bag two of the 1,000-foot peaks that shoot out of the woods near the cabin. A series of loosely marked trails and a converted railroad grade link the bald, granite knobs of Hogback and Sugarloaf mountains. A three-mile section of the North Country Trail running along the Lake Superior coast will bring us back to the cabin door at day's end.

In all, the Harlow Lake area boasts about 20 miles of trails that range from flat to ambulance-ride steep, allowing for several days worth of exploring on skis or snowshoes.

Scrambling up the last yards over icy granite to the top of Hogback is a hands-and-knees affair. However, as soon as you top out on the 1,200-foot precipice, all the gasping, sliding and scrambling of the previous hour disappear. The air is still; everything is quiet under a bluebird sky. We dangle our legs over the cliff's edge and lay back on the sun-warmed rocks. This is sunbathing, Yooper style.

The hike up Hogback and exploration of side trails would have been enough to fill a great day, but Sugarloaf Mountain beckons from across the valley, where it rises dramatically right from the Lake Superior coast.

This three-mile hike from Hogback to Sugarloaf offers a lesson in Lake Superior weather, as deep snow inland dissolves into mere inches as we approach the lake. The big water sends bands of heavy snow clouds to the interior where they dump on higher terrain, while the shoreline stays relatively mild in both temperature and snowfall.

The view from atop Sugarloaf is astounding. To the north, the scimitar shoreline swings out to Little Presque Isle point, an island a hundred yards offshore, beyond it, only the endless blue of the world's largest body of fresh water. Look west or south and you'll see only forest, broken here and there by rocky outcroppings and lakes. Turning to the east, you see Marquette, tiny and tidy tucked between the shore and hills.

The historic city, founded by our lake's namesake, Amos Harlow, is experiencing rejuvenation along its once-commercial lakefront. A suite of silent sporting events like the Noquemanon Ski Marathon and the Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Race have given it a reputation as a playground for the active traveler. Northern Michigan University's 8,000 students keep the old town feeling young, and an abundance of unique local restaurants and eclectic coffee shops cater to visitors and locals alike.

We scramble down the backside of Sugarloaf to meet the lake, a blend of small sandy beaches, cobblestones and smooth-bedrock points. The trail hugs the sinuous shore, climbs to the edge of 50-foot cliffs over the water, then drops to a big sand beach at Little Presque Isle. In summer, the island is reachable by wading waist deep in the shockingly cold lake, but in winter an ice bridge forms, and you can walk right to it. The backside of the island has sheer cliffs that often form wild ice formations after a storm.

We're all moving a little slower after the day's climbs. Even the dog is wondering whose idea it was to go this many miles in deep powder. He'd been bouncing through the snow in front of us all day, but now is taking the easy road, plodding on the packed trail behind us, tongue swinging low.

A yellow glimmer through the trees and the smell of wood smoke guide us across Harlow Lake as shadows stretch to the east. As we pile into the cabin, ruddy-cheeked and tired-eyed, we notice two things are different. Our sopping wet clothes from the day before are dry and folded, and there's a huge pizza and a growler of locally brewed ale waiting for us. The two sleepy heads who opted to stay back today and soak up some cabin time made a dash into Marquette, where they did laundry and restocked provisions.

The Harlow cabins are certainly wild, but with a gem of a town like Marquette nearby, not so wild that you can’t eat well and enjoy dry undies.

Aaron Peterson is a writer, photographer and cabin connoisseur based near Marquette. Lisa Jensen is the editor of MichiganBLUE Magazine.

IF YOU GO

Harlow Lake is about five miles north of Marquette off County Road 550. Harlow Lake Road, unpaved but decent, takes you to a parking area convenient to the cabins. The farthest walk in is about a half mile to Cabin 5 (my favorite). Cabins have water from a hand pump, and firewood is supplied. Furnishings include a table, benches and four unpadded bunks. A standard-issue, MDNR vault toilet rounds out the rustic experience.

Cabins are $65 per night, with a two-night minimum. Reservations are taken beginning in November each year at the Marquette MDNR office: (906) 228-6561. If cabins aren't your thing but hiking is, plop down at The Landmark Inn, an historic boutique hotel in Marquette's charming downtown. A 15-minute drive gets you to the Harlow Lake area.

Downtown Marquette boasts three unique coffee shops and a handful of eating establishments for all tastes. Also, take a drive up Third Street for additional great, locally owned venues. Between Marquette and Harlow, stop by Phil’s 550 Store in the little cluster of homes just north of town, referred to locally as “Philville.” It’s a catch-all convenience store with a good variety of beverages, area maps and lots of local color.

If you need gear, check out The Sports Rack on Washington Street downtown or Down Wind Sports on Third Street for all your silent sports needs.

Before our mountain bike ride along Ocqueoc Falls Pathway, we walked over to take a look at the cascade itself, one of only two natural waterfalls in the Lower Peninsula. From the parking lot off M-68, it’s a short stroll to this series of rock ledges where the Ocqueoc River quickly descends six feet.

Ocqueoc Falls is not Tahquamenon Falls by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not even what my son, Michael, remembered.

“It looks small,” he said.

“Well, it’s the middle of the summer,” I said, “and you’ve grown.”

Michael was first here as a 5-year-old tyke who viewed the rushing current from a different perspective, about three feet closer to the ground. The pathway is a six-mile loop with two crossover spurs, and we hiked the first loop that day, a three-mile walk that ended with him on my shoulders.

Now, 15 years later, we were back with our mountain bikes, and this time I wasn’t worried about my son finishing the ride on his own. He’s taller than I am, and as a mountain bike route, Ocqueoc Falls is a fairly easy outing.

The trail is a wide, firm single track, the riding non-technical, and the terrain level, with the exception of a few gentle slopes. This makes the state forest pathway ideal for young riders or, in our case, older ones who like to ride as much for the forested scenery as a spirited workout.

From the trailhead in the parking lot, we began our ride like we did our hike, following the pathway in a counter-clockwise direction to save the best for last. Within a few minutes we climbed a low ridge and then followed the pathway along the edge of it for the next two miles.

This is casual cycling, mountain biking so mellow that you spend more time viewing the river and the high hills that encase it to the west than the trail in front.

Eventually, we descended off the ridge, crossed the Little Ocqueoc River and, for a couple of miles, meandered between open meadows and small pockets of woods. At post number four the trail swings sharply to the west and emerges at the banks of the Ocqueoc River. For the first time since we jumped on our bikes, we stopped pedaling.

We were hardly tired. But the idea of sitting on the riverbank, watching the current roll along without a soul around, was too inviting to pass up. There are times when we ride to work up a sweat and times when we ride to slow down.

The final two miles of the pathway is perhaps one of the most scenic stretches for mountain biking in the Lower Peninsula. Here, the trail hugs the Ocqueoc, sometimes dipping down to the water itself but mostly skirting a high riverbank. Near the end we came to a junction with one trail curving back to the parking lot and the other heading straight.

We continued straight and ended this casual ride at Ocqueoc Falls, where we took an extended break, not knowing how long it might be before we were back here again.

Ocqueoc Falls Pathway: Is a 6-mile loop with two crossover spurs that form shorter loops of 5 and 3 miles in length. The pathway is open to hikers and mountain bikers.  Easy to moderate in difficulty. No fees. For more info., call Gaylord Dept. of Natural Resources at (989) 732-3541. To get to trail from Rogers City on M-23, head west on M-68 to reach the trailhead parking lot (12 miles).

Jim DuFresne is a Clarkston-based author of more than a dozen guidebooks. His newest title is “Backpacking In Michigan” (University of Michigan Press).

Michigan BLUE magazine is "Michigan's Lakestyle Magazine" and is published bi-monthly by Gemini Publications.  Lisa Jensen is the editor.