Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Around 50 area residents get started on the Cottonwood Tree Walk event Wednesday evening, sponsored by Manny's Restaurant in Ironwood. The events are organized by a group using different sponsors and locations each week with food and conversation to follow a brief snowshoe trail walk.
By TOM LAVENTURE
Ironwood - There is a social side to snowshoeing if you ask the people who supported the Superior Snowshoe Walk events for the past 10 years.
Around 50 area residents gathered at Manny's Restaurant in Ironwood on Wednesday evening for the third of 10 weekly snow shoe events at area trails with a sponsored social following. Manny's hosted the Cottonwood Tree Walk this week and moving forward other events are organized by different groups and sponsors that provide food for the conversation to follow a brief snow shoe trail walk.
"Every Wednesday it's at a different location," said Sam Davey, who organizes the walks with his wife, Anne. "It's kind of a club but anyone is welcome to come and walk."
Last week's snowshoe walk was at Bessemer Bluff Valley Park followed by a visit to the Bessemer VFW. The events started on Jan. 8 with the Mark Fitting Annual Memorial Walk at the Michigan Welcome Center and Don & GG's.
It was Fitting who came to Sam Davey, a city of Ironwood Parks and Recreation Board member and silent sports participant, to set up the routes, said Anne Davey. Fitting handled the work to locate sponsors and market the free events.
"The two of them got together and came up with a plan and every week we found a different place to walk," Anne Davey said.
Fitting has since passed away and the Daveys now do the logistics and the marketing for the events, she said.
The event used to attract around 125 people regularly but the number of new trails and other events has decreased the number of Wednesday walkers, Sam Davey said. But the walks continue because they are still popular and for the socializing, he said.
"We're trying to make it easy for people to come out for 45 minutes to an hour and enjoy a nice little walk," he said. "Then they can go into the sponsor after to socialize and they put out food for us with a donation jug."
The events are as much about socializing as snowshoeing, he said.
"That's the best part, the social after," he said.
There are seven more walks through March 18. The next walk will be Jan. 29 at Gogebic Country Club, 200 Country Club Road in Ironwood, with the social following at the adjacent Elk & Hound restaurant.
For more information contact Sam or Anne Davey at 906-932-2020 or 906-285-3142. Also visit the Superior Snowshoe Walks page on Facebook.
