“This was the hardest year yet,” Jeff Smoke declared as he crossed the finish line to win the 2016 M22 Challenge, which was held on Saturday, June 11 — his fifth time earning that title. “The competition keeps getting harder.” Smoke, 38, of Niles, Mich., kayaked on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team. Smoke won this year’s race with an overall time of 1:11:29, and most impressive was his paddle time — just 14 minutes and 44 seconds.
Add “sticky mat” to your haul-to-Lake Michigan list. Yoga on the Beach is coming to Glen Haven, Aug. 13, at 8 p.m. near the cannery. “I really like bringing yoga to places where people wouldn’t normally do it,” said Amy Hubbell, Leelanau County yoga teacher and one of this event’s organizers. “Yoga on the beach is a unique way to get out and enjoy nature as you tap into health and well being.”
The sixth annual Port Oneida Heritage Run on Aug. 1 will traverse the beautiful scenery of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and support Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB), in its effort to maintain the Park’s historic resources.
Glen Arbor Sun editor Jacob Wheeler competed in, and filmed the 2015 M-22 Challenge, a unique Northern Michigan triathlon that includes a 2.5-mile run up the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb, an 18-mile bike ride around the Glen Lake and a 2.5-mile paddle on Little Glen Lake.
Sleeping Bear Surf and Kayak’s fifth annual SBX Waterman camp is an over-the-top successful Surf and Waterman camp designed and taught by water enthusiasts to create water enthusiasts. You will not find a more fun-filled, unique camp in this area.
For years, the tennis courts at the Leelanau School, the private boarding school north of Glen Arbor, sat unused, succumbing to cracks and weeds. High schools stars such as Brian Munroe, Jason Petty and internationally ranked Danish exchange student Dan Valbak once swung their rackets here, and the school routinely competed in the high school state championship. But last decade the Leelanau School all but eliminated its sports program.
We got to the boat launch at Victoria Creek Community Park in Cedar and put in, and I settled back for a lazy ride down the slow-moving waterway, eagerly anticipating the flash of a kingfisher or a glimpse of a turtle sunning itself on a log. But as we began to move downstream, it was neither of those that grabbed my attention, but the melodious sound of polka music.
Thinking of taking your kayak or canoe from Sleeping Bear Point to South Manitou Island? Think again. The air temperature may reach a balmy 80 degrees, and the surface water temperature near the beach is slowly approaching swimmable levels. But the open water temperature out in the Manitou Passage never reaches the 60s. That’s frigid. And it can kill you.
The seventh annual M-22 Challenge, the popular and unique triathlon in the Sleeping Bear Dunes and around the majestic Glen Lakes, will be held on Saturday, June 13, 2015. The race is presented by Northpeak Brewing Company.
A “Bay to Bay” hiking, paddling and camping trail proposed for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has generated excitement among local business owners and recreation enthusiasts but also attracted significant opposition from private property landowners who live near the trail’s potential route. Staff at the National Lakeshore have subsequently slowed planning for the Bay to Bay Trail initiative. They extended the public comment period by an extra month this fall, and have drawn out the project’s scoping phase until next summer.