Last March, I embarked on a five-day ski touring trip in Michigan's Porcupine Mountains with eight friends. The "Porkies" are nestled along the western shore of the Upper Peninsula, an area steeped in history and defined by a simultaneously quirky and rugged culture. It's where you'll find pseudo-Canadian accents, Finnish folk lore, blue collar industry and a level of hospitality that rivals anything you'll find down south. We went to the Porkies in search of powder, but ended up with something a little less ideal — hanki, a crusty snowpack deserving of its own word in the Finnish language. The story was my first feature in a national publication, and was published in issue 10.4 of the The Ski Journal in February. You can read it here.