Tug of War

Everybody having a good time today?

"Oh you bet! We are having a BLAST!" says the happy, happy sled dogs.

That prior photo is a rare one from Jack & Rudy. I used to get "synchronized happy face" shots from my original pals, Max & Zorro, quite frequently. But, with the Jack & Rudy comedians this is a rare synchronicity. Typically I get a "happy Rudy face" along side a snow angel rolling Jack or a "happy Jack face" along side a woo singing Rudy or a snow rolling Rudy. But, today we got a rare synchronous smiles from the two goofballs :)

We had another rarity today too - taking interest in a stick we encountered on the trail. Typically, Jack & Rudy will ignore most sticks along the way. But, every once in a while, a certain stick draw interest from one. Well, if it draws interest from one, then it ALWAYS leads to subsequent interest from the other. This dual interest tends to morph into a stick tug of war and today was one such occurrence:

"I found the stick first!" declares Jack,
"Don't care, if YOU are interested in it, then I am too!" responds Rudy who
proceeded to start this tug of war with Jack over the rare interesting stick :)

Ok, two rare events documented, now it is time for what we really did today - skijoring!

We started on technical trails in the backcountry:

Wheeee!

We then dropped onto the wide & groomed trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. When we first drop into the nordic center, we are far from any trailhead. As a result, we start out on trails that get very little traffic as most humans cannot propel themselves this far. So, we had trails that were groomed yesterday but still pretty perfect from very light traffic yesterday:

Zipping around a corner with pretty nice "day old" conditions far
from any trailhead.

How nice was it far from the trailheads? Well, nice enough for Jack & Rudy to FLOOR IT and top 23 MPH skijoring this morning. Come along for a glimpse into the fast, fun & wild ride:

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Eventually, though, we have to make our way back to civilization. Once we got onto the primary trail (and, thus, near the trailhead), the surface was pretty tracked up from lots of use yesterday. No problem, though, Jack & Rudy can catch air on any type of trail conditions :)

Whee - catching air along a pretty tracked up trail.

Finally, it was time for one of Jack & Rudy's patented maneuvers of their very own - climbing tall snow walls to get face to face with me standing for end of run treats!

We are basically eye to eye as the funny kids found a VERY tall snow
wall to climb today!

A really beautiful day for a fun, fun skijor with my pals: 9.4 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 59 days on the trails covering 445.2 miles with 42,200 feet of elevation climbed.

Soft

Fun shot from the front of the happy, happy sled dogs towing me to the finish of today's skijor outing.

Smiles all around - such happy kids to be towing me in the snow!

We started the day laying fresh tracks in the backcountry. I was a bit surprised how much fresh snow there was as we had less than an inch or so at home. But, we'll take any and all fresh powder!

Wheeee - fresh tracks fun!

After touring around the backcountry, we dropped onto the wide trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. The nordic center's traditional big, heavy snowcat groomer is out of commission; so they are using snowmobiles towing grooming sleds to maintain the trails until the snowcat is repaired. As we dropped onto the nordic trails, we came across one of the snowmobile groomers:

"Hey, cool setup!" says impressed Jack.
"Interesting!" adds curious Rudy.
You can see the "grooming sled" behind the snowmobile that is being
towed to try and maintain the nordic trails.

There is one primary drawback of a snowmobile + grooming sled versus a grooming snowcat: the snowmobile is no where near as heavy as a snowcat. We have had upwards of 4 feet of new snow fall in the last 4-5 days; so the lightness of the snowmobile really shows. While a heavy snowcat packs snow pretty firmly, a light snowmobile leaves a very soft trail behind when there has been a lot of new snow. The result? Well, it is quite a workout for my pals to gallop through soft terrain. No complaints from anyone in our team, it is just quite a workout - compare this to running in sand!

Impressive Jack & Rudy still catching air despite the very soft trail
conditions. These kids are professionals :)

Now come along for the video counterpart to what I described above. Watch as Jack & Rudy are running hard and getting quite a workout on the soft trail (notice all the snow poofs and their footprints deep in the snow to get an appreciation for how soft it was). What a fun workout for all!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The trails at Gold Run are in a known moose habitat. Along the way, Jack & Rudy pulled a sharp right off the trail to inspect a deep moose trough leading into a very moosey meadow:

Only a big moose can walk through snow this deep and not leave any
indentations in the snow from its belly - just deep moose legs posts!
"Moose went this way! We should too!" suggests silly Jack & Rudy.
I vetoed this suggestion :)

Since we failed to get any moose meat, we might as well settle for our pork end of run treats instead:

"Ok, we'll accept the pork; but why couldn't we go find the moose?" asks
the happy kids.

A little backcountry fresh tracks fun followed by a nice workout on soft nordic trails: 9 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 58 days on the trails covering 435.8 miles with 41,400 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Dumping

For the third day in a row, Jack, Rudy and I found ourselves breaking trail in over a foot of fresh, new snow! Wheeee!

Look at that power as Jack & Rudy are blasting through almost 2 feet
of fresh powder at this point of the outing!

When you are skiing, snowboarding and/or snowmobiling in deep snow, it is often referred to as "snorkeling" as your head is often barely above (or below) the deep snow. Well, today we have a classic shot of Jack snorkeling as he & Rudy are breaking trail in snow about as deep as they are tall:

Love Jack's nose up in the air to keep above the "Jack deep" snow he is
blasting through. Snorkeling!!!

In addition to wonderful deep snow this morning, it was also actively DUMPING snow all outing long. The only drawback of active, heavy snowfall? Well, the camera continually collects snow and gets blurry. Both photos above are clear as I had just wiped the camera clear of snow. Most of today's footage looked like the following photo:

Jack & Rudy blurred by two things: 1) snow collecting on the camera; and
2) deep snow they are submerged in while blasting through!

How hard was is to keep the camera clear, well today's video highlight shows you. This clip starts with a blurry camera which I wipe clear after about 3 seconds. Then you get to see the beauty of Jack & Rudy romping through a foot of snow until less than 50 seconds later when the camera is blurred by snow again. Perfect day for Jack, Rudy & I; rough day for the camera :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

I did wipe the camera clear at our turnaround point of the day and, well, the kids did their turnaround usual :)

"Stop, drop & ROLL in the wonderful deep snow!" goes the snow rolling sillies.

What a wonderful snow day, right guys?

"Oh that was FUN!" says my snow covered pals awaiting end of run
treats atop a tall snow wall.

An aerobic day of breaking trail in deep snow amidst active, heavy snowfall: 4.6 miles traveled with 300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 57 days on the trails covering 426.8 miles with 40,600 feet of elevation climbed.