400 miles, 26 MPH - the end???

Surpassed 400 miles skijoring for the season today!

Recorded our top speed of the season - 26 MPH!

Last outing of the season? Probably :-(

Doing my "olympic victory pose" as we finish the day back at the French Gulch trailhead.
I knew we surpassed 400 miles and I knew we hit incredible top speeds.
It's hard to see the olympic victory pose in the right shot, but I am doing it as
Max & Zorro power us to the "finish line" (click to enlarge, but still a dark pic).

Our Route: start at French Gulch winter trailhead and skijor up the gulch all the way to the end of the last open meadow in the gulch; take a short break; sprint back down the gulch to the French Gulch winter trailhead.

The Conditions: started out icy at the lower portions of the trail; transitioned to icy packed powder in the upper portions; degraded to melting slush returning to the lower portions. French Gulch will not be 100% skiable by the end of today - there are growing sections of mud/puddles that will span the trail by the end of the day. To continue skijoring past today we are going to need some serious help from Mother Nature or we are going to have to start hiking (carrying skis) from the trailheads until the conditions become skiable - boo hiss!

The Fun: this is most likely our last outing of the season... We did not want the day to end... The solution: (1) Victory Lap - instead of skijoring straight up the last meadow (as we usually do), we swung out to the right and hugged the trees on the edge of the meadow. High fiving the trees as we did this "victory lap" up the meadow. That still was not enough... (2) Slalom Lap - instead of skijoring straight down the last meadow on the return route, we did wide, sweeping left/right slaloms down the meadow (skijor to the right, "left turn", skijor across the meadow to the left, "right turn" - repeat 5-6 times). We turned that last meadow into 2x the distance it normally entails, before connecting back with the base trail and sprinting back to the trailhead - fun, Fun, FUN!

Vital Stats: 6.9 miles; 70m total time; 58m moving time; 7.1 MPH moving average; 26 MPH top speed; 700 feet of elevation gain (and loss).

Skijoring in the upper sections of French Gulch. Icy, packed powder but
still very skiable (especially compared to the lower sections).

A look back at the last open meadow in French Gulch.
We skijored up the left side of this picture, hugging the trees, on the way out.
We slalomed back & forth across the meadow on the way back.
Anything to extend the fun!

Taking a break at the edge of the last meadow in French Gulch.
Human's definition of "break" - rest, take some pictures, relax.
Siberian's definition of "break" - how deep do you think we can dig into the snow before
the slow human wants to start going again?

Max & Zorro in unison (from the last picture), "Hey, your hole looks better than my hole!"
Max & Zorro in unison, "Rotate, switch to the 'better' hole."

Back at the French Gulch trailhead, Max & Zorro looking over the
deteriorating conditions... "Please don't let the season end!"