Breaking Trail in October

The title to this blog entry says it all...

Breaking Trail in October! Wow!

Plowing through 8-10 inches as we tow the human along!
Look at the snow trough behind the Zorro snow plow!

On Sunday I said to Nancy, "I think Rabbit Ears Pass is going to get dumped on tonight and tomorrow." I have started integrating about 5 different sources of weather forecasting data and all indicators said "mid-October dump for Rabbit Ears."

A quick conference with Max & Zorro and they both said, "We're game, we'll believe any forecast that says 'Snow'!" So we got up early Monday morning and hit the road - hoping we were right and Rabbit Ears was getting a thorough snow covering.

Oh boy were we right! Rabbit Ears is a few hours away (near Steamboat Springs), so we decided to make a 2-day event of it. What a great decision. We found ourselves on skis (instead of the sled) in mid-October - wow! We found ourselves breaking trail in up to 10 inches of fresh powder in mid-October - wowee! We found 20 miles of skijoring fun over 2 days - wheee!

Images & video from the 2 day event below:

Day 1: Wet Day

When we arrived at Rabbit Ears Pass late Monday morning, it was as expected - DUMPING snow (and had been for hours). We fully expected to be using the sled Monday and hope for enough snow to take the skis out on Tuesday. But, to our surprise & joy, Rabbit Ears already had enough fresh snow on the ground to take out the skis on Monday! WooHoo.

It was a heavy, wet and blowing snow as we started our outing. This explains the "water spots" in the images from the day:

At the start of the outing. The Siberians are "all go" as they throw their shoulders into
the harnesses and off we zoom.

Yes, it is still October... Despite the dumping snow, we had many "puddle obstacles" on the
trail. Luckily, most of the smaller puddles were frozen and snow covered by Tuesday morning.

"Ahhh, rolling snow angels in October - a true Siberian Delight!"

Day 2: Perfect Day

We returned back to Rabbit Ears Pass on Tuesday morning and it was about as perfect as you could ever imagine for October. What fun we had...

Trotting along the upper trails of Rabbit Ears Pass.

What makes this video special is the date: Skijoring in October!

The picture speaks for itself: breaking trail in deep October snow!

Hitting a fast straightaway with a few inches of snow atop frozen tracks.

Happy Siberians glancing back as I call out a 'left' into the deep powder.

Our skijoring tally for the 2 day fun run: 18.5 miles with 1900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.