Dyersville or Mooseville?

Today's skijor outing took us on a tour of the old ghost town of Dyersville.

"Come on - let's go! We hear there is a party to get to in Dyersville!" say my partners as
they launch off the ground for a very fast start to the outing.

The trip to Dyersville starts at the Indiana Creek trailhead and begins along a well-traveled set of cross country tracks. But, the route quickly deviates from the set tracks and you climb for over 1000 feet into the backcountry in increasingly deepening snow.

Breaking trail in pretty deep snow as we arrive at the first cabin in the "Northern Suburbs"
of Dyersville - see the old cabin forward and to our left. Notice Zorro busting through some
pretty deep snow as Max is bunny hopping over deep snow on his side of the trail.

Upon arriving at "downtown Dyersville", Max & Zorro quickly renamed it Mooseville!

"Hey bro - there's some lovely moose tracks over here!" say both Siberians as the plunge their
noses into the tracks. The building in the foreground is the 'most preserved' of the structures in
Dyersville, so we always jokingly call it 'downtown Dyersville'. "Moose tracks everywhere but
not a moose in sight! Did we miss the party? Where is everyone?!?!" ask Max & Zorro.

"You take one 'moose trail' and I'll take the other - maybe we'll find the moose party!" perform
Max & Zorro. Notice that following a 'moose trail' in deep snow is still pretty much breaking
trail for the short Siberians compared to tall moose with long strides!

Finding downtown Dyersville void of moose, we decided to tour the town before heading back. We went up, down & around the "streets" of Dyersville finding the occasional moose track here, there & everywhere; but not a moose in sight. We even went as high as the Warriors Mark Mine above Dyersville, but no luck. I guess we missed the moose bash this morning at downtown Dyersville...

Coming back down into downtown Dyersville from the Warriors Mark Mine.
The deep snow trough we are in is the trail we broke ourselves on the way up.
"Dyersville sure has deep snow; but what about the moose party?!?" question Max & Zorro.

Our total route for the day consisted of climbing from Indiana Creek to Dyersville, then touring for a couple miles around Dyersville and finally ascending down the same path we took up. As you can see from most of the photos, we were breaking trail in deep snow all around the ghost town! The outing covered 8 miles with a total of 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.