Season Finale

Our last skijor of the 2015/2016 season this morning - so sad.

But, we surpassed 1300 miles of skijoring for the 3rd season in a row - so exciting!

"Every mile was a BLAST!" declare the 'always happy on snow' Max & Zorro.

Our final outing took us to Buffalo Pass where you always find some of the last skijor-able snowpack in Colorado. How is the following for an impressive shot of June 12th skijoring?

Looks perfect, doesn't it?!?

So, given the previous photo, how are we done for the season? Well, the problem is the shrinking amount of good & connected patches of snow and the trouble accessing it. For example...

Yikes! Just barely enough snow for my skis to glide behind Zorro while Max has to spill over
onto mud. Yuck!

The shrinking band of snow in the last picture will be gone by the end of today and join the ugly stretches of exposed ground like the following we encountered:

"Um.... It's BROKEN!" declares stunned Max.
"Your skis are not going to make it!" Zorro is telling me.

We ended up taking the skis off 8 times during the morning's outing to cross long, ugly stretches of dirt and mud like the prior photo.

Today's video highlight will give you a good look at "last day" conditions. The clip starts with us on "soft & slow" (but still fun) fun and degrades to downright scary as the video ends. Thank dog Max & Zorro know to slow down with me on bad conditions as they run out of snow and I can barely stay upright on the narrow slush shoulder.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Unfortunately, all seasons must eventually come to an end. June 12th is a nice ending date and 1304.4 miles is a nice tally for the season!

Time for "end of run" pork treats:

"We can hardly wait for October! Bring on next season! Pray for Snow!" say my fun & intense
partners.

A final day run of 7.4 miles with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2015/2016 Season Total: 155 days on the trails covering 1304.4 miles with 142,000 feet of elevation climbed.