Friday, May 19, 2017

Deep

A day of "breaking trail in snow up to 2+ feet deep" in mid May! Oh my!
"It's a workout, but we are having a GREAT time!" say my trail breakers pausing for a
moment in the deep snow to catch their breath and let me know they approve of the day!
How deep was it? Well, deep enough that short Zorro got in line behind long-legged Max to let "Max the trail breaker" take over:
Snorkeling up the trail behind "trail breaking Max" in 2+ feet of fresh powder!
How deep was it? Well, deep enough that Zorro had to take over trail breaking chores for a while. Max & Zorro will automatically switch trail breaking duties during long stretches of deep snow with Max breaking trail about 65-75% of the time and Zorro 25-35% of the time.
Still snorkeling through 2+ feet but with Zorro in lead this time.
How deep was it? Well, deep enough that even the "trail breaking snail human" had to take over for a short bit. If it is super deep for long stretches, Max & Zorro will eventually tire a bit to the point of pushing me to the front as they get in line behind me in my ski tracks. This is very rare (only the 4th or 5th time this entire season) as Max & Zorro have little faith and patience in my snail pace. Whoever is directly behind me will head butt my legs at every stride trying to get me to move faster :)  After a short distance one of them will give up on me and move back into the front. But, hey, at least I helped for a short distance!
My turn... Boy is this a lot of work while Max & Zorro take a quick break following in
my tracks behind me :)
Our day's plan was to skijor up the back side of Sally Barber Mine, then down the front side and finally do an out/back in French Gulch. Well, we found ourselves breaking trail in 2+ feet of snow the entire back side of the mine (this side of the trail is less popular). The reward, though, was knowing the front side of Sally Barber is very popular and would have set tracks for us to rest in. It was only a narrow single track on the front side, but still an easy trail to jog single file down:
This is like "resting while jogging" compared to the trail breaking we did up :)
Now for today's humorous shot... Remember that these trails were down to dirt, mud and flowing water just 36 hours ago. We came upon this active water flow across the middle of the trail with only a very narrow snow bridge to the right for crossing over:
"I don't think you can make it ahead!" says happy Max looking back to let me know the
trail is not passible in front of him.
"I can't even look, I can't even look. Let me know when you find a path over!" states
water averse Zorro hiding his head in the trail behind Max until the two of us figure
out how to cross the water.

Who ever thought we'd be slowed to a trail breaking crawl in mid May??? 6.1 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 15 MPH (which is pretty fast considering we were in single file configuration all day).

2016/2017 Season to Date: 158 days on the trails covering 1318.7 miles with 139,600 feet of elevation climbed.

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