Finale

Our final run of the 2016/2017 Skijor Season this morning.

A great 12 mile run on Buffalo Pass bringing us to 1433.5 total miles for the season!

1433.5 miles traveled with 152,200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 26 MPH.
"Every single mile was a BLAST!" declare my super happy partners at our turnaround
point of the morning.

With it being June 13th, you are probably wondering what kinds of snow conditions we found. Well, see for yourself below.

Nice at the upper elevations near the top of Buffalo Pass:

Whee we go along slightly choppy but "great for June" trails near the top of the pass.

The top of Buffalo Pass will blow you away. It was "snow as far as the eye can see" once you crested onto the open meadows at the top. As you can see, it was a bit choppy due to being on melting snowpack over uneven meadows. Choppiness just means you slow to a trot instead of a sprint; but we'll take any "toes on snow" in June!

3+ feet of beautiful, albeit choppy, snowpack to enjoy atop Buffalo Pass.

After those last two photos, you are probably wondering why this is our last run of the season. Well, the lower elevation approaches are narrow or down to dirt/mud for long sections:

Still enough snow for skis & toes; but barely. Another day or two and this patch will be all dirt/mud.

We had to hike 1 mile in (and out) to get to skiable snow and then had to take the skis off 6 times (3 up/3 down) to walk over a few extended patches of no snow. Not too bad for June 13th, though, and today's short video highlight shows you it was worth it as are on a great stretch of "all snow" and only slightly choppy conditions. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We had an additional bonus for our last run of the season: it got below freezing last night! This meant two things: (1) the terrain was frozen and fast packed all morning (instead of increasingly soft slush you typically get in June); and (2) perfect temperatures for Max & Zorro to stay cool and go as long as the human could hold up. The result? We skijored 12.2 miles for our last outing and reached Summit Lake atop Buffalo Pass!

The choppy snow we are on is the beach of Summit Lake. The smooth snow behind Max & Zorro
is the "still frozen" Summit Lake.

We were quite surprised to find Summit Lake still 100% ice covered this late in June.

A great outing for a season finale: 12.2. miles traveled with 1500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

Final 2016/2017 Season Stats: 172 days on the trails covering 1433.5 miles with 152,200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 26 MPH.

On to the summer doldrums... We hope to be back running on snow in late September or October at the latest.

Pray for Snow!!!