You Know

Just enough snow on French Gulch to occasionally open up the skijoring engine this morning.

Occasionally, though, not always :(

Wheeee - enough snow to go!

Despite that nice photo above, today was a day of "you know the trail is almost done for the season" lessons.

You know the trail is almost done for the season when my ski scrapes a piece of ice loud enough to get EVERYONE's attention at once! Typically, polite Jack will glance back at me for just about any odd noise. Veteran Zorro has heard just about every sound, so it has to be loud & scary for him to glance back. Monster Rudy has an infinite "go mentality" that it has to be SUPER loud for him to glance back! Well, SCRAPE - the ski hit a patch of ice under the snow and:

Synchronized "look back" to check on the musher after a VERY loud ski scrape!

You know the trail is almost done for the season when you encounter joggers instead skiers or snowshoers! Total number of joggers encountered today: 5. Total number of skiers/snowshoers: 0.

"Hi! Want to flirt with us!" say Jack & Rudy flirting with the jogger.
"Just a jogger, let's go!" says veteran Zorro.

Another funny thing to note in the prior photo. Apparently I have done a much better job of training "on by" to young Jack & Rudy with dogs than people! The youngsters will "on by" dogs but, as you see, they view people as objects to flirt with. Need to work on that (notice PERFECT Zorro) :)

Look at that ugly tire track behind Zorro in the previous photo. Well, you know the trail is almost done for the season when you encounter vehicles instead of skiers or snowshoers!

Yikes - a TRUCK ON THE TRAIL!!!!!
He was nice and stopped while I gathered the trio to the shoulder. But, ugh, a truck
on the trail!

Two final "you knows" for the day. You know the snowpack is melting when the moose that was trapped on the French Gulch Trail the beginning of March (from too must snow off the trail) is nowhere to be found. And, you know the temperatures dipped this morning when we are back to only Jack rolling snow angels - Rudy had been joining in the rolling the last month or so as daily temperatures were rising. But we had a nice cold spell the last 2 days and we are back snow rolling Jack. Jack has rolled at least one snow angel every skijor outing of his young life, regardless of the temperature - that's 111 consecutive skijors with a snow angel and counting for Jack.

"Where'd the moose go?" asks curious Rudy.
"We stopped, I roll - EVERY temperature is hot to me!" declares goofy Jack.
"Turnaround? Ok!" adds cooperative Zorro.

Finally, you know it was still worth it when we found enough snow to uncork the skijoring engine now and then. Come along for a fun stretch of trail - wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Probably our last skijor in French Gulch this season. Oh well, we still had a blast and we still have MANY trails with plenty of snow to continue through May: 5.8 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 94 days on the trails covering 527.7 miles with 48,000 feet of elevation climbed.