Workout

Cute Zorro prodding me to "get with it" and dish out those "end of run" treats :)

"Poke, poke, get with it already!" says prodding Zorro.
"You have my full attention!" adds happy Jack.
"Look who is the 'picture of patience'!" declares mellow Rudy (haha).

We went to skijor an out & back on the upper elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning. Typically they run the groomer on these trails on Monday morning to cleanup the terrain after heavy weekend use. But, unfortunately, we got to the trails before the groomer. As a result, we found ourselves on fast packed to extremely slick conditions all morning long. This leads to a real workout for ME as I have to ski, snowplow and drive my skis into the hard terrain in an attempt to keep us under control. I like to pretend I can stop if I need to and slick conditions really test my abilities! Whew!

The closer to the trailhead we were, the more packed and slick the trail was. Look at the shininess of the trail in the following photo - that is packed to the point of slick ice! Yikes!

Oh boy were my legs burning trying to keep the machine under
control on slick stretches of trail!

Luckily the highest points of our outing were a little nicer as not many people make it this far out on the trails. It was still fast & hard packed up high, but at least it was not slick & shiny ice!

Super hard packed trail; but that is still better than slick ice!

Come along for today's loud video clip. If you have your volume on, you will hear my skis in a constant "scrape" as I try my hardest to keep us under control on ridiculously fast conditions. All that scraping you hear is work on my legs - ow :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

At our turnaround point, I was happy to encourage silly antics from the kids while I rested my legs.

A real test of the wide angle of my camera to capture this dual snow angel!
"What silly kids!" says happy Zorro.

I took so long to rest at our turnaround that even mature Zorro lost patience. I thought he was going to go roll a snow angel in the side powder but he decided to chomp down on snowcones while waiting for me instead.

"Yum, tasty snowcones!" demonstrates snow eating Zorro.
"Hey big bro - what do you have over there?" asks onlooking Jack.
Rudy was in his usual la-la-land and never noticed Zorro (and then Jack) eating snow :)

We've now had back to back skijors of "almost too hard packed" conditions. As I look out the window, I see the upcoming snowstorm blowing in over the mountains. We can really use a dose of fresh snow on the packed trails and hope to wake to upwards of 12 inches of new snow tomorrow!

A hard packed, hard on the human's legs day: 6.2 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 85 days on the trails covering 584.7 miles with 54,200 feet of elevation climbed.