Skijoring the Ski Resort

A beautiful "fresh tracks Tuesday" on this late April morning!

Jack & Rudy laying fresh tracks in about 4 inches of
fresh powder. Wheeee!

But, wait, look at the prior photo a little closer. What is that far to our left? Hey, a chairlift! What is that dead ahead of us? Hey, the Peak 9 Base Area of Breckenridge Ski Resort! Yes, that's right, today was one of our favorite annual traditions: Skijoring the Ski Resort! We try to get out on the ski resort trails shortly after they close for the season. Technically speaking Breckenridge Ski Resort is still open. But, the resort has ski runs across 5 peaks of the 10 mile range (Peaks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). With dwindling tourist traffic in April, the ski resort will shutdown operations on peaks 6, 9 and 10 around mid-April. Peaks 7 & 8 will stay open as far into May as the snow remains. 

Back to today. Peaks 6, 9 and 10 are now closed for the season and Peak 9 is our favorite peak to "Skijor the Ski Resort" so off we went this morning. For the first few days after these peaks are closed, the resort will still groom select trails for maintenance, training and other resort operations. If you are lucky, you can catch a freshly groomed trail on one of the closed peaks. Well, luck indeed, check out this fun photo:

Jack the "skijor bowling ball" and Rudy the "skijor missile" FLYING
along a freshly groomed track on Peak 9 as we cross under
a chairlift. 

Today was probably one of our best ever skijors on the ski resort. Why? Well, we had a nice dump of fresh snow overnight. Around 3 inches at the base of the mountain and upwards of 10 inches mid-mountain! So, whenever we ran out of a groomed trail, we transitioned to perfect powder trails along the way. POW!

Jack & Rudy plowing through over 8 inches of powder
along this trail under a chairlift. Pow, pow, POW!

This excellent combination of "groomed and POW" made for an incredibly fun outing. Come along for an extended video highlight of one of our laps. We start out FLYING along the fast groomed trail. Then, it's time for us to change directions so I call out a "Left" and Jack & Rudy transition onto a powder trail with me and off we go powder plowing. What a fun morning!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Remember that ski resorts are designed for downhill skiing, so the trails are steeper than our typical outings. That meant Jack & Rudy had to roll and cool the jets after each climb before we launched ourselves back down:

"Rub a dub dub, cooling the sled dog jets!" declares
the silly kids.

Finally, a fun shot of us arriving at the base of Peak 9 to meet up with Zorro and Nancy!

Happy kids towing me to the finish.
Excited Zorro greeting us to join in for end of run treats!

Such a fun day on the ski resort, we might go back tomorrow! 6.4 miles traveled with a top speed of 24 MPH and 1300 feet of elevation climbed (remember, ski resorts are steep :)

2020/2021 Season to Date: 142 days on the trails covering 1157.6 miles with 98,500 feet of elevation climbed.