Groomer Chase

Cool shot of Jack & Rudy zipping along in a backcountry single track trail. Wheeee!

The kids love when it is safe to floor it on these cool backcountry trails :)

We did our usual routine with Gold Run Nordic Center this morning. That is starting out in the backcountry and touring around single track trails for a while. Then we eventually drop out of the backcountry and onto the wide, groomed trails of the nordic center. We connect onto the nordic trails on the upper loop which gets very little use (mere humans don't often make it this far from the clubhouse :) As expected, the trail was not yet groomed this morning with light usage in the past 24ish hours. It was just safe enough to still open the throttle:

Zipping along in the slightly tracked up/used upper nordic loop.

Then, as we completed our first trip around the upper loop, we came to where the groomer comes from the lower trails. Much to our delight, the trail was now freshly groomed! That meant the groomer was somewhere on the upper loop ahead of us. Jack & Rudy know what to do with a fresh groom: ZOOM!

First tracks on the minutes old freshly groomed nordic trail. Wheeee!

Now, Jack & Rudy are faster than a groomer and we knew it was somewhere in the loop ahead of us. So, it was time to floor it and find the groomer!

"Groomer ahead! We caught it, we caught it!" says fast running Jack & Rudy
who love to chase & catch the groomer.

We actually chased and caught the groomer three times on the upper loop today. Each time we caught it, I'd turn Jack & Rudy around and skijor the other direction for a bit to give the groomer a head start. Then, we'd turn around and start the chase & catch again. Such fun.

Come along for one of today's "chase & catch" the groomer episodes. We start the clip being first tracks in the groomer's recent work and fly, fly, fly until we stop upon catching the groomer at the end of this clip.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

I've mentioned and shown before how this groomer driver will stop and let us pass when the trail is wide enough and safe to do so. Unfortunately the stretch of trail we were on this morning was never wide enough for a safe pass. So, after playing "chase & catch" 3 times, we dropped onto a single track side trail to pass the groomer. Here we are trotting along as we pass the groomer. About 50 yards ahead of us we connected back onto the freshly groomed nordic trail (but now ahead of the groomer). The groomer driver smiled, waved and gave us a thumbs up as we passed from this side trail. 

Not safe to pass up there, so we'll pass down here :)

What a fun day chasing the groomer, right guys?

"We had a BLAST!!! So much fun!" exclaims the happy, happy kids.

Very entertaining outing: 10.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 92 days on the trails covering 809.0 miles with 74,000 feet of elevation climbed.