Safety Dust

Everybody having a great time skijoring this morning?

"Yes! We are having a blast!" exclaims the happy duo looking back at
me with big smiles.

With warm (well above freezing) Spring days and cool (well below freezing) Spring nights, the morning trails can get pretty slick this time of year from the nightly refreeze of the prior day's melt. But, our skijoring schedule calls for morning outings, so we simply deal with it as a team. Sometimes it is so slick that we have to skijor at a gentle jog to preserve the human. What's amazing is Jack & Rudy understand this. They will NOT attempt to go fast if the conditions are sketchy, they'll simply jog along towing me gently on skis. It's better to jog on snow than have nothing at all!

Jack & Rudy towing me in a gentle jog as we are on slick and narrow
backcountry trails to start the day.

On wide trails, though, there is a simple addition that can make the trails safe to go fast again. If we get any snow overnight, even a trace amount, that is enough for the human to be able to skijor safely at full speed again. When it is just a dusting (i.e., trace amount of new snow), I call this the Safety Dust as brings the otherwise slick trails back to safe skiing. This was the case today. After going gently on narrow trails in the backcountry, we dropped onto the wide trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. I was thrilled to see the layer of safety dust over what would have been otherwise "too slick to skijor full speed" trails! Yay!

See Rudy's footprint in the bottom center of this photo (as well as the other
footprints behind him and Jack), this shows the dusting of new snow on the
trail that was just enough for me to let the kids uncork the skijor engine.

Now come along for a Safety Dust Skijor video clip. It really is amazing how little new snow I need to be safe on the otherwise slick underlying trails. I was completely at ease letting Jack & Rudy floor it with my layer of Safety Dust under my skis! Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Yesterday was quite a bit warmer during our skijor outing than today, so Jack & Rudy were rolling snow angels to cool off during any pause on the trails. So, I was pretty sure Rudy would be in a singing mood today after rolling all day yesterday. Jack, of course, rolls snow angels on EVERY skijor outing!

"Turnaround, Roll Around!" goes Jack at a turnaround point this morning.
"Turnaround, WOOOOO Around!" sings wooing Rudy.

After doing two laps on the upper nordic trail in the Safety Dust, it was time to transition onto the main trail to return to the trailhead. This trail gets a LOT more traffic than the upper trail, so I was a bit concerned about whether the dusting would be enough to proceed safely. But, low and behold, the groomer had just run on the main trail minutes before we transitioned onto it. Oh boy, first tracks groomie zoomie to end the outing:

First tracks on the fresh groom! Zoom!

Back to the trailhead to celebrate yet another super fun skijor outing with my pals:

"That was perfect!" says my wonderful partners awaiting end of run treats.

A fun outing brought to life by a wonderful layer of Safety Dust:  10.2 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 114 days on the trails covering 979.2 miles with 95,700 feet of elevation climbed.