Single Track

Cruising on by the historic Sallie Barber Mine on this morning's skijor in fresh snow.

Nice photo of the mine, nice photo of cruising on by Jack & Rudy,
nice accumulation of fresh snow this morning!

Today's outing took us up the front side of Sallie Barber, then down & back up the back side, then a little out & back on a side trail before returning back down the front side. As is usually the case with comical Jack & Rudy, we pause to roll snow angels to cool off after the initial climb to the mine:

"Rub a dub dub!" goes snow rolling Jack!
"DUNK!" goes upside down head dipping Rudy!

The front side of the Sallie Barber Mine Trail is very popular with both locals and tourists; but most stay on the front side and go up and down that part of the trail. The back side, though, is more of a local's trail and gets much less usage. Today we found the pre-existing single track on the back side of the trail to be pretty narrow. But, it was just wide enough for Jack & Rudy to fit side by side while running fast:

The pre-existing single track barely two Siberian Huskies wide :)

A video will do much more justice to showing just how narrow the single track trail actually was. The snow outside of the trail was very deep, so Jack & Rudy needed to both fit in the trail to keep pace with each other. Come along and watch as the fun kids are packed in tight while still running fast. 

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

On the way back up the back side of the mine, a rodent hunt broke out. It was pretty funny to witness. First Rudy did a dive off trail, then Jack lunged next to him and the Rudy backed up, went behind Jack and dived yet again off trail. Clearly the rodents were moving forward under the snow :)

"Dunking for pesky rodents! Where are they?" asks head dunking Jack.
"They are moving up this way!" says beautiful diving Rudy.
The big indentation in the snow next to Jack is the location of Rudy's
initial dive before he backed up, went up trail behind Jack and the did this
new dive off trail.

Despite lots of exploration under the snow, neither came up with a rodent in his mouth (although it has happened before :)

Finally, back down the popular front side of the mine which is almost always plenty wide from lots of usage to fit my two pals comfortably side by side.

Zipping down the front side. Wheeee!

Back to the trailhead and Jack & Rudy found yet another snow wall to climb to receive end of run treats:

"We'll climb up to you! How about those treats?" says the polite kids climbing
up so I don't have to kneel down :)

A fun backcountry day in fresh snow: 7.7 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 115 days on the trails covering 986.9 miles with 96,400 feet of elevation climbed.