Nice Up High

Turnaround, roll around. Turnaround, woos abound.

Classic Jack rolling his snow angels at our turnaround point this morning.
Singing Rudy offering a tune of woos for his turnaround fun :)

The conditions are pretty nice in the prior photo, right? Just a single set of ski tracks and lots of untouched snow. Well, that photo was at our highest elevation and furthest from the trailhead point of this morning's outing. Here is what we had to endure to get to these "nice up high & far" conditions:

It was tracked up and beat up down lower and close to the trailhead. So beat up that I had to take my skis off and hike down the final hill to the trailhead on the way back! Ugh!

Going gently on super tracked up, choppy and icy trail conditions!

The further we went, the less tracked the trail became, but it was still cautious skiing at the mid elevations of today's outing:

We were able to trot at the mid elevations, but not much faster than that!

Then, as typically happens with my assistance from Jack & Rudy, we out skied just about all existing tracks and footprints. At our highest and furthest from the trailhead section of the outing, it was picture perfect! Only one or two skiers had been out this far before us. Oh my it was BEAUTIFUL up high:

Amazing conditions, especially compared to the mid and low level photos above!

How nice up high? Well, come along and see for yourself. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Today's comedy interlude was hopping off trail at the mid elevations of our outing to search for those pesky rodents hiding under the snow. 

"I think the rodents are down HERE!" declares dunking Jack.
"Really? Well, then, INCOMING!" responds rodent diving Rudy leaping
to join Jack's location.

Once Rudy's dive was complete, the kids started a joint excavation of snow in search for the rodents:

"Dig, dig, dig, where are those pesky rodents?" asks the excavating kids.
Despite lots of searching and digging, nobody came up with a rodent in his mouth!

If you can't chew on a rodent, you might as well accept end of run treats instead, right guys?

"Ok, treats are good; although we'd prefer fresh rodents!" says the
happy & focused kids.

Today's outing was on the short side because I expected the tracked up and hard to navigate conditions at the mid and low elevations. If only we could teleport ourselves to & from the wonderful conditions up high!!! 5.7 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 133 days on the trails covering 1138.7 miles with 112,800 feet of elevation climbed.