Rudy 7000

6 year old Rudy surpassed 7,000 career skijor miles this morning!

Way to go handsome & powerful Rudy!

"I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of the 7000 miles!" declares happy Rudy.

For the curious, Jack is roughly 5 months older than Rudy, so his 7,000 mile event happened last month.

What did we do to observe Rudy's awesome milestone? Well, look closely at that first photo again. What do you see in the upper left of the photo? Yes, that is a chairlift! To celebrate "Rudy 7000" we skijored Breckenridge Ski Resort this morning!

We try to make this an annual tradition: skijor Breckenridge Ski Resort within a few days of them shutting down some peaks for the season. Technically, Breckenridge Ski Resort is still open; but, they shutdown operations on 3 of the 5 peaks as we got into the second half of April and leading into May. It is the most fun to skijor the ski resort with a layer of fresh snow (otherwise it is a bit icy for me). So, although the trails on Peak 9 closed for the season yesterday, we waited until this morning to skijor the ski resort as fresh snow was expected overnight. 

Well, the wait was PERFECT! We had a wonderful layer of light snow over the otherwise hard packed trails. Jack & Rudy really love this activity. I can feel their excitement in the force behind the gangline attached to my waist :)

We had fun flying on by trail signage on the resort:

"Don't need no silly signs, we know where we are going!" says the fun kids
flying on by some of the trail signage.

We had fun flying under both stationary and moving chair lifts:

Crossing under a lift, no reason to slow down for that :)

We had fun zipping alongside chairlifts:

Fresh snow all to ourselves as we fly down this untouched ski run
going alongside a chairlift.

When we are out after they close Peak 9, we always run into a few others. There will be the occasional skiers who have skinned up the trails to come back down. But, more common is coming across resort employees. We will see them on both snowmobiles and the occasional moving lift as they are carrying out shutdown tasks on this peak. The employees always smile, wave and cheer us on as they see the crazy guy skijoring a ski resort behind two powerful sled dogs!

Zipping by some resort employees as you see the passenger giving us
a nice wave (I waved back :)

So, let's put it all together for today's video highlight: flying by trail signage, cruising under chairlifts, running along side (a moving) chairlift and encountering the occasional resort employees on snowmobiles and riding chairlifts. All this is set against wonderful active falling snow all around us with the occasional big gust of wind, as you'll see in the video.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun morning. Let's celebrate with end of run treats in front of the Breckenridge Trail Map in the background:

"That was FUN!" says the happy, happy kids awaiting treats in front of
the big trail map poster.

Remember, ski resorts are designed for downhill skiing, as a result we always trade an increase in elevation for a decrease in distance skijoring the resort: 7.4 miles traveled with 1500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 131 days on the trails covering 1125.4 miles with 111,400 feet of elevation climbed.

The 6 year olds, Jack & Rudy, have now each surpassed 7,000 career skijor miles! Impressive!