Soft

Fun shot from the front of the happy, happy sled dogs towing me to the finish of today's skijor outing.

Smiles all around - such happy kids to be towing me in the snow!

We started the day laying fresh tracks in the backcountry. I was a bit surprised how much fresh snow there was as we had less than an inch or so at home. But, we'll take any and all fresh powder!

Wheeee - fresh tracks fun!

After touring around the backcountry, we dropped onto the wide trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. The nordic center's traditional big, heavy snowcat groomer is out of commission; so they are using snowmobiles towing grooming sleds to maintain the trails until the snowcat is repaired. As we dropped onto the nordic trails, we came across one of the snowmobile groomers:

"Hey, cool setup!" says impressed Jack.
"Interesting!" adds curious Rudy.
You can see the "grooming sled" behind the snowmobile that is being
towed to try and maintain the nordic trails.

There is one primary drawback of a snowmobile + grooming sled versus a grooming snowcat: the snowmobile is no where near as heavy as a snowcat. We have had upwards of 4 feet of new snow fall in the last 4-5 days; so the lightness of the snowmobile really shows. While a heavy snowcat packs snow pretty firmly, a light snowmobile leaves a very soft trail behind when there has been a lot of new snow. The result? Well, it is quite a workout for my pals to gallop through soft terrain. No complaints from anyone in our team, it is just quite a workout - compare this to running in sand!

Impressive Jack & Rudy still catching air despite the very soft trail
conditions. These kids are professionals :)

Now come along for the video counterpart to what I described above. Watch as Jack & Rudy are running hard and getting quite a workout on the soft trail (notice all the snow poofs and their footprints deep in the snow to get an appreciation for how soft it was). What a fun workout for all!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The trails at Gold Run are in a known moose habitat. Along the way, Jack & Rudy pulled a sharp right off the trail to inspect a deep moose trough leading into a very moosey meadow:

Only a big moose can walk through snow this deep and not leave any
indentations in the snow from its belly - just deep moose legs posts!
"Moose went this way! We should too!" suggests silly Jack & Rudy.
I vetoed this suggestion :)

Since we failed to get any moose meat, we might as well settle for our pork end of run treats instead:

"Ok, we'll accept the pork; but why couldn't we go find the moose?" asks
the happy kids.

A little backcountry fresh tracks fun followed by a nice workout on soft nordic trails: 9 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 58 days on the trails covering 435.8 miles with 41,400 feet of elevation climbed.