Still Going

Look who was THRILLED to be back on snow again this morning!!!

"We are having a BLAST!" says the happy, happy kids.

Despite deteriorating snow conditions throughout most of Colorado, Rabbit Ears Pass is still hanging on with good, albeit melting fast, snowpack. Today's outing found us skijoring along the edge of Highway 40 for a while. Every time a car/truck would pass us on the highway, Jack & Rudy would speed up to try and keep pace. They HATE getting passed! But, the speed limit out on the highway is 65 MPH, so obviously we don't keep pace; but not from lack of trying :)

"Hey, don't pass us!!!" says the kids kicking it up a gear once this big truck
passed us to our left. Nice try guys :)

After that initial leg along the edge of the highway, we turned away from the highway to skijor out and back on the Harrison Creek Trail. This trail keeps its snow the longest at Rabbit Ears. It was a bit rough and choppy in places from frozen snowmobile tracks; but we were able to hug the shoulders of the trail for pretty good conditions for this time of year:

Hugging the right shoulder where I can glide nicely on skis.

Now come along for today's video to see I mean about the choppiness. We start out the video on the right shoulder gliding along smoothly. Then, about 35 seconds into this clip, the right starts getting choppy and I start bouncing around on the skis. But, I did notice the left shoulder was now smooth. So, I call out "over to the left" to Jack & Rudy and we drift left until I am on smooth terrain again and off we go. Great partners!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Did I mention we did an "out & back" on Harrison Creek? Well, that meant we had to turnaround at one point, right? Well, you know what that means...

"Turnaround, roll around!" goes the snow rolling sillies.
Nice view, too, although Jack & Rudy had no use for the view :)

Finally, as the day ended, we were back along the edge of Highway 40. But, this time we were first tracks on a fresh groom - what a treat!

First tracks on the groomie zoomie! Wheeee!

Fun day, right guys?

"Any day on snow is a GREAT day!" says the happy kids atop a nice
snow wall to receive end of run treats.

Today's tally: 7.3 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 53 days on the trails covering 323.5 miles with 34,100 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Angels and Ears

Angels with "the ears" in the background at Rabbit Ears Pass yesterday morning:

The silly kids doing "their thing" rolling snow angels to cool off at our
turnaround point of the day. But, we also have Rabbit Ears Peak centered
in this photo with "the ears" (the two rocks atop the peak for which Rabbit
Ears Pass is named). Nice postcard photo :)

I was secretly hoping for our first "Spring Crust" skijor of the season yesterday morning. But, unfortunately, the crust was not firm enough yet to support Jack & Rudy running as they would punch through. So, we quickly abandoned the attempt to skijor the crust and returned to established (i.e., well packed) snowmobile trails. Not to fear, a great time was still had by all!

It was "packing it in tight" to catch air on the nice shoulder of an established trail:

The "tightly packed" Jack & Rudy skijor engine. Whee!

Then it was catching air to cruise along established trails along the shores of Dumont Lake:

Whee!

Finally, it was catching air to complete the day's fun outing:

Still catching air as we are arriving at the trailhead to complete
the day's outing.

Now come along for today's "fun to the finish" skijor as we are flying towards the trailhead until I call out a "left" and we turn to slow to the finish. What fun and perfect skijor partners!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As usual, look who is perched atop a snow wall and ready for end of run treats!

"You have our FULL attention!" says the focused, fun kids.

A short outing but still a great time had by all: 4.7 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 52 days on the trails covering 316.2 miles with 33,400 feet of elevation climbed.

Markers

Who was having a great time out on the trails this morning?

"I'm ecstatic with the day's new snow!" declares happy Jack.
"Me TOOOOOO, WOOOOO!" adds singing Rudy :)

Today's outing took us to the Walton Peak area at Rabbit Ears Pass. There was about an inch or so of fresh, new snow and no skiers or snowmobiles had been out on the trails before us. This made for an interesting trail finding outing:

Zipping along laying fresh tracks in new snow over packed snowmobile
trails. But, can you see the trail? Neither could I!

While we've skijored this area at Rabbit Ears Pass many times, today was pretty interesting as you could not identify the set trail most of the day. I only knew we were off trail when we would sink in deep snow versus knowing we were on trail when you could feel (although not see) a firm, packed trail under the new snow. There are occasional trail markers on the pass, and we really appreciated them today!

Cruising along once again with no clear sign of the actual trail except
the orange trail marker poles you see (one on the right edge of this photo
and 2 more directly up from Rudy). Without these markers, it was not
clear we needed to veer left through this section.

Whenever we could feel, but not see, the packed trail under the snow, we knew it was time to uncork the skijoring engine. Zoom:

The fun kids catching air heading towards the right leaning trail marker
you can just make out in the upper center of this photo. 

Now come along for today's video highlight as we are "skijoring from memory" of this trail as the terrain looks identical all around us! As the clip comes to an end, we finally encounter a trail marker letting us know we are on the right track. Interesting day!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

I stopped twice to try and re-find the trail when we got off track. Well, you know what comes with stopping with Jack & Rudy!

"Stop, drop and ROLL!" goes the snow angel rolling goofballs.

A fun, but very interesting, trail tracking day, right guys?

"Yes, fun indeed, now how about those end of run treats?" says the
happy, happy kids.

Today's "trail finding" tally: 7.1 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 51 days on the trails covering 311.5 miles with 33,000 feet of elevation climbed.