The early sled dogs get the wonderful early morning crust!
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Nice shot of Jack & Rudy catching air as we zip across a firm early morning snow crust. Wheeee! |
Springtime is good for one thing, and one thing only: the Spring Crust! With warm days (well above freezing) and cold nights (many hours below freezing), a firm crust develops in the morning that can support Jack & Rudy's weight and me on skis. This lets us abandon set trails and skijor any direction we want. Such fun!
But, as the snowpack melts, obstacles do start to emerge from under the snow. Today we encountered many little trees starting to poke through. Not a problem, just obstacles to navigate around:
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Sometimes Jack & Rudy have to spread apart to avoid obstacles. I'll typically follow one of them until we are past the obstacle. |
Once past any obstacle, though, it's back to shoulder to shoulder skijoring for the impressive sled dogs:
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Moments after the prior photo and the cool kids reconnect for tight, in team skijoring :) |
Oftentimes, power lines provide us some of our best spring crust skijoring. This is because the power companies frequently clear cut trees under power lines. This provides us a pretty much obstacle free stretch of spring crust. Come along for today's video highlight to see what I mean. If your volume is up, you'll hear me call out the occasional "left" or "right" and Jack & Rudy listen for us to navigate along a wonderful spring crust under the power lines. Wheeee!
[watch on youtube if no video loads below]
There is one thing a spring crust cannot support: MOOSE! Yes, we encountered moose leg postholes in the crust at one point during the outing. You must stop and inspect moose tracks, it's in the rule book :)
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What a moose posthole as Jack's head has completely disappeared down the moose hole! These tracks were apparently very fresh according to Jack & Rudy's noses! |
But, the spring crust is perfectly strong for everything Jack & Rudy want to do: from running to rolling snow angels :)
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"Rub a dub dub!" goes the snow rolling sillies cooling themselves by rolling the crust. Funny kids. |
Finally, who is ready for some delicious end of run treats?
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"We are!" says the happy kids who were able to, once again, find a nice snow wall to climb to come face to face with me for treats. |
An early morning skijor to enjoy the crust before it starts to soften: 5 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.
2024/2025 Season to Date: 98 days on the trails covering 747.1 miles with 73,300 feet of elevation climbed.