The Longest Mile

Nice shot of Max & Zorro enjoying the deep snow and taking
in the scenery around us.

It was the longest, most painful mile of skijoring we ever experienced....

We began at the Baldy Mountain Rd trailhead this morning and started skijoring up Baldy Mtn. The first mile or so of this route has only one trail; after the first mile you then start to encounter lots of alternate trails to explore. During this first mile, there are 4 blind corners to go around. Here's the tale of our painful first mile:

(1) Come around the first blind corner and see a loose dog with another skier about 1/2 way to the next corner. "No problem," we thought, "we'll just approach, he'll collect his dog and on by we'll go." HA! Oh boy... We quickly closed the gap to this pair. As we got within "passing distance" he did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and his dog jumped in the middle of the trail leaving us no place to pass. He did say, "come Fluffy," but, of course, Fluffy did not come.

(2) So I stopped Max & Zorro and we stood there until the guy went around the blind corner and his dog finally decided to leave the middle of the trail and run after him. I then talked with Max & Zorro, telling them how good they are for listening to me and putting up with stopping. We waited for what seemed like an eternity and then started forward again. As we come around the next blind corner... DOH! He's still there, less than a 1/4 way to the next corner (and Fluffy is still loose and not listening). Could this be the slowest cross country skier in history? Has to be.

(3) So, we repeat step #2 above (stop and wait for him to disappear around the next corner and then wait for another eternity). Ok, start again and come around the next corner... ARGH! He is the slowest skier in history, does this person ever make progress? Does he ever gather his dog to let people pass? ARGH.

(4) So, we repeat step #2 AGAIN... Ok, start again and come around the next corner... BOOM - he and Fluffy are right there again! I could run backwards uphill in the snow faster than this guy skis - and still no control of Fluffy to let us pass. Luckily we are almost done with the first mile; Max, Zorro & I had already agreed to go whatever direction this guy did not as soon as we intersected a new trail. To test this guy's lack of consideration, we rode his ass all the way from this last corner to the first trail intersection. We stayed right on his butt, wondering if he'd collect Fluffy and move - nope, never occurred to him.

(5) Finally arrived at the first trail intersection up Baldy - called to Max & Zorro, "Right turn, ok, let's go!" Ha, they didn't need to hear that twice, a hard right and we SPRINTED off  onto a new trail without Fluffy and Slow Joe. Oh my, that was the slowest and most painful mile of skijoring we ever experienced!


Needless to say, all 3 of us were skijoring at a pretty good pace the rest of the day.

The Route: (1) Start at Baldy Mtn Rd winter trailhead and skijor up the longest/slowest mile in history; (2) Leap for joy upon encountering FR 5281B and hang a right onto this trail to sprint up & across Baldy; (3) Break trail in 4-7 inches of beautiful untouched powder most of the route across Baldy and onto the Bakers Tank trail on Boreas Mtn; (4) Connect with Boreas Pass Rd and sprint up the road for a mile or so just because we could! (5) Take a quick break and then skijor down Boreas Pass Rd to the Boreas winter trailhead.

Vital Stats: 8.2 miles; 105m total time; 80m skijoring time (25m of stoppage with about 20m of that happening in the first painful mile); 21 MPH top speed; 800 feet of elevation gain.

Freedom!!! We just turned right off Baldy Mtn Rd onto FR 5281B. Pedal to the
metal - we are finally free of Slow Joe and Fluffy!

Video of our final approach to the Boreas winter trailhead. The

gate and the end of the video is the trailhead.

Max playing in the deep snow high up on Boreas!

Zorro hopping around in the snow too.