Sightseeing

Approaching our finish at the French Gulch
trailhead. Max hamming for the camera;
Zorro happily lunging forward.

Today we went "skijor sightseeing" to a bunch of mining relics on Boreas and Baldy mountains...

(1) We skijored to Bakers Tank on Boreas.
(2) We skijored to Iowa Mill on the west face of Baldy.
(3) We skijored to the True Romance Mine on the north face of Baldy.
(4) We skijored to the Sally Barber Mine on the north face of Baldy.

A typical cross country skier would visit one of these sights in a days' outing. An expert cross country skier might visit 2 of these in a days' outing. A Siberian propelled cross country skier (me!) visits all 4 of these in a day's outing - Siberian Power :-)

The conditions at the trailheads (start and finish) were hard packed sheets of ice. But, a mile or so away from each trailhead was great - packed powder, not packed ice. We could have skijored peacefully all day on the nice trails deep in the backcountry - too bad we had to return...

Vital Stats: 9.6 miles; 125m total time; 100m skijoring time (we had about 10m of breaks and one unfortunate section of carrying the skis hiking down a rocky, ice path for 15m); 16 MPH top speed; 1150 feet of elevation gain.

Happy running Huskies as we come up a little incline to finish

at the French Gulch winter trailhead.

Cruising along the packed trail to the True Romance Mine. Zorro taking a
peek down the steep incline off the trail.

We'd been skijoring for over 90 minutes straight before taking a quick break.
Is Max tired? "Nope, I'm ready to keep going this direction!" He demonstrates.

"Not tired either, this direction looks fun!" says Zorro.
I guess only the human needed a quick break after 90 minutes of jogging
and sprinting skijoring...