We did it - we hit 600 total miles for our 2011/2012 skijoring season!
It was a real stretch to get to 600 miles today. The conditions were, well how to put it nicely...
horrendous! We spent about 60 minutes on skis and about 60 minutes hiking over exposed terrain. But, the 3 of us were determined to get to 600 miles today.
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The Ugly: "Yikes! Where'd the snow go???"
This was skiable just 2 days ago! To make matters worse, this was the
shortest of 5 different sections of exposed dirt we encountered on our
outing today. Shed the skis and hike - BOO! |
We went back to the
Breckenridge Nordic Center trails today. The nordic center closed for the season yesterday, so we were hoping to get some useable terrain by piggybacking on their "just closed" trails. We were on much of the same terrain we skijored
Saturday morning. But here's the big differences between Saturday morning and Monday morning:
The high temperatures on Saturday and Sunday topped 60 degrees! Melt, melt, MELT!
As a result of the Saturday/Sunday melt-off, our terrain was about an even mix between The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - see for yourself in the photos above and below:
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The Bad: Icy with intermittent exposed ground.
We were able to skijor (carefully) up these bad sections; but you could not
skijor down this type of terrain - too slick & narrow at Siberian downhill speeds
to catch one of these exposed patches and lose a ski. Shed the skis and
hike down - BOO! |
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The Good: Ahhh, a stretch of actual snow!
Only about 1/3 of our outing had conditions looking like this... |
Given the first and second photos above, the obvious question is: "
Was this our last skijor outing of the season?" The answer is "
Absolutely Yes! ... Unless we get a real dump of good snow at some point in April." So, most likely, this was it (the reason we hiked half the outing to make it to 600 miles). But, as the eternal optimists, Max, Zorro & I are holding out hope for a magic dump of new snow to keep our fun alive. Pray for Snow, Pray for Snow, Pray for Snow....
Vital Stats: 8.4 miles; 120m total time; only 60m skijoring time (sigh!); 17 MPH top speed; 1500 feet of elevation climbed.
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Back at the trailhead getting our "end of run hotdog treats".
Notice the lack of snow on the ground...
Notice Zorro's cute little tongue - Yum, yum! |
Steve would also like a hot dog treat, yet he has not skijored 600 miles.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!!!
Thanks! Max and Zorro say that Steve and Kat should have hot dogs too. After all, they run with you all the time - that's a workout too! :)
ReplyDeleteNancy