Trail of Ice

We had a bit of snow this week - enough to take the sled out on shady trails but not enough to use the skis. So today was a day of dog sledding around the trails near Sally Barber Mine. We encountered quite the mix of conditions, including extreme ice - photos below:

Starting down a nicely packed and fast trail from Sally Barber Mine. Most of this
"down route" looked like this. We hit a top speed of 17 MPH on this terrain.

But, for one extended section of the trail it was basically "overflow ice". Notice the stream to
the right of the trail, usually the water remains in this right shoulder. But, the stream has clearly
overflowed recently across the entire trail and then frozen over! As we hit the ice, Max & Zorro
started drifting to the left, trying to find some better footing. With no possibility to stop the sled
on ice, I just hung on and watched.

A little further down the trail from the previous shot. The "overflow ice" is even more extreme!
Amazingly neither Max or Zorro slipped at all, they just slowed down a bit and kept on trucking.

Off the "main trail" around Sally Barber and into untouched snow for ourselves!

Here we are taking our break and getting some of the usual (Max making a snow angel) and some of the rare (Zorro rolling off an angel of his own)!

"Rolling, rolling, rolling in the snow" demonstrates Max while Zorro tests the snow depth.

"Certainly not enough snow to dig in (my favorite activity), so I guess I'll follow Max's
example and roll an angel of my own" concludes Zorro.

Enough snow to have some fun on the sled, but not nearly enough to take out the skis and get some real skijoring distance with Max & Zorro... But, the forecast is calling for significant snow over the next week - we hope to be out on skis again very soon!

Vital Stats of the Outing: 8.4 miles, 1050 feet of elevation climbed, top speed of 17 MPH.