Sunday, December 8, 2013

Juiced Day

Today's outing involved two competing factors: wildlife to juice the Siberians versus complex terrain with deep snow. The juice won...

Breaking trail in the lower meadow of Indiana Creek - wheeee!
Today was our first outing of the 2013/2014 season to Indiana Creek. There is a wonderful network of trails around this area but you have to cross the creek a few times in order to get any real distance. So, it is generally the December timeframe when the temperatures have cooled enough to put a layer of ice over the creek to make it passable. We were delighted to find the creek frozen enough to cross and even more delighted to find an array of wildlife to juice the Siberian engine...

We are in the lower elevations of one of our favorite trails paralleling Indiana Creek and there
were MOOSE TRACKS all over the place! All the indentations you see in the snow in this photo
are MOOSE TRACKS! Encountering moose tracks always adds a little gusto to the Siberians.
FRESH WILD BIRD!!!! This suicidal bird took off from the low branch of this tree just seconds
before becoming Siberian Lunch! It is right there in front of us and a tad to the right as it flies
away. It escaped by about 1-2 seconds; but it did serve to add even more juice to my already
"moose juiced" partners.
Complex & deep terrain. We were in 4-8 inches of snow all day but the Siberians were moving
like we were on flat & groomed trails - wildlife juiced!

Given the terrain and amounts of snow to plow through, it was amazing that we had one of our fastest runs at Indiana Creek. Moose tracks plus bird temptations adds a lot of power to the engine.

Something about this old abandoned cabin in Indiana Creek fascinates Zorro.
Today we see moose tracks leading up towards the cabin! "No wonder the cabin fascinates
me - MOOSE LIVE THERE!" exclaims intensely focused Zorro (& Max).

A great first day of the season at Indiana Creek covering 8.1 miles with 950 feet of elevation gain and a lot of wildlife to put the Siberians into an extra gear!

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