Short and Deep

We only had time for a short outing Wednesday morning.

The plan was for a quick 6 mile run. The reality was a trail breaking 4 mile trot.

We started on the recently plowed road to the Indiana Creek trails, seeing that we could run in the plow tracks. An easy warmup leg to the outing:

Jogging in the freshly plowed road. If you are on the road right after the plow (and it is not
warm or sunny), then the plow typically leaves enough snowpack to glide along nicely.

After about 1/2 a mile, we transitioned from the plow track and the main Indiana Creek Trail. The snow was untouched and we began an aerobic trail breaking trot.

Beginning of the Indiana Creek Trail and breaking trail in about 8 inches of powder.

Further we went, the deeper it got:

Plowing through about 12 inches at this point - wheeee!

At our deepest point, we encountered fresh moose tracks to give Max & Zorro a little "moose juice" to power through the snow.

"Fresh Moose Tracks!!!! Need to investigate!" state the snow plower pair veering right to
inspect the fresh moose tracks. Note we are in about 18-24 inches of snow at this point!

"Moose went this direction, we should too!" say my head dunking partners.

As appealing as it might sound to use the moose tracks as our trail (i.e., the moose has already broken trail for us), there is one major problem with this thought... The end of the trail will be a moose! Sorry, guys, I re-routed us back onto the real trail and off the moose trail :-)

Only time for a short outing today, but we used 8-24 inches of trail breaking snow to get some serious exercise out of the event: 4 miles with 500 feet of elevation climbed.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 25 days on the trails covering 194.5 miles with 21,750 feet of elevation climbed.