Vail Pass

The Rocky Mountain Views from high atop Vail Pass are always stunning:

Snow capped mountains all around us & sprinting Siberians in front of me.
Two of the most beautiful things to witness!

Vail Pass is officially closed to cars & hunters and open to snow lovers until May - woo hoo! We did have a few outings on Vail Pass in October and November; but those were always the morning after significant fresh snow and we had to watch the trails get destroyed by 4WD cars/trucks as the day unfolded. Today was our first day on Vail Pass this season as it is meant to be - sled dogs, cross country skiers and snowmobiles. Wheeee!

We did our favorite trail configuration on Vail Pass today. This begins by climbing up Shrine Pass on the snowshoe/cross-country side trail:

Almost at the top of Shrine Pass as we trot along fun side trail.

After reaching the top of Shrine Pass, we then run down & up the back side of Shrine (and add a little bit of up/down Lime Creek at the bottom of Shrine Pass):

Zoom, zoom - on the fast snowmobile trail on the back side of Shrine Pass.

A quick 1-2 minute break at our 1/2 point before starting back:

"Having a GREAT day! So nice to have Vail Pass exclusive to us snow lovers again!" state the
extremely happy Max & Zorro looking back when I called out time to turn around.

The final leg of the outing is always a fast sprint down the snowmobile trail on the front side of Shrine Pass. Our outings are always in the morning, so we are coming back into the sun on the front side of Shrine Pass. This makes for some great "shadow shots" of sprinting Max & Zorro:

Perfect angle of the sun and shadows to show the synchronized airborne sled dogs! Zoom!

A great day skijoring around Vail Pass covering 10.2 miles with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 32 days on the trails covering 261.6 miles with 28,350 feet of elevation climbed.