Welcome Winter

The first full day of winter (today) found us breaking trail in 1 to 3 feet of fresh snow!!!

Welcome Winter!!!!

Breaking trail in 12+ inches of snow up the main Baldy Mountain Trail.

We did an out & back route on Baldy Mountain this morning. We were thrilled to find ourselves the first tracks on the popular main trail up Baldy. So, it was breaking trail uphill all day as we found powder as "shallow" as 1 foot and as "deep" as 3 feet!

Of course, one of the benefits of doing an "out & back" is that you get to ride the tracks you plowed on the back direction:

Riding back down Baldy in the track we set on the way up.
Notice the "snow wall" is about shoulder deep to Zorro and almost shoulder deep to Max!

While most of the day was breaking trail in a modest 12-18 inches, we did hit the occasional stretches of super deep snow to plow through - what a workout...

"Now this is deep!" states Zorro happily falling in behind Max & his long trail-breaking legs.

The "return leg" on a deep, single file route (as above) is still a fun ride in the track you set:

Letting Zorro lead us back the single file track we laid in super deep snow.
Notice the snow wall is higher than tall Max's shoulders!!!
That is the Iowa Mill Mine in the foreground.

The occasional opportunity to open up the throttle on the return leg:

"Zoom, glad we broke trail up to have this fun down!" state the sprinting pair.

Breaking trail is a very aerobic activity:

Quick break after breaking trail for over 2 miles.
Max rolling his patented snow angels to cool off.
Zorro doing his patented snowcone chomp to cool off.

Not much can slow Max & Zorro to a shorter than 5 mile skijor outing. But, 1-3 feet of snow is one such thing... A 4.4 mile outing with 750 feet of elevation climbed while breaking trail the entire up route.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 42 days on the trails covering 344.1 miles with 37,400 feet of elevation climbed.