Searching

We went to the trails at Swan Valley to do two of our favorite skijor activities today: search for moose and run with dog sled teams.

Unfortunately, despite lots of searching we spent the majority of the day alone on the trails.

Oh well, we still had a ton of fun running over 10 miles for the day...

Outstretched Max & Zorro sprinting fast to the finish as we complete our 10.4 mile
run for the day.

We started the day on the Middle Fork Trail at Swan Valley. Moose are frequent sightings along this trail; but today came up empty. Max & Zorro's "moose radar" did go off twice as they clearly caught the scent of moose; yet we did not come across any fresh tracks or moose sightings. It was not from lack of searching, though....

Zooming along Middle Fork hoping to catch a glimpse of moose before they hunker
down in the trees for the day.

The "moose radar" was firing, so we continued further out Middle Fork than the established snowmobile trail for a little trail breaking while searching for moose:

"We smell them, where are they?!??!" ask my searching partners...

After failing to find moose on Middle Fork, we came back to the Parkville network of trails and did three loops in search of dog sled teams from Good Times Adventures to run with on the trails. Clearly it was a quiet day at Good Times as it was not until halfway through the third loop that we FINALLY found a team to run with!

"Finally - our buddies!!!!" say Max & Zorro as we finally encounter one of the teams from
Good Times on the trails. We let this team go by and then ran with them for about 1.5 miles
before we called it a day as we had been out for over 10 miles.
Love all the glances we are getting from our buddies as they cruise by.

A lot of searching (for moose and sled teams) with very limited success. Oh well, still a fun day had by all:

"Searching is almost as much fun as finding!" state my happy pair looking back as we paused
on the trail to try and hear sled teams to go find.

A day of searching covering 10.4 miles with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 83 days on the trails covering 719.8 miles with 76,400 feet of elevation climbed.