Air

Doing one of our favorite skijor activities - catching air as we fly along the trail:

Zoom go the synchronized, sprinting pair catching air along the French Gulch Trail.

We did an "out & back" run in French Gulch this morning and added 2 "out & back" extensions on side trails along the way. The conditions of French Gulch can be summarized as follows: lower French Gulch is barely snow packed with dirt spots starting to show (boo!) while upper French Gulch is still in perfect skijoring condition (yay!). I wish we had another way to get to upper French Gulch without using the deteriorating lower part of the trail...

One of our "side excursions" took us over French Creek. It is always sad when the creek begins to show through the snow although the snowpack is still strong enough in the upper gulch to let you pass back and forth over the creek safely.

If a snowmobile did not break through, then we certainly will not either!
Seeing the creek to the left was worrisome at first; but knowing a heavy snowmobile crossed
safely was enough to convince us to continue on this side trail.

An encounter with our second "snow bike" of the season (we had another encounter back in November). I wanted to let Max & Zorro cruise by the bike as it is always fun to pass; but the trail was icy and I needed the full width to keep me under control on skis. So we paused to let the bike pass and exchange grins...

"Hi!" says smiling Max to the bike.
"Curious machine, I think I can do better!" says Zorro with a curious look.

Today's video shows the "still skiable but deteriorating" lower French Gulch. There is just enough snow for us to open the throttle; but note the brown dirt patches that are appearing on the sides of the trail. Oh, and such great skijor partners to slow down with me to go through the narrow gate before opening the throttle again :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A fun day had by all:

"We are having a great time!" say the happy pair turning around on command at one of
our side trail excursions of the day.

A quick morning outing covering 8.6 miles with 850 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 101 days on the trails covering 874.2 miles with 92,900 feet of elevation climbed.