Nice Up High

It may be March 30th; but snow conditions are still soooo nice at the higher elevations!

Wheeeee - having a great time on the terrain above 11,000 feet elevation on Boreas Pass.

We had a fun & fast run up and down Boreas Pass this morning. While it has not been the best snow year this season, I swear this is the best I have seen Boreas looking this late in March in the 5 years we have been skijoring. The best part about conditions today was how wide the skiable trail was. Look closely at the photo above and the shininess down the middle of the trail is ice. But, also notice from the angle of the gangline that I am skiing on the hard crust outside of the icy middle. The shoulders on Boreas today were wide with a hard crust, making for perfect skiing conditions on a wide trail.

Today's short video clip shows just how nice it was skijoring up high on Boreas. We are at around 11,200 feet elevation in this clip as we fly along the trail. I am enjoying the nice shoulder crust to ski on while Max & Zorro are using both the center trail and the shoulder - wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The hard snow crusts we get in March and April always make for fun side tours through open meadows. We would be in waist to shoulder deep snow (my waist/shoulder, that is) trying to ski through this meadow in December through February!

Zipping along through a side meadow on the hard crust over multiple feet of snowpack!

Eventually it was time to turnaround and run back down the same path we took up:

"Turnaround, ok! We are having a great day!" say the happy pair circling around to
head back down Boreas Pass.

A great day for late March on Boreas: 10 miles with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 111 days on the trails covering 961.4 miles with 101,900 feet of elevation climbed.