Good News, Bad News

Good news and bad news from the outing this morning...

The best news, though - we continue to go!

Jogging along the open terrain atop Rabbit Ears Pass.

Yesterday we were treated to a hard "top crust" on the snow that let us go fast, far and everywhere. Unfortunately it did not get cold enough last night to re-establish the top crust from the day's warming temperatures. We arrived at the trailhead to find the terrain soft and a little slushy. The good news: it was not so soft that Max & Zorro would "punch through", so we could proceed. The bad news: it was soft & slushy enough that we had to keep speeds to a gentle jog all day instead of opening up the throttle. You can see the softness by looking at Max & Zorro's footprints behind them in the previous photo.

We started out along our favorite "flat & fast" trail at Rabbit Ears. We had declared this trail "done for the season" recently since the underlying creek had opened across the trail. Of course we expected the open creek to still exist, our plan was to ski to the creek and then turn back into the forest from that point.

"Yep, the creek is still open - right through our trail!" say the trail inspectors in front of me.

But, as we were approaching the open creek, I spotted what looked to be an intact snow bridge a few hundred yards down the meadow. Could it be? Could we still cross the creek? Off to explore we went. The good news: we found a still intact snow bridge that less us cross and continue - yay!

"Seems safe on my side!" declares Max crossing the snow bridge cautiously.
"Good over here too!" says bridge inspector Zorro.
My partners crossed ok, so I quickly zoomed across on skis and off we went!

The bad news: my GoPro case has apparently lost its ability to hold a seal in inclement weather. Any precipitation seems to eventually get in the case and slowly blur the video until it becomes completely blurred. The good news: I have another case to swap in. The bad news: I did not have the replacement case with me today and it started to snow (from light flakes to dumping snow) partway through our outing and all video became blurred and unusable from that point on. The good news: we found fresh moose tracks atop Rabbit Ears again this morning (as we did yesterday on a different trail):

A slightly blurred photo as it just started snowing lightly when we came upon fresh moose tracks!
"Look, my head fits in a moose print!" demonstrates Max.
"Very fresh - wonderful scent!" declares Zorro.
Interesting to reflect on the fact that a moose leg leaves a posthole in the snow as wide
as a Siberian Husky head. Moose are big!!!

The good news: Toes on Snow on May 22nd - nothing else matters:

"Toes on Snow is all we care about - the day was all good news to us!" declare the happy pair
at quick pause on the trail for me to put on my extra waterproof gear.

A gentle jog this morning on soft, slushy and slow conditions: 5.8 miles with 550 feet of elevation climbed.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 147 days on the trails covering 1264.6 miles with 132,400 feet of elevation climbed.