Trail Breaking

This morning's outing was "slowed by breaking trail in 6-18 inches of fresh snow all day"!

No problem for my trail breaking partners, just a short & aerobic fun outing!

Kicking up powder as we run (and glide) as fast as we can in 10+ inches of snow - wheeee!

There is a new trail in the French Gulch area named Wire Patch. This trail was built over the summer as a new biking, hiking & cross country ski trail to parallel the main French Gulch trail. For winter, we hope this trail is a godsend to French Gulch as in the past 2 winters some jerks have been plowing the lower part of French Gulch and destroying this beautiful cross country terrain. The new Wire Patch trail bypasses most of what has been plowed and brings French Gulch to life all winter. We just need to get people off the main trail and onto Wire Patch to keep it useable all winter. So, we took the trail breakers (Max & Zorro) onto Wire Patch this morning to set the trail for others to use.

Breaking trail on the new Wire Patch terrain. A beautiful, albeit narrow at times, trail that
winds through the forest above and adjacent to French Creek.

Eventually Wire Patch ends, after we have bypassed just about all of the evil plow section, and we are back on the main French Gulch trail. We were still first on the trail and continued breaking trail in 8+ inches of snow up French Gulch...

Breaking trail on the wide French Gulch trail. Setting the terrain for all others to use...

The far & upper sections of French Gulch are always a snow mecca. The further you go, the deeper it gets:

Easily 18 inches of snow (or more) as my trail breakers haul me up the trail. 

Breaking trail all day is a lot of work:

"What a workout, rolling a snow angel to cool off!" demonstrates Max.
"Dunk - the best snowcones are deep in the snow!" says silly Zorro.

An aerobic 6.2 miles breaking trail all day with 950 feet of elevation climbed.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 12 days on the trails covering 97.5 miles with 9800 feet of elevation climbed.