Bears

Exchanging happy glances as we cruise atop the spring crust in wide open meadows!

"Fun day, huh little bro?" says Max to Zorro.
"Having a blast!" answers Zorro back.

We were having a ball gliding atop the spring crust all over the terrain when we came upon some post hole tracks. "Some poor person thought he could walk out here and punched through!" is what I originally thought as the crust is solid enough to hold Max, Zorro or a person on skis (or snowshoes) but not strong enough to hold a person trying to walk. But, then I noticed two things: (1) these are some LARGE footprints; and (2) why is Max (and then Zorro) getting interested in some silly human post holes? Well.....

"These aren't human, I am getting interested!" states track checking Max.

"Most certainly NOT human!" declare the track sniffing pair. 

Typically it is only moose tracks that bring Max & Zorro to a halt as in the previous photo. But, it is not just moose tracks that can halt them. It is bear tracks too! When they stopped to inspect above, I looked down to inspect myself and, low and behold, look at the bear claws you can see in the top of the track! Oh my!

Yikes, look at those claw marks in this bear track!

Luckily bears are asleep most of the skijor season as we most certainly do not want to encounter a bear on the trail. But, April is a bit early to be finding bear tracks on the trails. This is usually a May or June phenomenon!

No sign of the bear so it is back to skijoring:

Zoom we go!

Finally, the video fun for the day - a short clip of us cruising the Prospect Hill Trail. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Note to "keep our eyes open, the bears are waking up!" today: 8 miles traveled with 1050 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 117 days on the trails covering 993.8 miles with 108,900 feet of elevation climbed.