One of our favorite springtime activities: skijoring the top layer...
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| Cruising the top layer across a wide open and endless meadow of snow. Wheeee! |
What is the "top layer", you ask? Well, spring brings this interesting phenomenon where afternoon temperatures rise well above freezing while overnight temperatures drop well below freezing. This causes the top few inches of snowpack to get soft in the afternoon and then harden into a top layer of crust overnight. If you go out early in the morning, you will find the top layer is hard enough to hold Max & Zorro and even me on skis (I would punch through off skis though). Thus, we can skijor this top layer and trot through large, open meadows that otherwise do not have a trail. The picture above shows one such big meadow with a hard top layer. It is interesting to note that the snowpack is actually 3-4 feet of snow under the top layer! Just two weeks ago we would have had to break trail in 3+ feet of snow in this same meadow!
Different meadow, same spring fun:
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| Trotting along terrain that was untouchable all winter until the springtime top layer! |
The top layer was so much fun that it brought out the frisky giddies in Max...
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| "Hehe - hey bro! Want to play tag?" suggests Max getting all giddy and deciding to dork with Zorro instead of skijor... |
Tag is, of course, a favorite Siberian Husky game. No Siberian can back down from a game of tag.
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| "Ok, I'll play. Here I come to tag you back!" says Zorro who was so easily drawn into the game started by Max. |
Game of tag over, back to fast skijoring on set trails:
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| Zoooom we go. Perfect form from the two who were playing tag just a little while ago :) |
A fun day using the top layer to weave our way through previously unusable meadows of deep snow: 8.4 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.
2015/2016 Season to Date: 112 days on the trails covering 949.8 miles with 104100 feet of elevation climbed.
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