Passing 1200

Surpassing 1200 miles of skijoring for the season this morning.

1200 and counting...

Beautiful morning as we crest over Shrine Pass at the Vail Pass Recreation Area.

Temperatures dipped below freezing overnight long enough for the morning crust to be absolutely perfect. I was not expecting the crust to be firm enough to hold us for a long outing and arrived expecting us to do a short 6 mile run before the conditions got too soft. Oh boy was I (happily) wrong. The crust was firm and perfect, so about 20 minutes into the run I quickly stopped to text Nancy that we were "going for 1200 on perfect conditions" and would be longer than planned. A perfect day for a long run in late May - yay! Here we go...

Catching air as we fly along the crust with great views all around us:

Zoooom!

Funny story... I had a dream last night that there were moose outside our bedroom window, Nancy opened the window to talk to the moose, one busted the screen and stuck its head in the house. Well, the dream was a foreshadow as we encountered moose tracks on the trail this morning. Only moose tracks (or bear tracks) can distract Max & Zorro from skijoring and pull them off trail...

"Moose went this way - let's follow!" announces moose following Max.
"Sniff, ah, very fresh!" declares track sniffing Zorro.
You can see the tracks in the snow to the right of my ski and the moose clearly turned left
here to go up in the trees (as Max & Zorro are pointing out :)

Our turnaround point of the day was at a trail junction far back in the wilderness of Vail Pass:

"Turnaround? Na, I say we go left!" states 'keep going' Zorro.
"You two discuss directions, I'll roll snow angels to cool off!" demonstrates silly Max.

I needed to pause a second to adjust my equipment. Everyone having a good time?

"Why yes! Thanks for asking!" says happy Max listening to my 'wait' command.
"Well.... I WAS until you said 'wait'!" declares 'keep going' Zorro.

Oh boy did this morning surpass my expectations! 9.3 miles traveled with 1100 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 143 days on the trails covering 1200.7 miles with 131,800 feet of elevation climbed.

Will we hit 1300 miles... hmmm... stay tuned...