Ski vs Skijor

We had a great time skijoring Baldy Mountain this morning - just ask Max & Zorro:

"Oh yes, we had a GREAT time!" exclaim my happy partners looking back at me at our
quick midpoint break this morning.

It was a "snowing & blowing" day on the trails. Whenever we were away from the shelter of trees it was really blowing:

The "haze" in this shot is "blowing snow". The wind had some intense gusts all morning long
and each such gust would fill the air with snow the wind pulled off the ground!

But, as long as we stayed close to the trees, the wind was not as intense. So we pretty much "toured the forest" this morning, making our own trail just about everywhere we went. Here we are gliding by the abandoned Mountain Pride Mine. Notice nosey little Zorro who cannot trot by a relic without inspecting :)

"Hey, I'm not breaking stride; but I must inspect the mine as I go by!" says nosey Zorro.

After making our own trail touring the forest; we connected onto the main Baldy Mountain Trail. Baldy is a very popular trail, so it already had some set tracks in the snow. This brings us to our fun video clip of the day with the subject of the blog: Ski vs Skijor....

Watch as we are zipping along in existing ski tracks. Eventually, you'll see a cross country skier come into view in front of us. We are continually gaining on this poor human powered vehicle until I call Max & Zorro left into the side powder to keep from overtaking the skier. We did not want to scare the person coming upon him/her from behind so fast. Human powered cross country skiing vs sled dog powered skijoring - I choose the latter :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Breaking trail in 6+ inches of snow on Baldy most of the morning before connecting onto to existing tracks and flying along the main trail: 7.4 miles traveled with 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 77 days on the trails covering 622.1 miles with 67,200 feet of elevation climbed.