Breaking Trail

Breaking trail in 12+ inches of fresh powder on April 28th! Woo Hoo!!!!

Max & Zorro the professional snowplows powering through 12+ inches of powder as they
tow me along the trails on Peak 6 at Breckenridge Ski Resort!

We may have finally had the "spring snowstorm" to set us up to skijor into June. We have been waiting all of March and almost all of April for one of Colorado's famous spring storms to arrive. Well, this was it! Breckenridge Ski Resort has a snow stake that gets cleared every morning around 5am. They publish a photo of the stake at 5am before they clear it for the day. So, the stake reports the 24 hour snow total from 5am to 5am. Here is the stake at 5am this morning:

12 inches of fresh powder fell on the ski resort from 5am Thu to 5am Fri. Woo Hoo!

We had a very entertaining outing combining trails from Breckenridge Nordic Center with Breckenridge Ski Resort (both of which are closed for the season). We started on the nordic center trails laying fresh tracks in 4-6 inches of fresh powder:

Whee we go hopping along laying fresh tracks in about 6 inches of fresh snow.

After doing a fresh tracks semi-circle on the nordic center trails, we hopped onto the summer service road that connects onto Peak 6 of Breckenridge Ski Resort. This was a fun climb in snow increasing from 6 inches to over 12 inches as we transitioned onto the Peak 6 ski trails. Once on Peak 6, well look at the first photo again... The snow stake was accurate as we were breaking trail in 12+ inches of powder on Peak 6 trails!

After doing an aerobic up/down of Peak 6, we connected back onto the nordic center trails to complete the morning's outing. By the time we reconnected with the nordic center, a few others had been out on the trails so we had set tracks to follow. Set tracks leads to zoom, zoom, zoom!

Zipping along as Max & Zorro are sharing a "set track" so we can go FAST!

Today's short video is a fun sequence... We start with a single set track and about 4 inches of side powder. Max has politely let shorter Zorro have the single track to sprint as Max and his long legs can easily sprint in the side powder. We round a corner to find more/wider set tracks but also a downed tree covering most of the trail. Max & Zorro so perfectly keep the speeds low until they get the human by the downed tree and then it is OFF WE GO as there are multiple set tracks for all to use and sprint. Fun!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Laying fresh tracks, breaking trail and sprinting in set tracks - all in one outing: 8.2 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 139 days on the trails covering 1164.8 miles with 124,100 feet of elevation climbed.