Freshies Again

Laying fresh tracks in late April, again, as we skijored all over Baldy Mountain.

Fresh tracks in late April two days in a row - yay!

Zipping along the main Baldy Mountain Trail with 1-3 inches of new snow all to ourselves!

Once you get into late April, you never know if this is our last outing laying fresh tracks or is this our last outing running with actively falling snow or is this our last outing on a certain trail? Well, we did all 3 today: fresh tracks on Baldy, active falling snow all around us and a late season run on Baldy Mountain (Baldy is one of the first trails we have to abandon once the snow stops). What a treat.

We started the outing with a surprising amount of "active snowfall":

Notice all the snowflakes you can see against Zorro's black fur.
Notice all the "snowflake dots" agains the dark trees in front of us.
A late April "snowing run" - yay!

We did a unique tour of Baldy this morning. Instead of the usual steep up/down that is typical of Baldy, we skijored a diagonal up line to the south edge of Baldy Mountain. We then skijored across the west face of Baldy from the south edge to the north edge before coming back down. There is no actual trail for this route, but we knew the crust would support our weight to go off track wherever we wanted. To keep ourselves oriented, we got under the power lines that span Baldy from the south end to north end and skijored through the trees under the power lines.

Galloping along as we make our own trail weaving through the trees and keeping
under the power line above us.

Once we got to the north edge of Baldy, we dropped down onto the main Baldy Mountain Trail. We were thrilled to find no existing tracks on this popular trail. Come along and watch as we are laying fresh tracks down the main trail with the morning's new snow all to ourselves!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Fun day making our own way, right guys?

"Oh yes, now that was FUN!" say my excited partners at our quick midpoint break.

Fresh tracks, falling snow and making our own trail most of the day: 9.2 miles traveled with 1100 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 134 days on the trails covering 1123.4 miles with 118,700 feet of elevation climbed.