Rain

Today's skijor was cut short due to....

RAIN! Egad!

Cruising along the trail trying to out run the rain :)

The forecast was calling for rain and the sky did not look pretty, so we knew the outing could be cut short due to rain. As a result, we did not stray very far from the trailhead and tried to have fun looping around the forest knowing we could abandon ship and get back the trailhead quickly if the rain started.

As you see above, it was a nice start to the outing without too much threat of rain as the sky is only partly cloudy. But, behind us the sky was DARK and we knew the rain would catch us eventually. So, we skied away from the rain as fast as we could - eventually needing to take a break to cool off (i.e., if it was going to rain, it was well above freezing):

"Outrunning rain means you need to roll dual snow angels to cool off!" demonstrate the silly
pair stopping momentarily to roll and cool themselves.

There are three things wrong with the following photo. Can you spot them?

First: dirt! You can see my ski tips as the bottom of the photo as we are cautiously gliding along a very narrow patch of snow.

Second: rain spots! Look closely, the blur just above Zorro and just to the left of Max are rain spots on the camera. Yuck! It started dumping seconds after this photo as we raced back to the trailhead to get out of the rain.

Third: bear tracks!!!! Look to the right of my ski tips and you see a bear footprint in the snow with Zorro's footprint to the front/left of the bear print. That's a nice comparison for the difference in foot size between Zorro and a bear. Oh my! At first I wondered why Max was not studying the bear trail you can see Zorro is aligned on and inspecting. Well, the bear had walked down this trail and then come back up it. There was a second set of prints coming the opposite direction that Max is inspecting. At least we knew the bear was not in front of us as he'd been back & forth on this section of trail.

Little bitty Zorro footprint in front and to the left of a big bear print. Eek!

More wildlife fun from the day's short outing: Moose Prints!

"Sniff, ah, yes, love moose prints!" says the moose inspectors.
If you look closely you can make out another moose print in the snow behind Max's back feet.

An outing shortened by rain; but Max & Zorro knew how to get the most out of it: skijoring, snow rolling, bear inspecting and moose inspecting! All in a short, rain interrupted, 4.4 mile outing!

2016/2017 Season to Date: 163 days on the trails covering 1355.8 miles with 143,400 feet of elevation climbed.