Return

Cruising along a solid spring crust atop Rabbit Ears Pass all morning long!

Zoom and wheeee we gooooo!

Today's skijor was the "return to the scene of the moose" as we skijored the same trail where we encountered a moose last Tuesday. A little background to go along with the outing. Max & Zorro have infinite and precise "hunting memories". They remember every place we have ever encountered wildlife that perks their hunting interest (mostly moose and porcupine). We had skijored this morning's trail many times before; but last week was the first time we encountered a moose on this trail. As a result, I completely expected everyone to be on high "moose alert" as we came upon this section of trail.

Well, "high alert" it was. Watch as we are skijoring along last week's trail. It may not be completely clear from the start of the video; but I could see that Max & Zorro were not just running - they were running and scanning the terrain for moose. The hilarious part of the video clip... Watch at about 40 seconds in and Zorro launches himself right off the trail. This is the EXACT location where we saw the moose last week. No moose today, but "infinite & precise" Zorro had to jump off trail and check before hopping back on trail. What a goof :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As fate would have it, the "high moose alert" was justified. Just around the corner from the prior video and we encountered fresh moose tracks on the trail!

"Sniff, sniff - ahhh! Told you so! Moose in the area!!!!" say Max & Zorro carefully inspecting
the moose tracks in the snow with an intensity that told me they were very fresh.

The trail we were on has many switchbacks and the moose had apparently been walking through the forest and across the trail for a while. So, after every switchback, we encountered more fresh smelling moose tracks. Max & Zorro were "moose juiced" all day long!

We never did get a visual of the moose; but not from lack of trying and tracking! To make up for the failure to see a moose, we gave ourselves a deer leg on the side of the trail instead. It was a upper back leg or hip area of a deer with a little flesh left to taste. Almost as good as getting a moose :)

"Yes, still some flesh on this end!" says meat inspector Zorro.
"Hmmm, yes, pretty fresh!" says quality control Max.

Finally, today's role reversal shot. Max is renowned for simultaneously rolling snow angels and chomping snowcones. Zorro, on the other hand, usually does just one activity at a time: roll angels or eat snowcones. Today, though, was Zorro's first simultaneous "roll & chomp" event.

"Ah, no wonder you do both at once bro, this is great!" demonstrates 'roll & chomp' Zorro.
"I would never do such silly antics!" says silly Max.

A great morning with just enough moose juice to pump out a long May run: 9.2 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 148 days on the trails covering 1241.5 miles with 131,900 feet of elevation climbed.