Soft

The snow was soft all morning; but still so much fun to still be on snow in May!

Just ask Max & Zorro...

"Oh my, we are having the BEST time today!!!!" exclaim the super happy pups at our
turnaround point of the morning.

We are approaching the middle of May yet we found ourselves laying fresh tracks this morning! There was about a 1/2 inch of new snow at the lower elevations and almost 2 inches up higher. What a mid-May treat:

New snow for laying fresh tracks near the middle of May - Yay!

We did an "out & back" on the highest elevation trails of Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning. The nordic center has been closed for the season for almost a month, so no more groomed trails, just making use of what is leftover from being groomed & packed for months during the season. I was hoping there would be a solid crust under the new snow at higher elevations; but temperatures never got below freezing overnight. As a result, the trail was pretty soft our entire outing. Max & Zorro were happily trotting or galloping in soft snow; but opening the throttle to sprint would generally cause them to sink too far into the soft snow. Not a problem - my smart partners just adjusted to the conditions. We kept to a gentle trot the entire "out direction" as we were laying fresh tracks in the soft conditions. On the way back, smart Max & Zorro were staying in my ski tracks as that gave a little bit of "pack" to the snow. Whenever we would hit a shady patch with firmer snowpack, they would both transition into a sprint for the short duration of the firm patch and then quickly switch back to a trot or gallop once things softened again. So fun to ride behind them and watch them smartly adjust their speeds!

Shady & firm patch - GO!!!! Wheeee!

Now onto the comical interchange of the morning. Zorro started the fun by hopping off trail to roll a snow angel to cool off (remember temperatures were above freezing):

"Ah, rub a dub dub - feels so good!" demonstrates snow rolling Zorro.
"Looks nice, but you could improve your form a bit." says Max observing Zorro.

Zorro popped up from his snow angel and wanted to start back down the trail. Max, on the other hand, declared it his turn to roll:

"Now THIS is perfect snow angel form!" says completely upside down Max to Zorro.
"Hey, my back has snow all over it, I'm fine with my form and won't watch!" says silly Zorro.

A fun morning although the soft conditions kept us to a modest 7.8 mile outing with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a gentle 17 MPH top speed.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 150 days on the trails covering 1258.5 miles with 133,500 feet of elevation climbed.