Catch the Groomer

Happy, happy boys on the fast groomed trails today!

"We had a BLAST skijoring this morning!" declare my super happy partners.

We had a fun day flirting with the groomer at Breckenridge Nordic Center. Jack has never seen a groomer in action before, so this was a new one for him :)

We first encountered the groomer on the upper loop at Breckenridge Nordic Center. I pulled everyone to the side and kneeled behind them holding their harnesses and then waved the groomer to continue.

"No need to hold me, I know to stay out of the way!" Zorro is telling me.
"Fascinating!!!!" declares Jack mesmerized by his first 'groomer in action'.

We let the groomer go by and then restarted skijoring the upper loop at the nordic center. When we encountered the groomer, it had about 1/4 of the loop to finish grooming and we had 3/4 of the loop to now skijor the freshly groomed trail. Eventually the loop connects back to the main trail. I had no reason to believe we'd see the groomer again today. After all, it had 1/4 of a loop to go and we had 3/4. Well...

We exited the loop and connected onto the main trail and after a little distance and look what we caught up to!

Caught the groomer! Zorro & Jack are fast!
This was as close as I let us get before slowing everyone down.

I then weaved back & forth behind the groomer hoping the driver would notice me in his rearview mirror. Meanwhile, Zorro & Jack were determining if they could just squeeze by :)

"Hello!!! Can we pass?" I am asking by weaving back & forth.
"I think we could take it, just hug the right!" state Zorro and Jack.

Eventually the driver did see us and he waved us to pass on by...

"Going, but this contraption is louder than we expected!" state my partners passing
cautiously with my verbal encouragement to keep on going.

Put it all together and you get today's fun video clip. Flying along the end of the upper loop for the first 8-9 seconds and then connecting onto the main trail. Flying along the main trail for another 20 or so seconds until we catch the groomer. Then I start weaving behind the groomer to get the driver to notice us. Then, at about 54 seconds into the video, watch him pause and use his right red rudder to "wave us on by". Hehe! Then on by we go and floor it again once we get past.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun "first groomer interaction" for young Jack and, as usual, perfect everything from veteran Zorro: 9.6 mile traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 45 days on the trails covering 244.4 miles with 21,850 feet of elevation climbed.