Love You Man

"Love You Man!" shouts Rudy to big brother Zorro as we fly along the trails in French Gulch :)

"Love you man! So happy to be a sled dog with my big bros!!!" shouts happy Rudy as we sprint along.

I divide French Gulch into three areas, each with very different terrain. There is lower French Gulch which is a popular and well traveled trail. The prior photo is in lower French Gulch and, as you see, there are well established tracks on each side of the wide trail (the "out" and "back" tracks).

Jack & Rudy have adopted a nice polite configuration on our French Gulch excursions. Come along and watch as the kids have given older Zorro the "set track" while Jack drifts in/out of the deeper right shoulder and Rudy drifts in/out of the middle powder. So polite to give your elder the set track as we fly along...

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After lower French Gulch, you get into what I call middle French Gulch. The middle is less frequently used and you often find yourselves in a narrow single track or laying fresh tracks. Today was Rudy's first dip into middle French Gulch. We are still keeping his runs to 30 minutes with one mandatory break. We go as far as we can in 30 minutes. As Rudy is maturing, our 30 minutes are getting longer in distance with today's example of making it into the mid gulch in our short outing. The reward for making it to the mid? Fresh tracks!!!

Those are our "out tracks" to the left as we fly back along the right side of the trail laying
fresh tracks out/back in the middle of French Gulch.

Rudy has yet to make it to upper French Gulch and that will never happen until we expand his runs past 30 minutes. What do you usually find in the upper gulch? Tons of snow and aerobic trail breaking skijoring. Soon Rudy, soon...

Time to turnaround in the mid gulch and guess what? :)

"He's at it again!" states Zorro about Jack's turnaround antics.
"And everyone calls me the 'puppy brain'?!?!" adds happy Rudy.
"Yes, I'm a snow angel rolling goof and I love it!" adds goofy Jack.

A short but very fast run out & back in French Gulch. Everyone earned the 'end of run' pork treats:

"My turn!" states focused Zorro.
"Me next!" adds happy Jack.
"Me me me!!!!" says happy Rudy.

Our furthest 30 minute skijor in the French Gulch backcountry: 4.9 miles traveled with 450 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 49 days on the trails covering 264.5 miles with 23,550 feet of elevation climbed.