Silly Huts

Happy & focused trio at the end of the morning's fun run:

"Fun run, now hand out the 'end of run treats'!" declare the happy & focused trio.

We skijored the fast trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning. The trails had not been groomed for at least a day and there was about 1/2 to 1 inch of fresh snow on top of the "groomie zoomie" underneath. We took the lower trail on the upper terrain to visit and fly by the warming huts. Rudy has been to the Hallelujah Warming Hut once before. On his first visit, he was intrigued by the hut and wanted to understand what in the world was a "warming hut". Today he could care less about the Hallelujah Hut - been there, done that, wasn't worth the stop...

Flying by the Hallelujah Warming Hut at Breckenridge Nordic Center.
"No reason to slow or stop - it was overrated the last time!" says Rudy flying by.
"Right on little kid, let's fly by!" add Zorro & Jack.

Rudy passed a new milestone in his skijoring life last Friday. He was born on December 29th (2017) and since he turned one year old last December, we evaluate him on the 29th of each month and decide how much more skijoring he can do. Basically he is a "sled dog machine", so on the 29th of each month we add 5-10 minutes to how long he can run (up to 45 minutes now). We will do this until he is 1.5 years old and then we will remove the training wheels completely. Unfortunately for Rudy the 1.5 date is June 29th and, while there will be snow to hike to and roll in, there will not be enough snow to skijor without limits. The poor little guy will have to wait until October or November to skijor without limits.

Anyway, back to today's outing. This was Rudy's first visit to Breckenridge Nordic Center on the expanded 45 minute limit. The result? Well, he got to see the next warming hut on the trails named Kathy's Viewpoint. After staring at the hut for a moment, he agreed with Zorro that warming huts really are a silly concept - no reason to pay them any attention. Jack on the other hand....

"Nothing here, let's go!" says Zorro trying to lead everyone away so we can run.
"I agree big bro - you are really smart! Warming hut, what a silly concept!" adds Rudy who
quickly lost interest in the hut.
"No wait, I found a use for a warming hut! Come back - you roll snow angels at them!" declares
goofy snow rolling Jack.

Eventually Jack rejoined and we went past Kathy's Viewpoint before turning around and coming back on the same trail. After realizing warming huts are no big deal, Rudy had no interest in Kathy's on the second pass :)

"No reason to even slow down!" demonstrate sprinting Zorro & Rudy.
"No really, we stop and roll snow angels. Come on!" says silly Jack to Rudy.

The video counterpart of the prior photo. Come along as we fly by Kathy's Viewpoint on the return pass. No reason to even slow down! :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After flying by the two warming huts, we took another side trail to reach our 45 minute goal (we were WAY ahead of schedule doing the hut trail :) Up a side trail and time to turnaround. But, a turnaround is a stop so...

"Ok, the huts are silly - we can roll snow angels anywhere!" demonstrates Jack.
"Are you two done YET?!?!?!" asks Zorro.
"Woo - we aren't done yet!" woos Rudy to Zorro with a little tail crank added in :)

Warming huts - how silly! But they are fun to fly by: 6.8 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 89 days on the trails covering 494.9 miles with 44,500 feet of elevation climbed.