Coyote

Third day in a row skijoring the incredible late May spring crust atop Rabbit Ears Pass!

Flying Zorro with sprinting Jack & Rudy alongside.
Love shots of the Flying Z!

Today was quite the wild and exciting outing. It started out fast & perfect as you see in the prior photo. But, the day was sprinkled with wildlife encounters! Come along for the highlights.

We were cruising along when suddenly we encountered moose tracks! If Zorro stops to inspect then you KNOW the moose tracks smell very fresh (Jack & Rudy are still perfecting their moose freshness detectors and they fall for all ages of moose tracks :) Fun thing to notice in this photo - there is another set of moose tracks to the right (look behind Jack). The moose tracks we are sniffing are postholes in the crust but the tracks behind Jack are on top the crust! Clearly the postholes were a mother moose and the tracks on the crust a baby. But think about how solid the spring crust is if it is supporting a baby moose!

"Yes kids, these are FRESH!" states intense Zorro.
"So deep and so aromatic!" add the kids burying their noses in the moose postholes.

Despite the freshness, we did not see the moose. So, we continued skijoring for a ways and look what we came across again - more moose tracks! Only a single set this time, wonder if it was a lone male with a beautiful antler basket on top his head?

"Fresh again! Tasty!" states moose inspector Zorro.
"Love the scent of moose!" adds the youngsters.

Once again, despite the freshness we failed to see any moose. We had TWO more encounters with moose tracks with the same pattern: fresh enough to interest Zorro but no sightings.

Now, here is a new one. We were cruising along one section of the crust when a coyote suddenly appeared to our left and started howling at us! This brought my partners to a halt to turn and inspect the coyote. This was our FIRST ever coyote encounter while skijoring. Looking back at my notes and today was Zorro's 1082nd skijor outing but his first coyote encounter!

"You talking to US?!?!?!" asks the intense trio stopping to take in the howling coyote you see across
the ravine between Jack & Rudy.

Amazingly, talkative Rudy did NOT talk back (stunned silence :) But, this was too close for me, I ordered my pals to reverse and high tail it out of there. But...

"Hey, it's following us!" declare Zorro & Jack noticing the coyote shadowing us to the left.
"Huh, thought we were going fast again?" says oblivious Rudy :)

Yes, indeed, the coyote was shadowing us in the trees to our left. Luckily, Zorro & Jack are very responsible and kept listening to me to go forward instead of drifting towards the coyote. I kept us moving right to move away but we were in a heavily treed area and it kept shadowing us in the trees for at least a mile! Finally we got to an open straightaway with less dense trees and floored it. At this point the coyote lost interest. Yikes - too much excitement!

Oh yeah, we did get in some skijoring without wildlife. Come along for a fun & fast stretch of the outing.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

First ever coyote encounter - I am ok if this is the only such outing we ever have (a little unnerving being shadowed & stalked): 6.8 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 125 days on the trails covering 728.4 miles with 68,100 feet of elevation climbed.