Sights

How were the condition at Rabbit Ears Pass this morning?

"Fabulous, absolutely FABULOUS!" declares the happy trio when I paused to ask.

But, wait, did I really pause? Yes I did, so you know what that means....

"You stopped, we roll!" demonstrate the snow angel twins.
"Ba Ha Ha, can't believe you stopped and thought we'd continue without this!" states
laughing Zorro :)

We spent the morning on the northern terrain at Rabbit Ears, running the on the endless crust northwest of Dumont Lake. There are a lot of interesting sights to visit in this area. Come along for the fun...

Running by the "cattle staging" pens in an endless snow covered meadow. Imagine how much vegetation there is for cattle to graze on once all this snow melts!

"Where's the beef? No cows here, let's continue on!" says the fast trio gliding by
the cattle pens.

Cruising by the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL. The SNOTEL is the tower in front of this hut (it looks like a small radio tower) while the hut is just supporting machinery for the snotel. A SNOTEL is a device which tracks and measures a wide range of environmental conditions. The most fun measure is the snowpack. As of this morning the SNOTEL reported we are on 38 inches of snowpack at this location. SNOTELs provide great, in depth reports for farmers, ranchers, rafters, fishers, snowmobilers, skiers, wildlife monitors, fire monitors, flood monitors, etc etc... Fun to be able to skijor right by such a great device!

"Hi SNOTEL, bye SNOTEL - nice to have 38 inches today, but wish it was more!" says
the trotting by trio.

Another sight - the CDOT snowplow staging farm. This is where all the snowplows live to clear Rabbit Ears and nearby roads all winter. I thought the photo would come out clearer, but we were just a bit too far away before I turned us around. Oh, well, look very closely. You can see two large blue canisters directly above Rudy and you can barely make out the set of buildings above Jack & Rudy.

"Hey - a snowplow farm! We are snowplows too!" states the trotting trio.

But, the best sight of the day? Endless & wide open meadows with a solid spring crust to run through and make your own path. Come along and watch the fun:

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A beautiful morning to skijor the northwest meadows of Rabbit Ears: 7.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 118 days on the trails covering 683.2 miles with 63,900 feet of elevation climbed.