Deep and Fresh

Such happy faces as we cruise through the morning's fresh snow to end the day's skijor!

Smiles all around - wheeee!

Zorro came with us for an entire long run yesterday and we plan a similar outing with him tomorrow, so we gave him most of today off while I took the youngsters out for nice run before joining Zorro to end the day.

Our plan was to skijor the backcountry trails near Gold Run Nordic Center until we dropped onto the nordic trails to do some fast nordic skijoring until we met Zorro to complete the morning.

We started on one of the backcountry access trails and found a set of ski tracks already on the trail to start the outing. We quickly caught the couple who had made the new tracks and entertained them while passing on by.

Smiles from the onlookers as the second skier is also taking a video of
the impressive sled dogs towing me on by.

The tracks made by this couple ended pretty early into the run and we found ourselves in a ton of new snow all to ourselves! We ended up breaking trail for almost 2 miles in what was at least 15 inches of powder at our deepest points!

Jack & Rudy the "snorkeling snowplows" breaking trail in 15+ inches of powder!

The reward for 2 miles of breaking trail? Well, dropping onto the fast groomed trails of the nordic center. To our surprise & delight, we found 2-3 inches of fresh snow atop the groomed trails too! This lead to 6+ miles of laying fresh tracks on the nordic center trails. Such a treat to be on the new snow before everyone else!

Flying along the fast nordic trails with 2-3 inches of new snow all to ourselves!

Come along for the video counterpart of the prior photo. The new snow and laying fresh tracks are easier to see in the video than the prior photo. It was also actively snowing all morning long, so you'll notice a "snow spot" on the camera as the video starts. Eventually this flake will melt and disappear; but most of today's video footage had off & on snow spots blurring part of the field of view.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Breaking trail for 2ish miles and then laying fresh tracks for 6+ miles is quite a workout. We needed to stop and cool our jets midway through the 6 mile sprint :)

"So glad you taught me about snow angels!" says rolling Rudy to Jack.
"Yep, I am the snow angel MASTER!" responds rolling Jack.

Finally, as the first photo shows, we met up with Zorro to add him in for a short run to the finish. It was the same theme with Zorro in team: laying fresh tracks in 2-3 inches of new & untouched snow!

Wheeee - freshies with Zeeee!

A trail breaking & fresh tracks workout for Jack & Rudy with an entertaining wind sprint to the end with Zorro: 8.4 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 77 days on the trails covering 528.9 miles with 49,600 feet of elevation climbed.