Fast Packed

Putting smiles on the faces of backcountry skiers as we glide on by :)

"Hi.... Bye!" says cruising on by Zorro & Jack.
"Hi!!!!!" says always flirting Rudy :)

Conditions were hard packed and fast for our skijor out & back in French Gulch this morning. It is days like today where I really love and appreciate the cooperation from my perfect skijor partners. Take a look at the following photo and think of how many things could go wrong if my partners were not perfect.

They could fit under the gate while I could not.
They could go too fast through the opening and slam me into one of the side poles.
But, instead, we get perfect partners understanding to trot gently through the gate
until the human is safely through too!

The human is finally past the gate. Ok, let's open this thing up!

Zoom - almost all 12 feet off the ground as we take off on the other
side of the gate (Zorro has one foot touching :)

All the way out French Gulch and time to turn around. Oh Jack...

"Turning is stopping, stopping is ROLLING!" demonstrates snow rolling Jack.
"I'm having a BLAST today!" says ecstatic Zorro flirting with me as I turn around.
"Look who is lined perfectly and ready to go!" states perfect mature Rudy!!!!

While the conditions were very hard packed near the trailhead, once we got further out there was some nice snow in the middle of the trail for me to glide in. Fun shot here as we got to one fast stretch with shallow middle powder for me when, all of a sudden, one of my skis hit a piece of ice. It was just a quick scrape, so nothing to be concerned about. But, only Zorro and I knew this, the scrape got a glance of concern from both Jack & Rudy! Hey, it's great that they care! Veteran Zorro certainly cares too; he's just veteran enough to know this was a quick scrape of no concern.

"Whoa!!! You ok back there???" hollers Jack.
"Yikes, that was loud!" says glancing Rudy.
"Just a blip, keep on going!" declares veteran Zorro.

Today's video highlight contains the prior photo. Come along as we are on pretty nice conditions far back in French Gulch. But, at about 15 seconds into the video you can hear the scrape and see Jack & Rudy glance back. Alas, all is ok and we continue along the fast & fun packed trail.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A fun albeit very fast packed out & back in French Gulch:

"It was fun, fun, fun!" says the happy trio towing me to the end of the day's run.

Conditions are starting to get a little too fast packed on some of the more popular trails. Good thing we have snow (and hopefully a lot) in the forecast for later today! 5.7 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 70 days on the trails covering 483.1 miles with 45,700 feet of elevation climbed.