Lesson

Nice view of "trail breaking tracks" behind Jack & Rudy and morning fog on the mountains of Breckenridge Ski Resort across the valley.

Breaking trail for the kids. Nice view for me :)

We gave Zorro most of the outing off today as I took Jack & Rudy on the complex backcountry trails on Baldy Mountain. This was Rudy's first skijor on Baldy and Jack's 4th (but his first without Zorro).

The kids got a valuable lesson today. Sometimes, deep in the backcountry, the set trail is only one Siberian Husky wide while the snow outside of the set track is extremely deep. As a result, you have to skijor single file. If you try to go side-by-side, either half your body is in snow too deep or one brother is in track while the other cannot keep pace in the deep snow out of track. It took a little bit of work and encouragement from me, but eventually the youngsters "got it" - simply go single file and you can actually go surprisingly fast!

Sprinting Rudy behind Jack as we go surprisingly fast in a single file configuration.

Of course, everyone wanted to be the "brother in front" at first. This lead to an unapproved discussion between the kids when we first started learning single file skijoring. But, I was impressed that only one such unapproved trail discussion broke out - pretty good for the first time :)

"I WANT to go first!" says Jack to Rudy.
"No! Let's play instead!" responds Rudy.

After I intervened in the unapproved discussion, we all got going and did a perfect single file skijor for many miles. Jack took lead about 75% of the time and Rudy took lead the other 25%. This is exactly what I hoped would happen as Jack has more "lead dog" tendencies than Rudy.

Eventually we got onto the more popular trails on Baldy. At this point there was a set track in the middle with shallow powder out of track. If the powder is shallow, Jack will typically run in the side powder and let Rudy (or Zorro & Rudy) have the set track. We call him Powder Jack for his love of the side powder when it is shallow enough to keep pace:

Powder Jack on the right with in track Rudy on the left.

Today's video highlight goes with the prior photo. Come along as Rudy is running in the set track while Jack happily takes the side powder which is shallow enough for him to keep pace. Powder Jack.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We stopped once to turn around and, well, we stopped...

"You stopped, we roll, roll, roll!" demonstrates the snow angel twins.

Finally, we met up with Zorro to let him join for a short run to the finish. Love this photo of the happy trio:

All smiles as the trio tows me to the finish. Once again, we have Zorro & Rudy in the
set track while Powder Jack is in the shallow side powder.

A great day teaching Jack & Rudy about "single file backcountry skijoring" while giving Zorro most of the day off and then a fun run to the finish with Zorro: 8.1 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 57 days on the trails covering 389.2 miles with 37,700 feet of elevation climbed.