Extra

Smiles all around during a quick pause on the trail this morning!

"Having a GREAT time!" declares the happy trio.

We went to the trails at Swan Valley this morning and did our usual pattern on these trails. That is, we do a quick out & back on one of the side trails before coming back to the main trail for the real highlights of the outing.

Flying by a silly SLOW sign during our warmup lap :)

"Hey, we are PAST the sign, so it doesn't apply anymore, right?" says the speedy trio.

The highlight of these trails is, of course, running & flirting with the dog sled teams from Good Times Adventures on the main trails. Good Times' contract with the forest service allows them to run sled dog tours through March. So, you can view this year's February 29 as an extra day to run & play with the dog sled teams on the Swan Valley trails!!!

Here we are at a trail intersection as we pause to let an 8 dog team go perpendicular in front of us:

"Hi friends!" says my flirtatious trio.
If you look closely, you can see at least 3 of the team dogs giving flirting
glances back :)

Rudy cracks me up in the following photo. We are at a Y in the trail stopped on one branch of the Y while an oncoming team takes the other branch of the Y. Rudy started out next to Zorro watching the oncoming team. Then, as the team proceeded up the other side of the Y, Rudy backed up, lined himself with the team and tried to get us going parallel with them. It was as if Rudy was saying, "If I line us up with the team, maybe dad will let us go along with them!" Funny Rudy!

"Hi more friends!" says Zorro & Jack watching the team go up the other side of the Y.
You see the two wheel dogs and the dog sled in this photo.
"Lined up to go with you!" adds silly Rudy :)

Watching the teams pass by trail intersections is fun; but the most fun is running with them! Here we are following a team ahead of us on the trail. It helps that the musher is wearing a bright yellow coat. Look in front of the bright yellow to see the dark blobs of the sled dogs in front of the musher.

"Here we come!" says the sprinting trio.

Today's video highlight goes along with the prior photo. We start out FLYING along the fast trail knowing that a dog sled team is far ahead of us. Eventually we come to a bend in the trail and I see the team stopped around the bend so I bring us to a stop too. We always wait and see if the musher group in front is going to wave us "on by" or not (typically, they do and we get to execute perfect passes). But, today the group did not wave us on. So, I cut out the section of video with us paused until the team restarts again and we proceed to fly & follow them on the trail. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

An extra day of "sled dog flirting" this leap year, so we made the most of it! 6 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 109 days on the trails covering 738.6 miles with 67,900 feet of elevation climbed.