Groomer Treads

Beautiful bluebird morning for a fast skijor on groomed trails!

Beautiful shot of the beautiful morning and pretty sled dogs :)

We skijored a loop on the upper elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning. As you see in the prior photo, conditions were darn near perfect close to the trailhead where the trail gets lots of use.

But, these particular trails are pretty steep, so the further you get from the trailhead, the less use they get from cross country skiers having to power themselves. In addition, we have had the snowiest February on record in Breckenridge (and it's not over yet). So, despite the trail being groomed, it was surprisingly punchy down the middle. Zorro, Jack & Rudy each tried to run in the middle once and moved out of the middle immediately after punching through the snow. So, what to do? Well, my smart partners quickly found the pieces of the trail where the treads from the groomer machine would have traveled. The "groomer treads" were a very solid track but only 2 Siberians wide. Still not a problem, as the team quickly organized themselves into Zorro in one groomer tread and Jack & Rudy in the other groomer tread. Perfect, nobody punching through so we could go fast! I could ride in the soft middle as my skis would not punch through since I was being towed. Such smart guys!

Here's a quick look at the perfect configuration. You can see a cut in the middle of the trail from a skate ski that punched through coming the other direction on this trail. If any of my trio stepped out of their "groomer tread", they would have punched through too. But, the smart guys never drifted out of their groomer treads!

Zorro on one firm groomer tread line and Jack & Rudy on the other.

How do I know they would have punched through if they left their groomer treads (which they never did)? Well, there was a lot of evidence of "not as smart" dogs out before us that kept drifting into the middle and punching through!

Smart Zorro still in his groomer tread as well as smart Jack & Rudy.
Punch holes in the middle of the trail from the "not too smart" drifting
dogs that had been on the trail before us :)

Here we go with the video summary of the last two photos. Come along as the smart sled dogs stay in their groomer tread lines so we can go, go, goooo!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We were ahead of schedule doing our planned loop. So we did a short out & back on one of the adjacent side trails. Well, "out & back" requires turning around, turning around requires stopping and stopping is, well, Jack & Rudy antics.

"Ah, cooling my jets!" demonstrates snow rolling Rudy.
"Whee, I'm a goofy roller!" displays silly Jack.
"I'm going to move over here until you two are done!" adds 'moving out of the way' Zorro.

One more fun shot of the trio in their groomer treads with some pretty views of the snow covered Colorado Rockies far in front of us.

Wheeee!

Finally, we got back to the trailhead before Nancy had a chance to get out and video our arrival. So, our "front shot" of the day is me coming to a stop and Zorro, Jack & Rudy gently exit the groomed trail with me. Not the best front shot, but still fun to show the happy, happy trio!

"We have such fun skijoring!" says the happy trio.

An interesting day on the highest elevation sections of trails but also a great day to show how smart my pals are in adjusting to trail conditions: 6.1 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 102 days on the trails covering 694.1 miles with 64,100 feet of elevation climbed.