1000 Miles

Mid April POW for the power powder trio - wheeee!

Beautiful soft powder in the middle of April! POW!!!

We did an "out & back" in French Gulch this morning for a rare April treat. French Gulch is one of the first trails to melt and turn to dirt/mud in Spring. But, we got a nice dump of new snow from Saturday night through Monday morning. The result? Enough snow for one more skijor in French Gulch! Woo Hoo.

As you see in the photo above, it was great powder to start the outing. It was actually a little too deep for 11-3/4 year old Zorro to go very far; but I knew the pattern of French Gulch and it would quickly transition into something suitable for elder Zorro.

As expected, we spent the majority of the "out direction" in French Gulch on terrain like you see below. There was powder in set tracks on each side of the trail with deep powder down the middle. Zorro took the left set track while Jack & Rudy took turns packing the snow in either the right track or the middle. I rode in the middle the entire way out.

Zorro laying fresh tracks in 3-4 inches of now in the left track.
Jack taking the right track for this stretch.
Rudy and I breaking trail in 6+ inches down the middle.

The reason to keep one guy in each set track with one other and myself in the middle? Well, so we had three pretty much "equally set" tracks for the way back! A perfect track for everyone!

On the way back as each has is own "set track" to run in - perfect!

Now for a little video demonstration of the prior photo. Come along as we are coming back in French Gulch with three perfect "set tracks" for each of my partners to "fit in" solo. A perfect plan with perfect execution! Notice in the video that, having his own track, elder Zorro is able to set his own speed - he's up with the kids most of the time but can back off a bit whenever he wants a moment's rest :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Today was young Jack's 300th skijor outing of his life. Today was young Jack's 300th STRAIGHT time rolling at least one snow angel during the outing! What a comical goof!

"Really? Every single time?" asks onlooking Rudy.
"Seriously? EVERY single outing!" says bewildered Zorro :)
"Rub a dub dub!" demonstrates silly Jack.

Besides being Jack's 300th straight outing with a snow angel, we also had another major milestone this morning. Young Jack & Rudy surpassed 1000 miles of skijoring for the 2019/2020 Season. The first "1000+ mile season" for the rapidly maturing 2 year olds!!!!

Here's a fun way to summarize Jack's young career. On Jack's 300th skijor of his life he surpassed 1000 miles of skijoring for this season on the 13th of the month - that's a fun collection of 1's, 3's and 13's.

"Cool, you ready for 1000 more?" asks happy Jack to Rudy.
"Yep, I could go ALL year long!" says happy Rudy.

If you are curious, this was young Rudy's 267th skijor of this life and elder Zorro's 1242nd skijor of his wonderful life!

After the cool "out & back" in French Gulch, we handed Zorro off to Nancy and Jack, Rudy and I went up, over and down the Sally Barber Mine Trail:

Zooming kids coming down the backside of Sally Barber.

For a fun mix up, Zorro and Nancy got in the Jeep and drove around to the other side of Sally Barber to meet up with Jack, Rudy and I again. So, Zorro got to start the outing with a powder fun out & back in French Gulch and then end the outing with a short sprint to the finish with the team again.

Whee - all smiles as we glide to the finish!

What a fun day getting one more powder filled outing in French Gulch with a Sally Barber addition for the kids: 6.4 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH (happily slowed by deep snow :)

2019/2020 Season to Date: 146 days on the trails covering 1001.5 miles with 91,100 feet of elevation climbed. Quite the impressive season, with more still to come, for rapidly maturing Jack & Rudy!!!