Wandering

Happy, happy kids at a pause on our outing this morning.

"Hi! We are the happiest sled dogs around!!!!" exclaims the ecstatic pair looking back to me.

This morning was a wonderful outing of "endless wandering" as we completely abandoned set trails and skijored any & every direction we pleased atop the solid spring crust at Rabbit Ears Pass.

We started the day with the youngsters, Jack & Rudy, with the plan to meet and add Zorro into the team for the last 1/3 or so of the outing. The kids and I abandoned the set trails immediately and went off making our own path atop the crust.

We had a great time wandering through openings in the trees:

Perfect crust in this "opening in the trees".
Note, if you get too close to the tall trees, there is no crust.
So, it was a fun time seeking out a firm crust and listening
to the human guiding us left, right and forward safely :)

After a fun weave through the trees, we dropped into some of our favorite terrain atop Rabbit Ears. There are tons of vast meadows that you can tour for miles & miles. Here is a beautiful wide angle shot of airborne & flying Jack & Rudy with endless crust over a vast meadow as far as the eye can see!

A perfect firm crust to go any direction you please!
A beautiful shot of flying Jack & Rudy (notice the fun shadows
showing that both are completely airborne :)

Before we get to adding Zorro into the outing, take a look at the first photo again. Do you notice anything strange? How about the shadow of the ski pole in my left hand which is bent at a 45 degree angle or more. Yes, we had a slight oops this morning and I wiped out on this pole. I was checking the status of the pole in the first photo (as were Jack & Rudy). I thought it might be salvageable for the rest of today's outing; but a few yards after restarting and the pole split into two pieces at the bend. I proceeded to skijor the rest of the outing with only a single ski pole! That made for some interesting work & navigation on my part!

Anyway, who needs poles when you can add Zorro instead :) Here we go towing the one-poled human with the fun power trio!

Fun fact about this photo - we skijoring on the shores of Dumont Lake. In the heart of winter you can snowmobile and, thus, skijor across the lake. But, in the warming days of April and May, it is foolish to venture onto the ice no matter how firm it may appear. We skirted along the crust on the shore for the entire length of one side of the lake.

It may not look clear in the photo, but in real life it is easy to tell
where shore ends and lake ice starts. We remained on the shore! :)
In person, the shore is slightly uneven as you see above whereas
the lake looks completely smooth (as you can see maybe 20-30 yards
to our left).

After skirting around Dumont Lake, it was time to skijor by the Rabbit Ears Pass Marker before heading to the trailhead to end the day. Apparently my pals thought the marker may contain rabbits today :)

"Sniff, sniff - where are the rabbits?!?" asks the marker inspecting trio.
Normally veteran Zorro does not pay such attention to the marker. There
must have been some sort of rodent, if not rabbits, burrowing under the marker!

An interesting day of endless wandering for the sled dogs and a challenging day of one pole skijoring for the human! 6.1 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH (this happened *before* I lost one pole :)

2019/2020 Season to Date: 141 days on the trails covering 961.7 miles with 87,500 feet of elevation climbed.