Saplings

This morning was our last run of the season on our "closest to home" spring crust meadow.

A fun time was still had by all :)

"Toes on Snow is ALWAYS fun!!!" declares the happy kids at one
of our turnaround points of the morning.

Why our last run in this meadow? Well, it is becoming a "field of sapling landmines" with the fast melting snow in our recent stretch of warm daily highs. Just one week ago, we skijored this meadow with only a handful of exposed saplings here & there. Just two weeks ago, we skijored this meadow without a visible sapling anywhere. Today, though, we found ourselves navigating through and avoiding constant clusters of exposed saplings! If my ski catches one of these saplings at the speeds my partners are towing me, the ski will "lock" and I will tumble. So, it was an interesting day dodging our way through sapling clusters!!!

Trotting along as we have to keep speeds under control and
listen to my "rights" and "lefts" to navigate through the exposed
sapling landmines!

Occasionally we had a "sapling free" stretch and were able to uncork the skijoring engine. But, each such opening was short lived before we encountered another stretch of sapling landmines!

Uncork it - wheeee!
But, notice the stretch of sapling landmines just 30 or so yards
ahead that we will encounter SOON!

We did one lap through the "meadow of sapling landmines" with Zorro before dipping into the next meadow (of landmines again) to hand elder Zorro off to Nancy:

"Hi mom - here we come!" says the happy trio as we continue
dodging saplings to meet up with Nancy.

After dropping Zorro off, the kids, Jack & Rudy, and I tried to go out for more distance.

We returned to the main meadow we started in with Zorro with the intent of leaving this meadow to skijor nearby terrain and trails. But, every time we tried to exit the meadow, we ran out of snow and had to turnaround!

Returning to the main meadow after failing to exit to the east.
We have enough snow to return here, but the large puddle to our right
gives you an indication of what we found just behind us (that caused
us to turnaround)!

We tried to exit the meadow four times and failed each time. Upon each failure, we turned around to ski through the main meadow again to check a different exit path. That means we had FOUR turnaround points in the outing. Ha - you guessed it!

"Turnaround is roll around time!!!!" demonstrates the silly kids!
Doesn't Rudy look like the cutest little "stuff husky toy" you simply want to cuddle with?
Multi-talented "Cracker Jack" is showing he can roll angels while eating snowcones!

As I mentioned, between each "turnaround roll around", we skijored a different direction across the main meadow. But, as with the pass with Zorro, each lap was dominated by navigating through large patches of sapling landmines!

Opening the throttle a little before we have to slow again for the next
patch of sapling landmines!

Finally, back to the trailhead to reconnect with fun Zorro and enjoy 'end of run' treats to celebrate another day of 'toes on snow'!

"Glad you made it back through all those landmines!" says happy Zorro greeting
me upon our return.
"Creative day, but still fun toes on snow!" say Jack & Rudy patiently awaiting
Zorro and I to enjoy our greeting.

It's always sad to see another trail succumb to the "warming spring" and "inevitable summer"; but as you see from all the smiles in the photos above, it was still a fun day to creatively enjoy toes on snow: 4 miles traveled with 300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 166 days on the trails covering 1133.2 miles with 103,400 feet of elevation climbed.