Birthday

 Jack & Rudy giving me a fast & fun skijor for my birthday!

Laying fresh tracks as we ZOOM along!

Today is my birthday. I thought laying fresh tracks in 1-2 inches of fresh snow and flying around the trails was Jack & Rudy's present to me. Come along for what I thought was their kind present - zoom!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As much fun as that video looks, it turns out Jack and Rudy had much bigger birthday plans for me.

As we came around a bend in the trail, Jack & Rudy gave me my next present: fresh moose tracks!

"<sniff>, <sniff> - hey dad, these are REALLY fresh!" says the moose track
inspecting pair.

Moose tracks! Nice, what a fun present. But, Jack & Rudy were not done yet... A little further along from the tracks and Jack threw himself off trail into the deep snow in a declaration of "MOOSE! Must Exit Trail Here!"

"Where? Where?" asks Rudy and I.
"MOOSE! Must Exit Trail Here!" declares moose seeking Jack.

As I followed Jack's line of sight into the trees, I did in fact see a mother and child moose in the trees. Nice, a "moose sighting" for my birthday! Way to go Jack :)

But, it gets better... The trail we were on had an upcoming hairpin right that brought us back closer to the trees Jack is gazing into. At least I had warning from Jack as we came back towards the trees after the hairpin right. Sure enough, the moose was still there:

"Hello ma'am!" say Jack, Rudy and I watching the big lady moose
moving just off trail in the trees!

Zoomed in from the photo above. "Hello ma'am!"
The kid is directly uphill from the mother but pretty camouflaged
in the next set of trees.

So, there you have it. My birthday present from Jack & Rudy: an up close moose sighting! What a present!

Back to the trailhead to tell Zorro all about it as we share 'end of run' treats. Today's treat shot is a little different than the usual. There were loose dogs in the parking lot and we did not want annoying fluffy trying to join in with our 'end of run' treats. So, we loaded in the Jeep to enjoy our treats in privacy:

"We're flexible! Treats in Jeep works just fine for us!" says the focused
and flexible trio :)

A lot of fun fresh tracks skijoring for my birthday but the highlight was the moose sighting! 8.7 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 41 days on the trails covering 320.6 miles with 29,400 feet of elevation climbed.