Rare Treat

 The usual "trail occurrence" - Jack & Rudy putting smiles on skiers we encounter :)

"Hi! Bye! Made you smile!" declares flying on by Jack & Rudy.

We had three different terrain events skijor on Baldy Mountain this morning. We started out on the popular main trail on Baldy Mountain. A few people had been out before us, so we found ourselves going up and then down this section of trail running fast in set tracks (as you see above).

Partway up Baldy, though, you approach treeline. As the trees thin, people fork off every which direction to make their own trails up/down the mountain. Jack, Rudy and I picked our own unused path and found ourselves laying fresh tracks in 4+ inches of snow early and then breaking trail in 10+ inches higher up in elevation! Along the way we got our first ever "synchronized rodent dive":

Beautifully synchronized rodent dive!

Rudy is, of course, known for his patented and high arching rodent dives. Jack will do the occasional dive too; yet, as you see, Jack does not get near the high arch as Rudy. But, still impressive to capture our first ever synchronized rodent dive :)

The treat of breaking our own trail up the higher elevations of Baldy was that we got to run in the tracks we set on the way back down:

Running in the narrow track we set on the way up. If you look really close,
you can barely make out the set track in front of us we are squeezing back
in on the way down.

Ok, so that is two terrain events: (1) up/down set tracks on the lower Baldy main trail and (2) up/down breaking trail on our own upper trail. Our third and final event was turning off primary network of trails on Baldy and dipping into the trails in Laurium Open Space. We were thrilled to find ourselves FIRST on the snow in Laurium this morning. What a treat:

Laying fresh tracks in 4-5 inches of untouched snow!

Today's video highlight is a rare treat. The final descent out of Laurium is a very steep trail through the forest. I am usually slaloming back & forth on this trail to keep us under control and myself upright! But, today we had fresh snow on this steep section of trail. Come along for a rare look at skijoring the steep Laurium trail without having to constantly slalom to stay under control. Love the control we get in fresh snow!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun video and what a fun time we had on the trails this morning! We need to tell Zorro all about it:

"Yea, yea, we'll tell Zorro later! How about those end of run treats?" says tightly
aligned and very focused trio.

A wonderful combination of terrain events on steep Baldy this morning: 6.4 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 37 days on the trails covering 287.0 miles with 26,600 feet of elevation climbed.