All Terrain

The "all terrain vehicle" (Jack & Rudy) cooling the engine at a turnaround point on the trails this morning.

"Aahh!" demonstrates the silly kids as we pause momentarily
to cool the engines before starting up again :)

All terrain vehicle? Yep, it was an all terrain morning skijoring with Jack & Rudy. 

We started the morning in a vast meadow following snowmobile tracks. In a few weeks or even days, this snow in this meadow will develop into a solid spring crust allowing us to travel any direction we want. But, for now we stuck to snowmobile tracks for most of the tour in and around this meadow:

Zipping along in the snowmobile track taking
us across the meadow. Wheeee!

Eventually, though, we had to abandon the snowmobile tracks to get to our target trail to take us towards Gold Run Nordic Center. Here is the difference this morning between running in the snowmobile track versus breaking trail to make your own track!

Powder plowing Jack & Rudy breaking trail in
over 15 inches of untouched snow! Impressive.

We only had to break trail for a short distance, but it was still an impressive plow through the deep snow by the powder kids. The result was to connect onto a moderately used backcountry trail:

Out of the deep, 15+ inches of breaking trail, and onto the
established, thus somewhat packed, backcountry trail.

Finally, the reward for all that technical work in the meadows and backcountry? Dropping onto the groomed trails of Gold Run Nordic Center. We were second tracks on the freshly groomed trails this morning!

Catching air on the fast groomie zoomie trail!

The prior photo is cool because of the sun and shadows to showcase airborne Jack & Rudy and the nicely groomed trail. But, our favorite part of the nordic center is a bit before this photo when we are still tucked in the forest. Come along for the fast & wild skijor along our favorite section of groomed trail at Gold Run. Top speed in this clip? 25 MPH! Zoom!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Let's go tell elder Zorro about the fun all terrain day!

"I hope they listened! I taught them best I could!" Zorro tells me.
"Hey, we listened! (mostly :)!" replies happy Jack & Rudy.

A fun "all terrain day" for late March: 7.4 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 25 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 122 days on the trails covering 995.5 miles with 83,500 feet of elevation cimbed.