Happy

Happy kids to be on endless snow in early March!

"Toes on snow is the only way to go!" declares the happy pair.

We only had time for a quick outing this morning and little time for today's skijor update. So, here we go for a short & sweet summary of today's outing.

We started on one of our favorite "endless meadows" atop Rabbit Ears Pass going towards Buffalo Park.

Nice shot of endless terrain and endless snow with
"always going" Jack & Rudy :)

Conditions were actually quite unique as it is still early March. In a few weeks (or possibly even days), the warm daytime temperatures with below freezing nighttime temps will cause a "spring crust" to freeze over these meadows each morning. But, it is still too early in March for the crust to have developed. So, today's outing was interesting in that if you were not in a snowmobile track, then you sunk into shoulder deep snow (Jack & Rudy's shoulders, not mine :) In addition, if you were in a snowmobile track that was more than 24 hours or so old, then you'd sink in that sloppy track too. So, the only way to skijor out & back in these meadows was to identify a snowmobile track less than 24 hours old. These tracks were fresh enough to be firm enough to hold Jack & Rudy's weight. It took no instruction from me for Jack & Rudy to figure this out. Within the first 5 minutes of our outing, they identified conditions and automagically stuck to recent snowmobile tracks the rest of the outing. It was pretty impressive to watch!

Jack & Rudy in "the correct" snowmobile track amongst
lots of options to cross these meadows!

After successfully traversing several vast meadows, it was time to turnaround...

"Turnaround time equals roll around time!" declares the silly kids.

Back to the trailhead to meet up with elder Zorro. I love how Zorro has happily settled into retirement. He knows his body cannot skijor any longer but he LOVES coming with us and setting us of and then meeting us again at the end of the day's run!

"Glad you're back!" states the happy old man greeting us on return.
"Phew, what a fun day!" adds Jack & Rudy.

As I said, only time for a quick outing today. But any outing is better than none! 7 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 104 days on the trails covering 850.0 miles with 73,700 feet of elevation climbed.