Perfect Crust

Beautiful morning for a skijor over the Spring Crust atop Rabbit Ears Pass, right guys?

"Wonderful morning!" declares the happy, happy kids.
Look at that endless crust in this photo!

We have had a couple of skijors with crust touring this spring; but today was the first day that we were able to completely abandon set trails and "make our own way" up, down and around the crust atop Rabbit Ears Pass. Here's a cool shot of flying Jack and hovering Rudy:

Away we go, making our own path!

What are those structures in front of us in the prior photo? Well, Rabbit Ears is an open range in the summer and these are the structures ranchers use to corral cattle, sheep and whatever else they let graze in these open pastures (we've seen cattle and sheep, that's why I know of those two :)

The further we got from the trailhead, the more untouched and perfect the crust became!

Wheeee! Catching air on a pristine spring crust!

Come along for a fun view into the perfect morning. Note how I call out the occasional "left" or "right" or "over the the left" or "forward" as I navigate us to stay on smooth crust and avoid snowmobile ruts. Surprisingly, this video clip looks somewhat bouncy from the camera view; but it did not feel bouncy to me at all. I was surprised to see how much the camera was bouncing once I viewed the clip. It felt smooth and comfortable to me in realtime! 

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After doing a large loop around the pass, making our own path, it was time to return back to the trailhead. To return, we had to pass by the "open range pens" again. I swear Rudy suddenly realized what these structures are used for :)

"Wait! Cattle? Sheep? Where?!?" asks Rudy suddenly locked
on the cattle/sheep pens.
"I agree, where?" asks Jack (though not quite as focused
as Rudy on the structures).

The only drawback of the morning outing (to Jack & Rudy)? Well, temperatures were hovering around freezing all outing long. That's hot to the silly three year olds :)

"Never been so hot. Must stop, drop and roll!" demonstrates
the silly snow rolling kids.

Back to give a report of the outing to our favorite retired gentleman, Zorro:

"Did they listen today?" asks Zorro.
"We did, we did!" asserts the happy kids.

Our first "no trails, crust only" skijor of this season: 7.6 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 135 days on the trails covering 1104.7 miles with 92,800 feet of elevation climbed.

1100+ miles for the season! Woo Hoo! 1200 in our future? Maybe. 1300? Hmmmm, stay tuned.