Fast Packed

Everybody having a great time skijoring Boreas Pass again this morning?

"Yes! I'm having a blast!" exclaims happy Jack.
"You bet, but why are we stopped?" adds Rudy.

After incredible conditions being first on Boreas yesterday morning, we returned with the hopes it had not deteriorated too much in 24 hours. Well, Boreas is still open to vehicles through October so, unfortunately, it had deteriorated a LOT in 24 hours! The reason we use Boreas Pass in October, despite being open to vehicles, is that we can drive the pass too and get up high enough in elevation to skijor in October. Trails lower in elevation have snow but not enough to ski or even dog sled. 

To avoid encountering vehicles, we start up the pass in the dark and begin our skijor outings just after sunrise:

Nice stretch of "vehicle packed" trail just after sunrise.

Despite lots of traffic in the last 24 hours, we did find some really nice stretches once we got up near 11,000 feet elevation. Here's our first "dual hover husky" shot of the season with Jack & Rudy hovering over the trail as we get into some nice speed. Notice my left ski in the loose snow and my right ski in the packed tire track: lean left to slow/control the ship, lean right to open up the throttle :)

The hover huskies are back!

Come along for a glimpse into a really nice stretch of vehicle packed trail near 11,000 feet elevation. Jack & Rudy truly understand when it is ok to open up the throttle and when they should tune it down a bit.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We had to drive very far up Boreas Pass Rd before we found conditions good enough to skijor. Unfortunately we were within 1.5 miles of treeline where we started. Once we reached treeline, the trail was very wind blown and void of snow - just ice. Skis & ice don't mix well :)

As a result we did 4 laps on Boreas: up 1.5 miles, down 1.3 miles, back up the same 1.3 miles and back down the same 1.5 miles. Sometimes Jack & Rudy will balk at repeating sections of trail but today the sides of trail were littered with elk tracks. Nothing like a little "scent of elk" to motivate you to go up, down, up and down the same short trail :)

Paused to inspect the numerous elk tracks just off trail.
"These smell very fresh!" states Jack.
"Where'd they go? Where'd they go?" asks Rudy studying the
tracks leading off into the trees.

Of course, going up/down/up/down means we had 3 turnaround points in the outing. That's way too many for the "turnaround, roll around" brothers to pass up:

Turnaround... Roll Around!

Back to celebrate a short but very fun outing with retired elder Zorro:

Rudy cracks me up in this photo! What a silly tongue!

A short, but fun, 5.6 mile outing with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH. It was short for Jack & Rudy's standards; but it was skijoring in October!

Unfortunately we are entering a string of warm days, so skijoring is on hold until Mother Nature brings us more! Pray for Snow!

2021/2022 Season Totals: 3 days on the trails covering 20.1 miles with 1800 feet of elevation climbed.