Groom-ish

Incoming from Rodent Diving Rudy joining Rodent Lunging Jack off trail :)

Beautiful swan dive from Rudy the dive professional :)

Well, we finally have enough snow "off trail" for Rudy to break out is patented & high arching rodent dives to hunt for rodents under the snow. Jack did his usual rodent lunge off trail and, once Rudy noticed Jack's lunge, out came the beautiful, high arching dive from Rudy to join Jack off trail.

We spent some time touring around side trails in the forest this morning and found a few really nice powder caches to enjoy all to ourselves!

Powder cache! Wheeee!

After a little touring the forest, we decided to drop onto the upper trails of Gold Run Nordic Center. We were not expecting much from these trails except simply enough snow to stay upright and avoid rocks. But, much to our delight, we found the trails to be surprisingly "groom-ish". What is that, you ask? Well, there is not enough snow on these trails for the professional nordic groomer to run yet. But, there is enough snow for a snowmobile to tow a mini-groomer in an attempt to pack the snow on the trails so it lasts longer as we await enough snow for the real groomer. Mini groomer, professional groomer, groomie zoomie, groom-ish - it's all the same to Jack & Rudy! Zoom!

Opening up the throttle on a nice groom-ish trail!

Come along for a video counterpart to the prior photo. Watch as Jack & Rudy tow me along the nice groom-ish trail. If your volume is up, you'll hear my poor ski scrape a hidden rock under the snow about 20 seconds into the clip (you'll see me almost lose balance because of this too). Oh that sound against the poor ski hurts to hear... 

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After some fun laps around the groom-ish terrain and I paused to check our time on trail. I paused... kids rolled :)

"You pause, we roll!" demonstrates silly Jack & Rudy.

Back to collect retired Zorro and share stories about the fun day:

"Ah, thanks!" says Jack to my affectionate head pat.
"I've got the 'end of run' treats in sight!" declares focused Zorro.
"My turn yet?" asks Rudy.

A short romp in the woods followed by a surprising "groom-ish zoom-ish" long stretch of trail: 9.2 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 36 days on the trails covering 281.5 miles with 26,300 feet of elevation climbed.