Nice up High

Beautiful conditions up high this morning at Breckenridge Nordic Center!

The hover huskies, Jack & Rudy, catching air on perfect
trail conditions up high!

I've alluded to our slow starting snow season in recent posts and today, I bring you the "good, bad & ugly" of where we have to skijor. It was an unseasonably warm October and then unseasonably warm & dry November. The snow we do have (from a few good Nov storms) is drying up! We really need winter to start! 

Usually my "good, bad, ugly" posts occur in October, early November, May or June. I don't think we've ever had a "good, bad, ugly" post in December! Egad! Well, come along for the ride as we reverse the phrase and show the ugly, then bad and finally good.

The Ugly: at our lower elevations, we encountered multiple stretches of "dirt only". Yuck!

"Aw man, you can't even roll snow angels on this!" declares Jack looking
for something else to do while I pause to remove my skis.
"Good snowcones on the shoulders!" demonstrates Rudy :)

The Bad: barely enough cover to cross slowly at the mid elevations of our outing. Good thing Jack & Rudy listen and know to lead me over snow/ice and not dirt!

"This way human, we found a snow/ice path through!" suggests smart
Jack & Rudy looking back to let me know to drift right to get
through safely.

The Good: oh my, so nice up high. The first photo above is a beautiful "good shot". Come along for a beautiful "good video" as we had a blast at our highest elevations of the outing. Wheeee! Oh, and yes, my ski hits a sapling sticking through the snow at about 40s into the video and, yes, I almost wipeout but am able to stay upright :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

With bad/ugly conditions at most of our pauses this morning, did Jack get in his daily snow angel (or 2 or 3 or 100 :)? Well, yes, phew. We drifted off trail a bit at our highest point and this allowed Jack to get in his patented angels at our high point turnaround.

"Ah! Turnaround, roll around!" demonstrates funny Jack.
"I'm hunting for rodents instead of rolling angels today!" declares hunting Rudy.

Back to the trailhead with retired Zorro. Everybody squeeze in tight so we can fit all 12 feet on snow and not dirt!

All toes on snow - ready for end of run treats!!!!

The warm/dry start to the season is SUPPOSED to come to and end next week. Pray for Snow!

A quick outing today on what terrain we could find: 6.4 miles traveled with 850 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 24 days on the trails covering 184.6 miles with 17,650 feet of elevation climbed.