Home Start

Starting our skijor "from the garage" this morning. Fun time!

Jack & Rudy rounding the corner out our driveway as you see our
garage and house behind us!

Every once in a rare while, we are able to start our skijor from the house and do laps touring the town. A few things need to happen for this to be possible. First, we needed to have a big dump of snow the night before and continuing into the morning hours. When this happens, the town plows cannot keep pace with the snow as the snowfall out paces the plow clearing! This is actually quite a feat once you think about it. The town has a huge arsenal of plow & snow removal equipment and they get out well before sunrise to clear the streets and sidewalks in town. It is MUCH easier to clear snow before sunrise than deal with 100s of stuck tourist cars after sunrise :)

Anyway, with heavy snowfall overnight and continued snowfall all morning through and past sunrise, the plows could not keep up. When this rare treat happens, we like to start our skijor directly from the garage (as you see above) and skijor around the town before the plows catch up. Just how deep what is where the plows had not been? How about upwards of 2 feet of snow?

Jack & Rudy plowing through almost 2 feet of untouched snow less than
5 minutes from our house!

We started the day by touring around our quiet neighborhood. Some streets were plowed and some weren't. But, even the plowed streets had received enough new snowfall since the plow that we could still skijor. We had a blast touring the neighborhood and waving at neighbors doing their own snow removal!

"Hi sir, coming on by!" says Jack & Rudy trotting nicely on a plowed
road as we pass a neighbor snowblowing his driveway.

After waving at all our neighbors and not encountering a single car or plow, we decided to get a little braver and headed towards the center of town. Along the way we encountered many skiers and snowboarders on their way to the slopes to get some of the great morning snow. Jack & Rudy showed everyone the fastest way to get to the slopes - by skijoring!

Passing a group to show them the "way to the slopes" :)
Silly Rudy is backing off a bit until the 3 people noticed him. Once they
acknowledged him, he wooed and then shot up with Jack to show
them the way. "Woo, follow me!" says Rudy!

The side streets leading into the heart of town were pedestrian filled but still pretty void of cars and plows. Well, if that's the case, then we might as well skijor Breckenridge Main Street itself. This is a VERY rare treat to be able to accomplish ahead of the town snow removal. A plow had been on Main Street (both street and sidewalks) but the ongoing snow had already recovered it enough to be safe to ski!

Fun wide shot of Breckenridge Main Street as we skijor on by a couple
out for some morning coffee. What fun!

We ended up going up & down Main Street twice we had so much fun. Of course, we put smiles on everyone we passed and had many cars with open windows taking video of the cool sled dogs and the crazy guy skijoring Main Street :)

"Made you smile!" says Jack & Rudy trotting along.
The oncoming car to the right had windows down and smartphones
out to record the cool sled dogs on Main!

What is skijoring Main Street like? Well, come along for a quick video glimpse. What is impressive is that Jack & Rudy know the "snow cover" is thin, so they keep their speeds to a gentle trot. This amazing pair of partners will auto-magically slow whenever the snow cover is thin for my skis. I seriously do not have to say anything, they know a gentle trot preserves the human for another day on thin conditions Smart guys!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Finally, back to the house after skijoring our local neighborhood, the outskirts of town and then two laps on Breckenridge Main Street itself (and finally returning home). Remember doing this Zorro?

"You bet! I loved home starts!" declares our favorite retired mentor.
"So cool!" says attentive Rudy.
"Don't forget me over here!" adds cute Jack.

The rare "start from home, beat the plows and skijor the town" outing: 7.4 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 16 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 55 days on the trails covering 437.9 miles with 41,100 feet of elevation climbed.