Dive & Dig

Jack has just lunged off trail in search of rodents under the snow.

Rudy quickly follows suit but with his beautiful rodent swan dives to join in :)

"Rodents! Searching!" declares rodent lunging Jack.
"What? Rodents?!?! INCOMING!" follows rodent diving Rudy.

As I implied, Jack was first off trail in this hunt for rodents under the snow. Jack is not much of a diver but more of a lunger as he'll do a very low angle (or lunge) off trail looking for rodents. Rudy, on the other hand, has the most beautiful rodent swan dives as you see above. He never misses a chance to get in a high arching dive when the opportunity arises. Once off trail, they took turns digging and searching for rodents. Luckily (for me), they came up empty despite the nice teamwork. Rudy's turn...

"Your turn! Go little bro!" says Jack giving Rudy the lead.
"Digging!!! DIGGING!!!" demonstrates Rudy :)

Despite the humorous action in the prior two photos, the goal of this morning's outing was to go skijoring, not rodent hunting. We spent the majority of the morning on backcountry side trails which had a light layer of new snow with light active snow falling all morning as well:

Laying fresh tracks in the light layer of new snow on backcountry trails.

After a fun tour around the backcountry, we dropped out of the forest and onto the fast trails of Gold Run Nordic Center to finish the day. Once Jack & Rudy hit the nordic trails, it was pedal to the metal! Love the following incredible shot of the flying kids!

Wow! Zoom! What else is there to say???

Here we go! Come along for the fast & fun zoom along the nordic trails. Also notice the light, but active, snow falling around us! Yay for Snow. Once you hit March, you never know when your last "active snowfall skijor" will be. Early March would be a real shock for the last active snow; but you have to be prepared for it to happen at any point in March/April/May/June (let's all pray for June this year :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

If you fail to find rodents to munch on after some nice "dives, lunges & digs" then you might as well accept 'end of run' pork treats instead :)

"Yep, let's get to the 'end of run' treats!" says focused Zorro.
"Ok, we'll accept pork although we'd prefer rodent!" adds silly Jack & Rudy.

From backcountry to nordic skijoring, what a fun mix of a day: 9.2 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 102 days on the trails covering 855.8 miles with 80,700 feet of elevation climbed.