Searching

Cresting at the historic Sally Barber Mine on this morning's skijor.

Jack & Rudy cruising on by the historic mine.

We started our outing this morning skijoring up, across and down the Sally Barber Mine Trail. With a layer of fresh snow on the otherwise hard packed trail, we were able to glide peacefully up, across and over this popular trail.

Just enough fresh snow for the human to be comfortable letting
the speed demons open the throttle. Wheeee!

After skijoring Sally Barber, our plan was to check French Gulch to see if it was skiable today. We do not skijor French Gulch that often anymore due to over development and crowding. But, it has been very cold the last few days with a couple of inches of fresh snow each day. As I hoped, the cool temps and daily light snow had French Gulch safe enough to skijor at mild speeds. So Jack, Rudy & I skijored out & back this once "staple trail" of ours.

Why try French Gulch occasionally any more? Well, we love to search for moose in the gulch. The last time we skijored French Gulch was Dec 10, 2021 and we had the pleasure of finding moose to watch on that outing. 4 months since our last outing in French Gulch and Jack & Rudy stopped at the EXACT same point from which we first spotted moose back in December. Smart guys with great memories!!!

This is the exact point we first spotted moose 4 months ago.

No moose today, but we had to check :)

A little way further along and it was time for the moose seeking pair to exit the set trail into deep snow as they followed their moose noses!

Searching, searching!!! Despite our efforts, we still failed to spot any
moose. But, it must have "smelled like moose" for Jack & Rudy to
hop off trail like this!

A reminder why we do not skijor French Gulch that often any more... The trail had paper thin snow coverage with depressingly high snow walls showing how much snow SHOULD be on the trail but has been wiped away by overpopulation.

It took 3 bitter cold days with a little snow each day to get a paper
thin cover over the trail like this!

Enough complaining about French Gulch over development. Let's move back to the Sally Barber Mine Trail for perfect skijoring on perfect conditions. Come along for the video fun from the day!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead to tell retired Zorro that we failed in our search for moose.

"No really? I always saw moose on French Gulch!" says Zorro.
"No moose, but we still had fun!" adds the happy kids.

Fun on Sally Barber and a (now) rare moose seeking tour of French Gulch: 9.4 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 106 days on the trails covering 890.2 miles with 84,100 feet of elevation climbed.