Trail Snack

Fun "shot from the front" as we approach Nancy to end this morning's skijor!

Happy, happy kids! Wheeee!

Today's skijor had a pretty entertaining first for us. We came across our first ever elk leg laying across the trail. It was complete with some tender, frozen meat still attached. Jack & Rudy thought this was the find of the century!!!

"Fresh frozen elk meat. Yum!" declares the two sampling their
delicious trail snack.

We have come across deer legs many times before (often with their own fresh, frozen and yummy meat). What I do is let Jack & Rudy have a little fun with the leg and then I tell them to "give" and I pick it up to toss off trail. Today's "give attempt"....

"No, I'm not finished yet!" says Jack as he tugs back on the leg.
"Hey, if you aren't going to 'give', then I'm coming back for more!" adds
Rudy (who originally listened to my 'give').

Today, I learned a very interesting fact. Elk legs are HEAVY, even when most of the meat is gone. Once I got Jack to "give", I went to toss the leg off trail like I've always done with deer legs. Well, the elk leg was shockingly heavy. My feeble toss only went a few feet off trail. Jack & Rudy quickly jumped off trail to grab the leg and pull it back into the trail to continue chewing on it.

"Ha, nice toss wimp! We weren't done, so we'll just bring it back!" says
the trail snackers hopping off to fetch the elk leg.

Ok, lesson learned. We went through another round of "give" and then I rocked back and used all my strength to toss the leg far off trail. It still didn't go that far, but far enough that Jack & Rudy couldn't just pluck it up again :)

With that exciting elk leg episode, Jack & Rudy were juiced all day long and hunting for everything as they were skijoring fast to find the next trail treat. Here's Jack pulling off trail due to some snowshoe hare tracks in the snow.

"Rabbits went this way, can we too?" suggests Jack.
You can see one set of hare tracks in the left of the photo.
I let Jack lead us off trail a little ways, but we never caught a rabbit :)

A little later and we were jogging along when Rudy lunged off trail. As he did, a gross of grouse (or a flock of feathers :) spewed out of the nearest tree. Seriously, there were at least 5 grouse that flew off due to Rudy's lunge their direction.

Look up from Rudy and slightly left against the blue sky.
The white you see is one of the grouse flying away.

What a day of trail snacks and hunting! We really did skijor too! Come along for video proof that we really did skijor between all the wildlife entertainment!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and a large group of people was preparing to get going. They all cheered at Jack & Rudy towing me and then quite a few wanted to get photos of the handsome pair. Rudy really knows what to do with an audience. He belted out a WOOOOO for the cameras and then a second (and longer) WOOOOOOO when everyone laughed and more people took out cameras to capture the woo child.

"WOOOOO! Glad to entertain you!" belts Rudy.
Quiet Jack simply flashed his beautiful smile and wagged his
bushy tail for the onlookers.

In between trail snacks & hunting: 9 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 26 days on the trails covering 208.4 miles with 18,200 feet of elevation climbed.