Rudy 5000

Catching air as we lay fresh tracks "into the rising sun" this morning at Vail Pass!

Cool shot of the hover huskies as the morning sun is peeking
over the mountains ahead of us.

Today marked an impressive milestone. 5 year old Rudy surpassed 5,000 career skijor miles (5004.7 to be exact)! Slightly older Jack surpassed 5,000 career skijor miles last month. It really is amazing to realize that the vast majority of these miles have come in 3.5 years (as before then each was too young to run or doing baby training runs). Quite an impressive career these two professionals are putting together!

Back to today's outing. We started the day laying fresh tracks in Wilder Gulch at Vail Pass as you see in the first photo. But, about 1/3 of the way into the outing, a snowcat passed taking backcountry skiers out Wilder Gulch and then up to Ptarmigan Pass. No problem, that was our planned route too. Fresh snowcat tracks are fun to skijor in as they are soft and gentle to run and ski in. Conversely, frozen or stale snowcat tracks can be very difficult on my legs and Jack & Rudy's feet, so we abort any trail with frozen tracks. But, today's were fresh and soft - what fun!

Nice views in Wilder Gulch as Jack & Rudy share one of the 
snowcat tracks.

Sometimes the kids will share a snowcat track, as above, and sometimes they'll split the trail and take one each. The tracks are too far apart for me to put a ski in each behind them (skiing doing splits? Ouch). So, I'll put one ski in one of the tracks and the other ski in the middle powder. Come along for today's video highlight of skijoring soft snowcat tracks with Jack & Rudy choosing to take one track each. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We ascended Ptarmigan Pass behind the snowcat and then turned around to race back down. I just love this pretty shot of the kids atop Ptarmigan. Notice how the middle snow between the snowcat tracks is not too deep, so powder Jack has chosen to kick up powder in the middle while Rudy is kicking up powder in the soft cat track.

Beautiful shot of the impressive kids :)

Finally, if you ever drive Interstate 70 through Colorado and over Vail Pass, make sure you look for the crazy guy on skis behind the pretty sled dogs. If you are driving East, look right after you crest Vail Pass. If you are driving West, look left just before the crest. Honk if you see us - I'll wave if I hear you (I do hear an approving honk now & then and always wave :)

Interstate 70 to our right - honk if you see us!

Time for end of run treats for these impressive 5 year olds!

"We LOVE it!" says happy Jack.
"All in a day's work!" adds cute Rudy.

Today's skijor tally: 9.2 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 66 days on the trails covering 570.8 miles with 50,900 feet of elevation climbed.

5 year old Jack's career to date: 5,180.6 miles skijored!

(slightly younger) 5 year old Rudy's career to date: 5,004.7 miles skijored!