Nice Up High

Cool action shot of Missile Jack and Cannonball Rudy!

The flying Siberians with cool snow poofs coming off Jack who is on the
softer, less packed edge of the groomed trail.

The groomer last ran Saturday morning on the trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center. After a busy weekend day yesterday, I was wondering what conditions we'd find on Sunday morning. To be expected, the trails were very tracked up and slick near the trailhead. So, I directed Jack & Rudy towards the steepest climb at the nordic center to take us up, up and away from the slick terrain. The result? Success! The trail far and high away from the trailhead had very little prior use and plenty of corduroy to let me safely let Jack & Rudy uncork the skijoring engine!

Ah, perfect - enough corduroy to safely floor it!!!

We had so much fun up high, that we redid this stretch of trail twice. Steep climb, turnaround and fly - repeat :) Second pass same as the first pass:

Catching air again on the nice conditions up high.

Come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. Just enough corduroy on the trail far, far away from the trailhead to safely open up the skijor engine with Jack & Rudy. Not many mere humans make it this far on their own power, phew! So fun to have Jack & Rudy tow me out to where few go so we can really open it up :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

But, all good things come to an end and eventually we had to go back to the trailhead and the super slick conditions near there. My legs were burning on the slick terrain trying to keep the skis under control at Jack & Rudy speeds. I had to stop twice to simply let the burning subside before restarting. Well, we all know Jack & Rudy use any stoppage on the trail as a chance for a comical interlude. Today was hopping off trail to dig & dunk for pesky rodents under the snow :)

"You stopped, we dig & dunk for rodents off trail!" demonstrates the silly kids.

The comedians also love to play "king of the mountain" for end of run treats if there are high snow walls for them to climb!

"We'll take our treats up here!" declares the silly mountain climbers.

Beautiful up high, super slick down low; so we spent most of the outing up high: 10.4 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 85 days on the trails covering 743.1 miles with 68,350 feet of elevation climbed.