Powder Day

Breaking trail in 10+ inches of fresh powder this morning! Wheeee!

The impressive powder hounds, Jack & Rudy, blasting through the
deep snow as they tow me along.

Today's outing found us skijoring out and back on Buffalo Pass Rd from the Dry Lake Trailhead. There was about 3 inches of fresh snow at the trailhead and then, as we went up in elevation, the snow kept getting deeper and deeper! It is not often we can report we were happily "slowed by deep snow" in late April! One benefit of doing an "out and back" outing is that we get to reuse our out tracks on the way back:

Gaining a little speed by reusing the track we set on the way out.

Breaking trail is a very aerobic activity. Just ask Jack & Rudy who really needed to roll snow angels to cool off at our turnaround point:

"Ah!" declares snow rolling Jack.
"Snow facial!" goes silly Rudy.

While we were slowed by deep snow up high, we were sped up by a fresh snowmobile track down low. A pair of snowmobiles came along and packed the snow near the trailhead. We followed these tracks on the way out until the snowmobiles turned and went a different direction. After the snowmobiles turned is when we found ourselves breaking trail in 10+ inches of powder for the next leg of the outing. Finally, on the return we were able to floor it again once we got back to the snowmobile tracks.

Zooming in a snowmobile track.

It was snowing steadily our entire outing. That means the camera collects snow, especially when we are going fast. Here is the camera within minutes of the prior photo:

Blurred footage from a snow covered camera.

Today's video highlight goes along with the first "breaking trail" photo above. Come along and watch the impressive kids powering through 10+ inches of powder as they tow me along. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and, yep, the kids found a snow wall to climb for end of run treats :)

"We'll come up to your level!" states the polite kids climbing up to get treats.

It is not often we can say an April skijor outing was "slowed by deep snow": 7.4 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 139 days on the trails covering 1232.2 miles with 113,200 feet of elevation climbed.