Jack 6000

5 year old Jack surpassed 6000 career skijor miles this morning! Way to go Jack!!!!

"And I have LOVED every single mile!" declares happy, happy Jack.
"If we are not celebrating ME, I'm not paying attention!" adds poor Rudy.
If you've met Rudy, you KNOW that is what he was saying :)

Jack is currently 5 years and 10 months old and he has accumulated 6000 career skijoring miles (6007.0 miles to be exact). Now, consider that almost all of those miles happened since he was 1.5 years old (as he was too young or doing short training runs before that) and we've had a few evil summers in the way and that is quite an impressive career he's putting together! For the curious, Rudy is about 5 months younger than Jack and about 175 career miles behind him. Rudy will have to wait until the 2023/2024 season for his 6000th career mile; but it will happen early next season.

Back to today, We went to Rabbit Ears Pass to get what was left of the rapidly melting snow. Conditions were actually much better than I expected for May 20th and the amount of remaining snowpack. We started the day on the (old) groom track that we and others have been using in May. It hasn't been groomed in over a week but it is still pretty much intact!

Starting the day on the leftover groom track.
It is not obvious we are on the groom track from this photo with the sun
behind the clouds; but it was clear in person. You'll see the clear groom track
in a photo below when the sun was out on our return.

After a successful skijor on this 1.5 mile groom track, it was time to see if we could still get out to the open meadows at the base of Walton Peak. In order to do this, we had to hope that two snow bridges were still intact. These are not real bridges but bridges built from a season of groomers and snowmobiles packing the snow over two creeks. I was actually quite surprised to find both bridges still intact as I was planning on having to modify our outing at one of the bridges!

Crossing the first of the two snow bridges we needed to be intact! Yay!

Why were the bridges so important? Well, if you get over both water crossing then you are treated to some endless snow at the base of Walton Peak. How's this for May 20th once we got over both bridges?

The hover huskies catching air at the base of Walton Peak!

Now come along for today's video highlight of us skijoring a wonderful trail at the base of Walton Peak. Sure, it's a little bumpy (as you'll see the camera bouncing) but you cannot get much better than this on May 20th in the Northern Hemisphere! Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After doing an out & back skijor by Walton Peak, it was back over both snow bridges and onto the leftover groom track to conclude the day:

See, once the sun came out, the groom track is very evident as opposed
to the shady photo above.

Jack also has another feat to add to his skijoring career: not only has he amassed 6000 career miles but he has also rolled at least one snow angel on EVERY single outing of his career (and many more than one on most outings :)

6000 miles of rolling snow angels. What a silly goof.
"Woooo, I want to be at 6000!" bellows wooing Rudy.

Back to the trailhead and we found a snow wall for end of run treats amongst all the otherwise melting snow!

Yay, I can dish out the treats from a standing position!

A relatively flat outing by our standards today but still a ton of fun: 8 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 159 days on the trails covering 1397.2 miles with 126,600 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack's career to date: 6007.0 miles traveled with 1+ snow angel rolled on EVERY single outing :)