Hey! Fresh!

Zipping along and catching air on the high elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning!

Wheee - hover huskies!!!

We have only had a light dusting to and inch or two of new snow in the recent days; but the temperatures have remained well below freezing. As a result, despite having a bit of use, the trails were still soft, safe with no ice! Yay! As you see in the prior photo, pre-existing ski tracks pretty much spanned the entire trail this morning. Until....

As we approached the Kathy's Viewpoint warming hut, all the human ski tracks converged into a single track on the left side of the trail. I guess everyone wants to ski close to the warming hut. Well, this did not go unnoticed to Jack, Rudy and I as we were thrilled to slide right and be laying fresh tracks on the right side of the trail. Unless the snow is super deep, we all prefer laying fresh tracks over running in existing tracks!

Hey! Untouched snow on the right! Yay Freshies!

Come along for the video counterpart of this wonderful discovery. As we approach the hut, Jack is the first to notice the untouched treat to the right and he slides on over. Once I see Jack do this, I am thrilled to slide to the right with him for fresh snow. Finally, Rudy sees Jack (and probably feels me) and it's, "Hey! fresh snow to the right! Here I come." as he hops over to join us and off we go on this great stretch of untouched snow.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We did an out & back skijor this morning. So, of course that meant we had to turnaround at some point. Well, you know the drill: Turnaround, Roll Around!

"Aaaahhhhh!" says Rudy as he is all smiles rolling in the snow at our
turnaround point.
"Rub a dub dub dub!" adds rolling Jack (who I guarantee you has a smile
on his face too :)

Aside from turning around once, any other reason to stop this morning? Well, yes, MOOSE tracks!!! We've seen moose tracks entering, walking and leaving these nordic trails almost every outing this year; but we have yet to get a visual. Those elusive moose!

"Moose went this way! Can we too?!?" asks the moose patrollers.
Sorry guys, no going off trail into thick trees behind moose tracks!

Back to the trailhead and time to gather for end of run treats. No good snow walls this morning, so I had to kneel down to my pals. Excuse Nancy's big thumb in the lower right of the photo. She tells me it's hard to get end of run photos without her paws in the way :) Although I use this same camera in the summer for hiking/water shots of Jack & Rudy and my fingers have never been in view - you'll have to ask Nancy :)

Happy kids getting end of run treats with mom's big thumb added in :)

Fun nordic outing: 7.8 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 21 days on the trails covering 167.8 miles with 16,200 feet of elevation climbed.