Hello!

Laying fresh tracks in a light layer of new snow over snowmobile tracks deep in the backcountry!

Fresh tracks, nice mountain views. Wheeee!

This morning's skijor took us to the trails on Prospect Hill. We were having a blast laying fresh tracks in the light layer of new snow for miles and miles. Then, we came around a bend in the trail and all three of our moose alarms went off! I could see them up ahead and Jack & Rudy could clearly see and smell them too.

We all see them ahead. Do you?
Draw a line straight up from Rudy's left ear and there is one moose.
Draw a line straight up from Rudy's right shoulder and there is another moose.

As we got closer, my pals suggested we should abandon the set trail and drift over towards the moose. I agreed for a short distance. Max, Zorro and I named this large opening "moose meadow" years ago as we frequently saw moose here. As for Jack & Rudy, we have been to this meadow many times and seen evidence of moose (tracks, prints, poops, etc.) but this was the kids' first bonafide sighting in this meadow. It is now "moose meadow" to them too :)

"Hello! We KNEW this was a moose meadow!" declares intense Jack & Rudy.
Look how deep the snow was off trail to get this view. But, with moose 
ahead, Jack & Rudy will plow through any depth of snow!

How about a nice zoom into the prior photo? This was a mother and child; but the child is very mature. I had to stare long and closely before I could determine the moose to the left is slightly smaller, thus the almost full grown child.

"We see you too!" says the moose back to Jack & Rudy :)

Ok, moose event over and I had to convince Jack & Rudy to turnaround as we were doing an "out & back" skijor this morning. Despite initial objections to abandon the two moose, eventually we got back into a groove skijoring back. I love the views we get of the ski runs of Breckenridge Ski Resort across the valley from us on the return leg:

Zipping along with awesome ski resort views across the valley.

Ok, how about a video counterpart to the prior photo. If you can take your eyes off Jack & Rudy, come along and watch as the ski resort comes into view near the start of this clip and is fully visible to partially visible the entire clip. Skijor with a view :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and time for some pork end of run treats:

"We'd prefer moose meat; but we'll accept pork!" says the happy kids.

A peaceful backcountry skijor this morning with an exciting moose sighting along the way: 8.8 miles traveled with 1100 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 31 days on the trails covering 254.3 miles with 24,600 feet of elevation climbed.