Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Jack & Rudy, the happy little elves, towing me in my Santa hat to the end of this morning's holiday skijor.

The jolly kids always have a smile on their faces when skijoring!

This morning's outing took us back to French Gulch which we skijored yesterday.  Why return to the same trail two days in a row? Well, as expected, French Gulch got plowed after we were done skijoring yesterday. But, there was light snowfall and cold temperatures all day yesterday and last night. This meant we had a nice layer of new snow on the otherwise plowed, but frozen, ground. There was just enough new snow and minimal trail damage due to cold temperatures to open up the throttle again and again...

They flying kids floating over the trail.
Note we are laying fresh tracks in new snow in this shot and you can also
see our "out tracks" to our left.

Enough new snow for flying means enough new snow for hovering :)

The hover huskies catching air.

Now come along for some video fun from the morning. We start this clip with Jack & Rudy towing me up a gentle rise in the trail. Why pull the human up the rise? Well, because the other side of a rise is a downhill run; so let's get the human up quickly so we can sprint the other side!!! Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As with yesterday (and every trip to French Gulch), eventually Jack & Rudy catch the scent of moose in the area (usually more than once). When the smell is strong, you must pause to peek into the gulch for the big moose!

"We smell moose!" declares the moose seeking kids.
As with yesterday, we did spot a moose in the deep snow across the
gulch but it was too far away to show up on camera.

Back to the trailhead and time of end of run Christmas treats! I somehow misplaced my red Santa hat this past year, so I'm now decked out in my blue Denver Bronco Santa hat.

"We were very good boys today and this ENTIRE year!" says the happy,
fun kids.

The only downside of this morning's outing? Well, it was -11 F outside when we started our skijor and -10 F when we finished (yes, that is "11 below zero"). As a result, I cut the outing shorter than usual to preserve the human in such cold temperatures (Jack & Rudy thought it was lovely out): 5.2 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 44 days on the trails covering 366.4 miles with 34,700 feet of elevation climbed.