Mountain Shade

The fun kids, Jack & Rudy, all smiles as usual as we finish this morning's skijor outing.

Ok, not the best photo with the intense, bright sun right behind us; but I had
to share anyway as you can make out the kids big smiles :)

We got an early start this morning and spent the majority of the morning with the rising sun still behind the mountains to our east. This made for some interesting & darkish lighting, so I've brightened the photos as much as I could...

We started the morning zipping along on narrow backcountry trails:

Catching air in a backcountry single track - wheeee!

We then dropped onto the trails of Gold Run Nordic Center and found ourselves still shaded from the rising sun by the mountains to the east:

We are heading due east in the photo and the rising sun is still behind
the mountain directly in front of us.

Now, want to see an amazing difference when the sun finally got over the mountains? Well, here we are in the same location as the prior photo but 30 minutes later in the sun! 

We redid this stretch of trail twice: once in the morning mountain shade
and then again once the sun had risen over the mountains.

Now come along for today's video highlight. We are cruising along the fast packed nordic trail; but this is also known "moose territory". So, watch this stretch of trail where Jack & Rudy keep getting distracted by something to our left and Jack dips his nose a few times to check the freshness of moose tracks on the trail. Needless to say, I was on high alert after seeing their distractions; but, alas, we never actually saw any moose (phew).

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Of course, redoing any section of trail means you have at least one turnaround point; and, that means you have stop, drop and roll snow angels from Jack & Rudy :)

Still in the shade of the east mountains; but the kids still had to 
stop, drop and roll snow angels to cool off at our turnaround point.

Did I mention these trails are in known moose territory? Well, Jack & Rudy are WELL aware of that too :)

"Moose went this way, can we too?!?" asks the silly kids looking at a pair
of moose tracks that crossed the trail and went into the trees.

A very entertaining outing this morning with lots of "moose alerts" but no actual sightings: 9.4 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH (the trail was a little too packed and slick for me to be comfortable going faster than this; so I was holding us back). 

2023/2024 Season to Date: 36 days on the trails covering 297.4 miles with 28,400 feet of elevation climbed.