Fresh Tracks Monday

Laying fresh tracks in an inch or so of fresh snow atop otherwise fast, groomed nordic trails!

Zipping along laying fresh tracks! Wheeee!

Our plan for this morning was to skijor the upper elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center as they tend to groom those trails on Monday mornings. Well, the groomer did go out early; but, in between the time the groomer ran and when we got on the trails, about an inch or so of fresh snow fell! So today was a fun time laying fresh tracks in a light layer of new snow atop recently groomed trails. What fun!

We had the chance to go "out & back" on several sections of the upper elevation trails. On any uphill stretch, I would move us to the far right of the trail so that we'd have the center with untouched powder for the way back. The plan worked perfectly :)

Catching air laying fresh tracks down the center of the trail with our
"out tracks" far to the left. Oh, pretty shot of the Kathy's Viewpoint Warming
Hut to our left as well.

Different section of trail, same results: far right on the way up for untouched powder on the way back down! Whee!

Catching air again with our up tracks to the far left and the center with
untouched, fresh snow!

Now come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. Watch as we are having a blast flying along in the morning's new snow! Once you are done, watch again and pay attention to seconds 31, 56 and 59 in the video....

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Did you notice anything at 31, 56 & 59 seconds? My ski tracks are still on the trail but Jack & Rudy's tracks disappear. Where did the kids go? Well, we had 3 rodent diving interruptions on the way up this trail at those three points. Each time the kids jumped off trail to search for rodents under the snow. Silly kids!

This was the dive corresponding to their tracks disappearing off the trail
at the 59 second point of the video. Jack lunged off first to dig for rodents
and then Rudy, of course, followed suit with one of his patented, high arching
rodent dives!

After a little digging into the snow, the kids came up empty but quite proud of their attempts. Just see for yourself:

"That was fun! We love diving for rodents even if we fail to catch one!" says
the happy, happy kids coming back on trail to me after the off trail rodent hunt.

Back to the trailhead and we found a great, tall snow wall to climb for end of run treats! We've been settling for medium sized snow walls a lot lately as that is all that exists; but today was a wonderful nice high wall for treats:

"Climbed, situated and READY for treats!" says the happy kids.

A fun day with the surprising chance to lay fresh tracks almost all outing long! 9.8 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 92 days on the trails covering 777.0 miles with 75,000 feet of elevation climbed.