Perfect

Look at this beautiful, freshly groomed trail we found to skijor towards Buffalo Park at Rabbit Ears Pass yesterday morning!!!

What PERFECT conditions as Jack & Rudy catch some air zipping
along the freshly groomed sprint track!

Now come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. We begin with polite Jack & Rudy patiently waiting for me to get my skis on. Then, as soon as I say, "Ok guys" off we GO flying along the perfect trail. Wheeee! The kids were as excited to find this fresh groom as me!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As we started out pedal to the metal on this perfect groom track, I was thinking, "The kids are FLYING today, we are going to top 11 or 12 miles easily!" But, then the groomed trail ended after only a few miles and turned into a trail of soft snowmobile tracks. I paused momentarily to decide if we should turnaround and repeat the groomed trail a couple of times or if we should continue onward. Well, I paused....

"You paused! We 'Stop, Drop and ROLL'!" goes silly Jack & Rudy who take
every pause as a moment to introduce some comedy to the day.
You can see the groom track ends just ahead of Rudy and transitioned to a
path of snowmobile tracks.

Once I ascertained the snowmobile tracks were pretty fresh and, thus, nice and soft, I decided to continue onward. Good decision by me as we then had a beautiful skijor out & back in soft snowmobile tracks. Wheeee!

The fun kids keeping the speed going zipping along in soft snowmobile tracks.
While the soft tracks slowed us a bit more than the perfect groom, it was only
a slight decrease in speed :)

After a few miles in the snowmobile tracks and it was time to turnaround and return on the same trail. Since Jack & Rudy already rolled snow angels at my pause above, it was time for a different comedy skit at the turnaround point. How about hopping off trail to search for rodents under the snow?

"DUNK! Where are those pesky rodents? I can smell them!" says head dunking Jack.
"You keep looking there, and I'll face plow over here!" adds snow plowing Rudy.
Despite lots of digging and exploring under the snow, neither came up with a
rodent in his mouth, phew :)

Finally, once back to the groomed trail and it was pedal to the metal again! Zoom!

Nice lift from Jack the cannonball next to Rudy the flying missile!

That was fun, right guys?

"Oh yes, we loved it ALL!" says the happy, happy kids awaiting
end of run treats atop a small snow wall.

A super fast day on the groomed surface and then slowed a little (but still a great time) in soft snowmobile tracks: 10.1 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 91 days on the trails covering 767.2 miles with 74,000 feet of elevation climbed.