Stick Share

Fun "shot from the front" of the happy kids towing me to the finish of this morning's 10 mile skijor!

Whee! Smiles all around!

As you see in the photo above we finished today's outing on nicely groomed nordic trails (at Gold Run Nordic Center). But, as is usually the case in this location, we started out touring the backcountry before transitioning onto the nordic center. 

Today's backcountry trails were quite narrow due to lots of fresh snow the last few days; but the set trail was still wide enough for Jack & Rudy to fit shoulder to shoulder, yay!

Just wide enough to fit two sled dogs side by side in the backcountry.

Once onto the nordic center, we went to ski the upper Preston Loop Trail. This trail is far from the trailhead and rated a "black diamond" nordic trail, so it does not get a lot of traffic. We found the trail recently groomed with one skier with a dog doing the loop just before us. Not a problem, being second tracks on a fresh groom is almost as good as first tracks :)

Zipping along the recently groomed speed track.

We had so much fun on doing the loop that we decided to do it again. Jack & Rudy will typically repeat a trail twice without balking as they will switch sides to enjoy if from a different perspective:

Second pass on the Preston Loop.
This photo is at roughly the same place as the prior photo.
Second pass, switch sides, same results - zoom!

Now come along for a video highlight from pass two of the Preston Loop. Perfect conditions to zoom, zoom, zoom! Top speed today? 24 MPH.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As we were about to start our second pass on the upper loop, Jack noticed a large and very tantalizing stick just off the trail. He hopped in the snow to inspect it and Rudy agreed that this stick was very tantalizing. The silly goofs proceeded to jointly drag this stick out of the snow and onto the trail (I later removed it so it would not be in the way of others :)

"Nice stick! We should put this in the middle of the trail for others
to enjoy!" says the silly stick sharing kids.

After two passes on the upper loop, it was time to take the main nordic trail back to the trailhead. Remember it is a busy 3 day weekend, so the main trail was quite busy with skiers, snowshoers and fat bike riders. Jack & Rudy LOVE to zoom by crowds and put smiles on their faces. I always smile and give a wave to the crowds too :)

"Hi! Bye! Coming through - made you smile!" says the fun kids putting
on a skijoring show for the crowds.

Yet another wonderful skijor outing, so yet another chance to celebrate with end of run treats:

"You have our full attention!" says the focused kids.

A little backcountry touring followed by a lot of nordic zooming: 10.2 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 86 days on the trails covering 723.2 miles with 69,600 feet of elevation climbed.