Catching Air

Cruising through the ruins of an old 1800s mining ghost town on this morning's skijor outing:

Peacefully trotting along as we take in the mining ruins.

Today's outing had found us starting in the backcountry and ending on the wide trails of Gold Run Nordic Center. With warm days and cold nights this time of year, the backcountry trails can get a bit slick and icy every morning. Luckily, Jack & Rudy know to slow the pace on slick trails, so it was a comfortable trot to start the outing as you see above.

We like to try and drop onto the trails at Gold Run Nordic Center just after the groomer finishes with the trails in the morning. That is especially true this time year when the trails have warmed the previous day and refrozen overnight. Unfortunately when we got on the upper most trail at Gold Run, the groomer had not been here yet this morning:

The photo does not do just to just how slick this trail was from warming
yesterday and refreezing overnight. My legs were burning from driving the
skis into the slick conditions to keep upright and pace with Jack & Rudy :)

But, then, thank dog, once we got on the main trail at Gold Run, the groomer had been there only minutes before us! One other fat bike rider with his dog were the only tracks on the fresh groom. Well, after keeping speeds to a minimum for the first two legs of the outing, Jack & Rudy knew what to do with this fresh groom! Zoom!

Yay for the fresh groom, time to safely uncork the skijoring engine
and catch some air sprinting along the trail!

The trail conditions in the prior photo are absolutely perfect. You'll notice there are some trees to shade the trail part of the day to prevent too much melting this time of year.

Well, after the prior photo, we took a left towards the trailhead and got onto the most sun exposed stretch of trail at Gold Run. This stretch is always the first to "melt out" in the Spring as it gets all day sunshine:

The hover huskies still catching air; but, yikes, look at that bit of ground
starting to poke through to our left. Spring sucks :)

Luckily that fully exposed stretch in the prior photo does not last for very long. Within a minute or two and we are back down into the trees. This well shaded stretch of trail keeps its snow well into mid to late Spring. Come along and see for yourself as Jack & Rudy are towing me along a pristine trail through dense shade providing trees. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Ok, now get ready to laugh. Do you think Rudy is enjoying his snow angel this morning :)

"Ah! You know you want to join me!" exclaims super happy snow rolling Rudy.
"I'm in heaven too!" adds mellow rolling Jack.

Eventually, all outings have to come to an end. Despite knowing the "end is near" it is still running hard with all smiles from Jack & Rudy as we approach the finish:

"Whee! So much fun today!" declares the happy kids.

Finally, the happiness from Jack & Rudy continues right on into our final act of the morning: sharing end of run treats.

Such happy kids! What fun pals!

From early slick trails to freshly groomed nordic trails this morning: 9.1 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 112 days on the trails covering 958.4 miles with 93,500 feet of elevation climbed.