Success

Rudy is proud to announce the following from his high arching rodent dive this morning: SUCCESS!!!

"Rodents under the snow! Incoming!" says diving Rudy.

Jack actually initiated today's hunt for rodents. We were skijoring along in a solo snowmobile track when Jack lunged out of the track into the side snow. Rudy quickly followed suit and performed his own rodent dive but his target was a little ahead of Jack. Did Jack scare the rodents to scurry forward to where Rudy is targeting? I believe so...

"Got one!" declares proud Rudy.
"Wait! The rodents scurried up there! Incoming!" goes Jack coming to
join Rudy.

Then, sure enough, Rudy's head came up from the snow with a rodent in his mouth. Was it a mouse, vole, or something similar? I'm not sure exactly. I quickly reached down and grabbed the tail hanging out of Rudy's mouth and pulled & extracted it from Rudy's mouth before throwing it out of reach (it was still alive & squirming during this extraction, I'll spare you any photos :) Silly kids,  if you do enough rodent dives, the odds are you will succeed occasionally! This was not Rudy's first successful catch but he does come up empty mouthed more often than not.

Ok, Rudy's highlight of the day described, let's get back to the real purpose of the outing: to go skijoring! We started the outing about 10-15 minutes after sunrise and proceeded to skijor towards Rabbit Ears Peak at Rabbit Ears Pass.

Out first glimpse of the ears which are the two rocks atop Rabbit Ears Peak
that you see in the upper left of this photo. Oh, fun snow poofs behind Jack
and Rudy too as we zip along in snowmobile tracks.

A little further along and the sun has fully risen above the clouds to shine bright on the trail.

Jack & Rudy catching air with cool snow poofs behind them again.
Rabbit Ears Peak and the two ears atop the peak are now much more
visible in the upper left.

Finally, our closest approach to the peak and ears before the trail turned and took us away from the peak:

The ears atop the peak directly up from Jack's head.

Now come along for a nice video showcasing Rabbit Ears Peak up & to our left during this clip. Jack & Rudy are having a blast cruising along as the peak and its ears are visible throughout most of this clip. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Done touring Rabbit Ears and extracting rodents from under the snow (and then from Rudy's mouth) and it is all smiles to end the outing:

"We had a great time!" says the happy, happy kids finishing today's outing.

Sorry I ruined the rodent feast, will you two accept end of run treats instead?

"Well, ok, but I really wanted to finish off that rodent!" states proud Rudy.
"Can't believe you threw it instead of handing it to ME!" adds cool Jack.

Today's skijor tally: 9.3 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed, a top speed of 21 MPH and one rodent extracted from under the snow!

2023/2024 Season to Date: 103 days on the trails covering 882.4 miles with 85,300 feet of elevation climbed.