Useful Human

Starting this morning's skijor on the "not yet plowed" road leading to the Sallie Barber Mine Trailhead!

Only 2 or 3 cars and no plows had been on the road leading to the trailhead.
So, we started this morning's outing far down the road to "skijor the road"
to the trailhead and then continue on the backcountry Sallie Barber Mine Trail.

After skijoring the road to the trailhead, it was time to skijor up to the historic Sallie Barber Mine, then down and back up the backside of the mine before concluding the outing coming back down the frontside. On the first pass by the mine, the kids were frisky about all the new snow we were enjoying. Uh oh...

"Tag! You're it!" declares Jack.
"Coming right back at you!" responds never back down Rudy :)

At least the second pass by the mine was a little more professional :)

Zipping by the mine on pass number 2. Phew, no shenanigans from the kids!

Now come along for the highlight of today's outing being "the human can be useful too."

Beginning our original climb to the mine.

The prior photo has a lot of things to show. First there was a ton of fresh snow this morning; but a group of three skiers had beat us to the trail and went up before us (we did run into them eventually on their way back). Well, humans are lazy and tend to go single file up the trail in fresh & deep snow. You can see in the photo above that Rudy is in the track the 3 skiers set but it is too narrow for Jack to fit too. That's not a problem on the way up as powder Jack happily trotted next to Rudy. But, this set track would be too narrow for both to fit in and run fast on the way back. If Rudy was in the set track and Jack the side powder, Jack would not be able to keep pace with Rudy on the way down. What to do? The human, ME, to the rescue. The ski tip you see in the prior photo is my right leg. Basically I skied in the powder next to the set track all the way up the trail. I knew this would provide a new track for Jack and then each would be able to run fast "in track" on the way back down. Did it work? Of course...

Zipping along on the way back. Rudy in the track set by the three skiers
and Jack in the track set by me! 

Now come along for the video proof of my work. Both Jack & Rudy are able to maintain the same pace as each has a set track to run in. See, the human, ME, can be of use sometimes :) If you are curious, the answer is "Yes, that was a lot of extra work on my legs on the way up" but totally worth it to widen the trail for my pals.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and another fun snow wall to climb for end of run treats:

"Thanks for making me a track to run in the way down!" says happy Jack.
"Yes, that was fun!" adds cute Rudy.

A fun combination of road skijoring, backcountry skijoring and trail widening by the useful human, ME: 9.1 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 97 days on the trails covering 823.8 miles with 79,600 feet of elevation climbed.