You Said

I said, "Hey! No wrestling on the trail!"....

"So we took it OFF trail! TouchÉ!" announces Jack & Rudy taking their
unauthorized play moment far off trail into the snow.

Yes, that is JACK pinning Rudy in the snow in that prior photo. Yep, perfect (ahem :) Jack. Don't worry, Rudy LOVED it and eventually wriggled his way on top of Jack during this wrestle session.

Prior photo aside, we had an awesome 10 mile skijor this morning. We started on backcountry trails in Dry Gulch. Occasionally the local Open Space & Trails department will run a mini groomer on some of these backcountry trails. A mini groomer is simply a snowmobile towing a "grooming sled" that is the width of a snowmobile. Today we got the pleasure of skijoring Dry Gulch in a mini groomer track that was only a day or two old, so still very comfortable to ski on.

Zipping along in the mini groomer track. 
Hey, what's the deal with my left ski?

I'll answer that question through video support. The mini groomer track is not nearly as wide as a traditional groomed nordic trail. Pay attention in the video and, as we start to speed up, you'll see my left ski in the snow "out of track" and occasional glimpses of my right ski "in track". I'm in a pretty tight ski tuck to ski this somewhat narrow trail at Jack & Rudy's pace. I lean left (on the out of track ski) for speed control and lean right (on the in track ski) for balance control. Fun time behind my pals!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After fun on the mini groomer trail, we transitioned onto the wide trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. As we were cruising along, Rudy provided some additional entertainment:

Can you see it? Look closely at Rudy's head.

Ok, let's zoom in to really see what Rudy has in his mouth.

Yep, a twig! The silly kid picked up this twig on the trail without so much as
a break in stride. He then proceeded to carry the twig, again without a break
in stride as you see in the photo, for at least a 1/2 a mile! What a loon!

Our timing has been pretty good lately at getting on the trails at Gold Run just after the groomer came out for the day to clean up the trails. But, today was not a lucky as the groomer had not made it to the upper elevation trail yet (we even did two laps on this upper trail without encountering the groomer). So, the trail was a little tracked up, but not too bad as most humans do not make it to this trail before running out of gas whereas I have Jack & Rudy power :)

Still able to FLY on the upper trail as it was not too tracked up. Wheee!

That is an indentation from fat bike tires you see in the center of the trail. What about those footprints? Doesn't everyone know it is rude to walk on a groomed trail? Well, those are MOOSE footprints. Nobody is going to tell a moose it is being rude! Haha!

Then our luck took a turn for the better when we got on the lower (and very heavily used) trail to conclude the outing. The groomer came by on this trail just minutes before we transitioned onto it! Yay for the groomer smoothing out the heavily used trail for us! Jack & Rudy know what to do with a fresh groom:

Zoom! The hover huskies catching air on the freshly groomed trail!

Back to the trailhead and the kids were up high on a snow wall and in tight for end of run treats:

"We sure outsmarted you on the 'no wrestling on the trail' declaration!" says
the proud two :)

A fun zooming day: 10.3 miles traveled with 1100 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 99 days on the trails covering 844.3 miles with 81,700 feet of elevation climbed.