Eek, the Creek!

Everybody having a good time this morning?

"You bet!!!" says the happy, happy sled dogs thrilled to still be on snow in May.

Today's outing took us to the Dumont Lake area at Rabbit Ears Pass. I was hoping for another smooth Spring Crust skijor like yesterday. Although there was a firm crust of snow, it was a very bumpy crust. I was bouncing all over the place trying to keep pace with Jack & Rudy on this bumpy terrain:

Jack & Rudy cruising along while my legs and knees were getting
beat up amidst all the bumps!

Some of this bumpiness was due to heavy snowmobile traffic on this part of Rabbit Ears and some was just the melting snowpack. So, I turned us away from the most popular snowmobile pathways and, sure enough, we found much smoother terrain to run on top of. It was still a little bumpy, but nothing compared to the extreme bumps in the high traffic areas:

"Ah, this is much smoother!" says my appreciative knees :)

What is all that black/brown ahead of us in the prior photo? Well, it is an exposed creek! It's always sad when the creek breaks through on our late season mountain passes as this means the end of the season really is near. Come along for today's video highlight of our skijor to the edge of the creek. We start out on a very nice crust. Then Jack & Rudy slow nicely as the terrain gets a little bumpy as we arrive to the edge of the creek. Of course the smart kids know the fast flowing creek is nothing to mess with, so we stop to turnaround. The creek, by the way, is Muddy Creek which will take all this wonderful snow melt into the Colorado River.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Since the creek was wide and running fast, there was no way to cross, so we backtracked until we found a safe crossing point (a few "snow bridges" are still intact which let you cross the creek safely):

Cruising along the edge of Muddy Creek until we could find a snow bridge
to safely cross over the creek.

Did I use the word "turnaround" above? Yep, so you know what that means:

"Turnaround, roll around!" goes the funny snow rolling kids.

Another sign the season is winding down (in addition to the exposed creek)? Well, when you have to seek out snow piles amidst exposed ground for end of run treats, you know things are winding down :)

At least we found this little snow pile for end of run treats!
The treats just don't taste the same if your toes are not on snow!

Today's skijor tally: 7.7 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 153 days on the trails covering 1292.8 miles with 128,300 feet of elevation climbed.