Treat

Today was a wonderful, albeit rare, skijor in French Gulch. Come along for the fun!

Whee - zipping along laying fresh tracks in 2-4 inches of fresh snow.

Why was this a rare outing? Well, the gulch gets plowed after any significant amount of snow. But, with only a few inches of new snow this morning, it was not worth the time or cost to have it plowed. Yet, there was plenty of new snow for me to be on skis safely behind Jack & Rudy. What a treat!

Come along and watch some of the fun!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The tracks you see to our left in both the photo and video are our "out tracks" on this same trail. Knowing this, you might be wondering "what happened" in the photo above and at 21 and 25 seconds into the video. You'll notice our footprints and ski prints seem to drift off trail for a moment. Well, French Gulch is known for its active moose population. On the way out (going a little slower uphill), Jack & Rudy caught the clear "scent of moose" and had to hop up the snow wall to peek down into the gulch for moose. French Creek runs down the center of the gulch and it is very common to spot moose meandering around on the banks of the creek:

"We smell MOOSE! Must climb this snow wall to try and get a view!" says
the snow wall climbing, moose seeking sillies.

I climbed the wall too (much slower than Jack & Rudy :) to peek myself. I did not see any moose either time; but I could tell by Jack & Rudy's intensity that the scent was clear & strong in the air!

For added entertainment, we did an out & back extension on what is known as the Little French Gulch Trail. Did I say "out & back"? Well, you know what that means happened at one point!

Turnaround, roll around! The kids were slightly out of sync in rolling their
snow angels this morning. In this photo, Jack has just finished rolling his angel
(note the indentation in the snow behind him) while Rudy was just starting his.
Jack looked on with approval :)

This extension does not get plowed and is popular with backcountry skinners. As a result, it is a very narrow single track trail. It was so narrow that we had to skijor single file to fit in the packed track since the snow outside the track was very deep. Not a problem, Jack & Rudy are very capable of adapting to narrow trails :)

Jack's turn to run in front of the single file setup.
They switched after a while and then it was Rudy's turn to run in the lead. 
Flexible & adaptable guys!

After the Little French Gulch narrow extension, it was back onto the main French Gulch Trail. Wide again with fresh snow - time to floor it again!

Wheeee!

A fun French Gulch treat this morning. Right guys?

"Yes! Love our rare outings in moosey French Gulch!" says the happy kids
awaiting end of run treats atop a snow wall.

Today's tally: 8.2 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 67 days on the trails covering 517.6 miles with 49,200 feet of elevation climbed.