Fast Packed

The fun kids catching air along a stretch of trail before the morning sun has fully risen:

The photo is a bit dark as we are shaded from the morning sun by a large
mountain behind us; but the kids are "catching air in the dim light" :)

Our outing this morning took us to the wide trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. I was hoping they might have been groomed yesterday or today; but no such luck. As a result, the trails were pretty hard and fast packed! That's not really an issue (except to my sore knees :) but it does cause Jack & Rudy to drift a bit further apart than they will run on less slick trails;

Jack the cannonball and Rudy the missile taking full advantage of
the wide but very hard & fast packed trail.

As they hear my skis scraping and grinding behind them on such hard terrain, they tend to separate like this as you need to give the human some avenue of safety when he cannot stop quickly. Nice guys:

The smart kids separating again to give me a clear avenue down
the slick middle of the trail!

But, even though Jack & Rudy may run a little more separated and out of sync on such fast packed trails, the end result is still the same. Come along and see for yourselves - wheeee! Oh, and note the narrow & thin snow coverage at around 25 seconds into this clip. This section of trail is very sun exposed all day and, at this point, the trail gets very narrow and thin. I simply call out an "easy, easy" to my pals to slow a bit through the narrow patch and then call out "ok" once past it and the smart guys floor it again.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Then, just to make sure I was paying attention, the comedians decided to roll separate snow angels today as well - running far apart lead to rolling snow angels far apart :)

"Rub a dub dub!" goes rolling Rudy at our turnaround point.
"I don't think I need to roll here." adds Jack.

But, don't worry, Jack was still Jack. The 8 year old has rolled at least one snow angel on EVERY skijor outing of his life (and usually many more than one). So, a few steps turning around from the prior photo and there is reliable snow rolling Jack:

"My turn! Aaaahhh!" goes always rolling Jack.
"Tasty snow too!" adds snowcone snacking Rudy.

Finally, back to the trailhead and who is ready for end of run treats?

"I see them! I see them! READY!" says Jack focused on the goody bag in my hand.
"Ready too, I'll wait patiently right here!" adds Rudy (patient & Rudy, hahaha).

Beautiful morning on hard & fast packed nordic trails: 7.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 28 days on the trails covering 175.6 miles with 19,900 feet of elevation climbed.