Markers

Who was having a great time out on the trails this morning?

"I'm ecstatic with the day's new snow!" declares happy Jack.
"Me TOOOOOO, WOOOOO!" adds singing Rudy :)

Today's outing took us to the Walton Peak area at Rabbit Ears Pass. There was about an inch or so of fresh, new snow and no skiers or snowmobiles had been out on the trails before us. This made for an interesting trail finding outing:

Zipping along laying fresh tracks in new snow over packed snowmobile
trails. But, can you see the trail? Neither could I!

While we've skijored this area at Rabbit Ears Pass many times, today was pretty interesting as you could not identify the set trail most of the day. I only knew we were off trail when we would sink in deep snow versus knowing we were on trail when you could feel (although not see) a firm, packed trail under the new snow. There are occasional trail markers on the pass, and we really appreciated them today!

Cruising along once again with no clear sign of the actual trail except
the orange trail marker poles you see (one on the right edge of this photo
and 2 more directly up from Rudy). Without these markers, it was not
clear we needed to veer left through this section.

Whenever we could feel, but not see, the packed trail under the snow, we knew it was time to uncork the skijoring engine. Zoom:

The fun kids catching air heading towards the right leaning trail marker
you can just make out in the upper center of this photo. 

Now come along for today's video highlight as we are "skijoring from memory" of this trail as the terrain looks identical all around us! As the clip comes to an end, we finally encounter a trail marker letting us know we are on the right track. Interesting day!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

I stopped twice to try and re-find the trail when we got off track. Well, you know what comes with stopping with Jack & Rudy!

"Stop, drop and ROLL!" goes the snow angel rolling goofballs.

A fun, but very interesting, trail tracking day, right guys?

"Yes, fun indeed, now how about those end of run treats?" says the
happy, happy kids.

Today's "trail finding" tally: 7.1 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 51 days on the trails covering 311.5 miles with 33,000 feet of elevation climbed.