Sled Dog Party

We had a little Sled Dog Party out at Keyser Creek today as we met up with 4 other sled teams to run with on the trails.

Dog trucks, dog sleds and 20+ Siberian Huskies attached to the trucks getting ready to GO!
(Max & Zorro are in the foreground with Nancy inspecting the surroundings)

We intended to run just over 10 miles today and ran 15 by mistake. Oops :)

The party consisted of 2 6-dog sled teams, 1 5-dog sled team, 1 4-dog sled team and our 2-dog skijor team (most of the dogs on the 6 and 4 dog teams were from Sno-Magic Siberians). Our friend Gillian and her 5-dog team started out the day as they were hoping to go the furthest. Max, Zorro & I started second as we planned on doing the second most miles of the outing and the other 3 teams staggered start behind us.

Here is a great video of Max & Zorro shooting out the gates at the beginning of the run. They were sooooo ready to gooooo:

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As I said above, our plan was to do a 10 mile out/back on the main Keyser Creek Trail. Well, we made it to the 5-mile turnaround point pretty fast yet had still not caught up with Gillian and her team. So, I said to my partners, "I see Gillian's sled tracks and dog prints, why don't we go until we meet Gillian and then run back with her?" Max & Zorro were in perfect agreement with this plan. Onward & upward we continued, but still never found Gillian and her team. After 7.4 miles, I decided we must have missed them on some side trail and told Max & Zorro we had to turnaround and head back (they were not in agreement with this declaration :)

It turns out that we took a different fork in the trail at just over 6.5 miles, so we never would have met up with Gillian and her team. But, it was a great time had by all, come along for some highlights:

Dead animal carcass on the side of the trail gets only a slight glance from Max & Zorro as they
cruise by (with a little vocal encouragement from me :)  Such good boys to "on by" a carcass!

Zoom, zoom, zoom we go!

Cool off snow angels rolled by all at our turnaround point of the day.
"I love snow!" exclaims giddy Max.
"Rub a dub dub!" states rolling Zorro.

Approaching the end of the run at still going strong after 14.8 miles - sled dog machines!

A great Siberian Husky sled dog party at Keyser Creek covering (an accidental) 14.8 miles with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 27 days on the trails covering 215.7 miles with 23,650 feet of elevation climbed.

15 Mile Day

Tuesday was a real power day: 15.1 miles, 2100 feet of elevation climbed, a top speed of 20 MPH and one potential speeding ticket - WOO!

Well, the sign says "15 MPH" as we approach a blind curve in the road.
I did not check the GPS for our exact speed, but I do know that whenever Max & Zorro are
in an "airborne sprint" (as above) then we are going well over 15 MPH and in the 20 MPH
range. Oops - good thing cops do not patrol the trails in the winter!!  :-)

Tuesday morning was a beautiful day at the Vail Pass Recreation Area. Blue skies all around and fast, packed trails for miles and miles. Vail Pass is popular with snowmobilers, so the trails were packed for speed and went as far as we wanted to go. We opted for an exhilarating 15 mile run through a range of elevations as follows:

1) Out Direction (just over 7.5 miles): 900 feet up, 600 feet down, 300 feet up, 300 feet down, 300 feet up - take a quick 3-5 minute break.
2) Back Direction: 300 feet down, 300 feet up, 300 feet down, 600 feet up (rest the human for a quick 3 minutes) and 900 feet sprint back down to the trailhead.

Sprinting along Lime Creek Rd, approaching the "15 MPH" sign at speeds
well over 15 MPH :-)
[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Most of the day was spent cruising around the trails in perfect form. Yet, every once in a while an "instigator" starts something on the trails. I refer to the source of the instigation as either the "z-stigator" (Zorro started it) or the "red-stigator" (Max started it). Typically the z-stigator starts 90% of the instigations; but now & then silly big Max will get all giddy and declare, "I'm going to mess with my brother!" - as shown below, the red-stigator:

I can just hear Max... Poke, jab with his right arm, "Hey little bro, look at this fast track,
what do you got? I'll race ya!" instigates Max with "no-back-down" Zorro who will try
to meet any challenge (even though tall Max can out sprint him on any terrain :-)

"Really? That's all you got? Catch me if you can!" toys Max with Zorro as he lunges ahead
and looks back to continue messing with his little brother...

Naturally, the instigations never last very long as the "will to go" overrides the "will to instigate" within seconds or minutes - it is just hilarious to watch the red-stigator or z-stigator start something and let it play out... But, back to professional skijoring shots:

"Hey bro - wide open fast conditions! What do you say we uncork it for some real speed!"
Max & Zorro say to one another as we crest from our initial 900 foot climb onto a fast and
flat track before hitting the upcoming sprint down a 600 foot decline.

At our midpoint break, 7.5 miles out from the Vail Pass trailhead. As you can see, the
Siberians were not sold on needing a break or deciding to turn around, "Look at the
beautiful trail continuing in front of us, why stop? Why turn around? Woo!"

Beautiful views, far reaching blue skies, wide open & packed trails as far as they eye can see!
Wow, what a perfect day for a 15 mile run!

This was our longest single run at Vail Pass - maybe next time we'll try for 16+ miles! Tally for the day: 15.1 miles, 2100 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

Breckenridge to Como

At the summit of Boreas Pass - very wind blown terrain.

The plan for the day sounded perfect - sometimes reality sucks! ;-)

We were going to start on the Breckenridge side of Boreas Pass and skijor up to the summit and then down the other side of Boreas Pass to the town of Como. This would be a 15 mile route climbing a total of 1850 feet in elevation - a fun workout for all. Skijoring from Breckenridge to Como - it sounded so perfect...

It even started perfect...

(1) The "up route" was incredible. We ascended up Boreas in about an hour and 20 minutes - 7 miles of "all up" and 1600 feet of elevation climbed. When you factor in the elevation, we were flying! Everyone was in top skijoring form!

It even started perfect on the Como side of Boreas...

(2) The first 2 miles starting down from the Boreas Summit towards Como was awesome. No existing tracks on the trail (except for the occasional fox or snowshoe hare tracks) and we were breaking trail in 8-12 inches of untouched snow for 2 miles. "This is going to be a fun, wild ride down!" I thought. Silly me...

Then disaster set in - the final 6 miles of the route to Como was a wind blown mess!

(3) Over the next 2 miles, I had to take the skis off twice and hike down as the trail had every trace of snow blown off it. We were skijoring for at most 1.5 miles of this section and hiking over exposed terrain for over 1/2 a mile. "Ugh, we want to skijor not hike!" I moaned. Little did I know...

(4) The final 4 miles to Como was horrendous! We skijored at most 2 miles in this section and had the skis off hiking over completely snowless terrain for over 2 miles. To make matters worse, it was not as simple as 2 miles of snow then 2 miles without. Instead, we had what seemed like a million short sections of snow and then short sections of no snow: repeated "on & off" of the skis and repeated hiking interruptions - never a chance to open up the "skijoring vehicle" for some downhill speed! The Como side of Boreas Pass was indeed a wind blown disaster with so much exposed terrain you would have thought it was October or May, not February.

Anyway... We did complete the entire 15 mile route with a nice 1850 feet of elevation climbed (1600 on the initial up and then 250 of occasional upswings on the way down). But, we had the skis off for about an hour of the route to hike over snowless terrain - BOO! Oh well, it was still a fun workout for all even with the extended hiking interruptions.

Vital Stats: 15 miles; 200m total time; 120m skijoring time (60m hiking time; 20m of repeated equipment "on/off" time and route planning time); 16 MPH top speed (we never had an extended down section to open up the throttle); 1850 feet of fun elevation climbed!

It was quite windy with big gusts atop Boreas Pass. Usually we stop and take
a break at the Summit. Too windy today, I just snapped a shot of the "Summit
sign" as we skied on by to get back in the cover of some trees to escape the wind.

We stopped for a quick break about 1 mile down from the Boreas Summit towards
Como. Look at this beautiful, untouched terrain in front of us! Breaking trail in
8-12 inches of snow. Little did I know we only had about 1 more mile of this pure
bliss before disaster terrain set in...

A 180 from the previous shot - looking back at our trail breaking tracks coming
down from the Summit.

At our break point - there is a squirrel in the trees in front of us. You cannot see
the small squirrel in the photo; but the "crouched hunting" posture of Max should
tell you all you need to know about what is in the trees!