Rudy 5000

Catching air as we lay fresh tracks "into the rising sun" this morning at Vail Pass!

Cool shot of the hover huskies as the morning sun is peeking
over the mountains ahead of us.

Today marked an impressive milestone. 5 year old Rudy surpassed 5,000 career skijor miles (5004.7 to be exact)! Slightly older Jack surpassed 5,000 career skijor miles last month. It really is amazing to realize that the vast majority of these miles have come in 3.5 years (as before then each was too young to run or doing baby training runs). Quite an impressive career these two professionals are putting together!

Back to today's outing. We started the day laying fresh tracks in Wilder Gulch at Vail Pass as you see in the first photo. But, about 1/3 of the way into the outing, a snowcat passed taking backcountry skiers out Wilder Gulch and then up to Ptarmigan Pass. No problem, that was our planned route too. Fresh snowcat tracks are fun to skijor in as they are soft and gentle to run and ski in. Conversely, frozen or stale snowcat tracks can be very difficult on my legs and Jack & Rudy's feet, so we abort any trail with frozen tracks. But, today's were fresh and soft - what fun!

Nice views in Wilder Gulch as Jack & Rudy share one of the 
snowcat tracks.

Sometimes the kids will share a snowcat track, as above, and sometimes they'll split the trail and take one each. The tracks are too far apart for me to put a ski in each behind them (skiing doing splits? Ouch). So, I'll put one ski in one of the tracks and the other ski in the middle powder. Come along for today's video highlight of skijoring soft snowcat tracks with Jack & Rudy choosing to take one track each. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We ascended Ptarmigan Pass behind the snowcat and then turned around to race back down. I just love this pretty shot of the kids atop Ptarmigan. Notice how the middle snow between the snowcat tracks is not too deep, so powder Jack has chosen to kick up powder in the middle while Rudy is kicking up powder in the soft cat track.

Beautiful shot of the impressive kids :)

Finally, if you ever drive Interstate 70 through Colorado and over Vail Pass, make sure you look for the crazy guy on skis behind the pretty sled dogs. If you are driving East, look right after you crest Vail Pass. If you are driving West, look left just before the crest. Honk if you see us - I'll wave if I hear you (I do hear an approving honk now & then and always wave :)

Interstate 70 to our right - honk if you see us!

Time for end of run treats for these impressive 5 year olds!

"We LOVE it!" says happy Jack.
"All in a day's work!" adds cute Rudy.

Today's skijor tally: 9.2 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 66 days on the trails covering 570.8 miles with 50,900 feet of elevation climbed.

5 year old Jack's career to date: 5,180.6 miles skijored!

(slightly younger) 5 year old Rudy's career to date: 5,004.7 miles skijored!

Jack 5000

Jack & Rudy, the "powerful, miniature reindeer" towing me to the finish in my Santa hat this Christmas morning :)

Santa would certainly accept these two in his reindeer team :)

Today marked a very impressive milestone. 5 year old Jack surpassed 5,000 career skijor miles (5,006.3 miles to be exact). Now, put that in full perspective, he has amassed the majority of these miles since turning 1.5 years old as he was a baby and growing and then doing very short training runs before that. Then, factor in some of those evil summer months without snow and he's put together an impressive 5,006.3 miles in that time! Wow Jack! Impressive!!!!

For the curious, Rudy is roughly 5 months younger than Jack and roughly 175 career miles behind Jack. So, we'll certainly have a "wooing as surpassing 5,000 miles" post for Rudy in January :)

Back to this morning's fun Christmas run. We started the day laying fresh tracks on backcountry trails as Jack & Rudy love to do:

Laying fresh tracks as the ski runs of Breckenridge Ski Resort come into
view across the valley.

We did and "out & back" in the backcountry to start the outing. So, we had a turnaround point on this leg of the outing. As impressive as Jack's 5000 miles is the fact that he has rolled at least 1 snow angel on EVERY skijor outing of his life (and often more than one). It is safe to say that Jack LOVES snow angels. Rudy loves them too, but his snow angel tally is at about 90-95% of his lifetime outings compared to Jack's 100%!

"You expected anything different?" asks goofy Jack looking back to me.
"Ah, digging my snow angel today!" adds soothing Rudy.

After our backcountry out & back, we dropped onto the groomed trails of Gold Run Nordic Center. Much to our surprise and pleasure, we were first tracks on the freshly groomed trails! From backcountry fresh tracks to groomed country first tracks, it doesn't get much better than that!!!

Flying Jack & Rudy - see, Santa would accept these flying Siberians
to join his flying reindeer.

The kids were really into being first tracks on the freshly groomed trail and FLOORING it this morning. Top speed in this skijor clip? 24 MPH. Zoom! I'm actually surprised the GPS did not clock us at 26 MPH (our usual season top speed), it sure felt that fast to me on skis!!! If your volume is up you'll hear some "whees" from me as we go over little lifts in the trail. Each "whee" from me adds more energy and juice to Jack & Rudy! :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We were going so fast, that we redid the groomed trail twice. Second pass same as the first, just swapped in position...

Second pass, switch sides, same results. Zoom!

Jack & Rudy: what an impressive pair of miniature, flying reindeer.

"We had a flying blast!" declares the happy, happy kids.

Fast, fun day: 11.1 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 47 days on the trails covering 396.5 miles with 34,200 feet of elevation climbed.

5 year old Jack's skijor career to date: 5006.3 miles and counting! Go Jack Go!