Rudy 8000

7 year old Rudy surpassed 8,000 career skijor miles yesterday morning! Impressive!

"And I've been singing for 8000 miles too!" adds proudly wooing Rudy.

Rudy's skijor career to date is the following: 1034 days on the trails covering 8000.3 miles with 742,100 feet of elevation climbed. Consider that most of this has happened since he was 1.5 years old and that is quite an impressive career he has strung together. For the curious, 5 month older Jack surpassed 8,000 career miles himself earlier this season.

Back to yesterday's outing. It was another fun tour around the top of Rabbit Ears Pass. But, the signs of summer are really starting to come through - boo!

There was lots of breakup in open meadows:

Yikes, the snow caving in to Jack's right with more exposed water
to Rudy's left.

There was lots of dirty snow in heavily wooded sections of trail:

Look at all that "tree debris" covering our otherwise beautiful white snow!

There were lots of narrow stretches with views of "no snow" at elevations below us.

Cruising along a narrow stretch with views of snow bare lower elevations
of Colorado to our right.

But, what did remain constant with the comedians was rolling snow angels to cool off at our turnaround point:

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

Which deteriorating condition to feature in today's video highlight? How about gliding along behind Jack & Rudy in the tree debris covered snow amongst thick trees. Sure, it's not pretty snow, but it is toes on snow in mid-May, we'll take that any day!!!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Another constant, along with rolling snow angels, was still finding snow walls to climb for end of run treats. Despite heavy melting, the kids can still find a wall to scale!

"If there is a snow wall, we'll find it and climb it!' declares the happy
kids getting up to my level for end of run treats.

Yesterday's tally: 9 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed with a top speed of 22 MPH and passing 8,000 career skijor miles for impressive 7 year old Rudy. Yay!

2024/2025 Season to Date: 106 days on the trails covering 810.7 miles with 80,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack 8000

7 year old Jack surpassed 8,000 career skijor miles this morning! Impressive!

"And I have THOROUGHLY enjoyed EVERY mile of it!" states proud Jack.

Jack's skijor career to date is the following: 1042 days on the trails covering 8001.1 miles with 740,850 feet of elevation climbed! Consider that most of this happened since he was 1.5 years old and that is quite an impressive career he has strung together and continues. For the curious, younger Rudy is about 176 career miles behind Jack; so he should reach his 8000 career miles this season too :)

Now back to today's fun outing. With fresh snow, we decided to skijor the Sallie Barber Mine Trail. To our amazement, we were first tracks in the new snow on this popular trail:

First tracks in the 2-3 inches of fresh snow to start the outing.

As usual, we climbed to the mine to start the outing and, as usual, the silly kids had to stop, drop and roll snow angels to reward themselves for the initial climb:

Jack getting some serious powder flying around him as he rolls an angel
while Rudy is cooling himself gently.

Another note about Jack's career: he has rolled at least one snow angel on EVERY skijor outing of his life (and often more than one). That's 1042 straight outings rolling snow angels. He is such a snow rolling nut! Funny side story - when Jack was young he almost missed rolling a snow angel on one outing. I was skijoring with him and Zorro (Rudy was too young to come along yet) and made a final turn to return to the trailhead to complete the day. Jack had not yet rolled a snow angel on this particular outing. But, when he saw the trailhead (knowing we were about done), he realized he had not got his snow angel in yet. What did he do? Well, he dropped right in front of me to roll before ending the outing. I almost ran over the silly cracker Jack! Since that outing, Jack has NEVER come close to finishing a run without getting his snow angel roll registered :) 

Back to today, next we decided to skijor down and back up the backside of Sallie Barber Mine. What a great decision, it was magical on the backside! Come along and watch the fun in today's video highlight. After we round a right turn in the trail, watch the magic unfold as we get into an open straightaway with tons of wind blown snow drifts to blast through. So impressive to watch Jack & Rudy blast through powder!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Here are some fun still shots from that video:

Blasting through a stretch of deep powder!

And another:

Powering through a powder cache along a slight rise in the trail. Fun!

After doing the backside of the mine trail, it was time to return down the front. As usual, Jack & Rudy always fly by the mine on pass two (versus rolling snow angels on pass one):

Zipping along in the tracks we set on the first pass by the mine.

Fun day with some surprise deep powder caches, right guys?

"Yes! We had a blast blasting through deep snow!" says the happy kids.

Today's tally: 7.3 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed with a top speed of 22 MPH and passing 8000 career skijor miles for impressive 7 year old Jack! Yay!

2024/2025 Season to Date: 79 days on the trails covering 619.2 miles with 58,800 feet of elevation climbed.