Perfect Day!

Upper sections of Indiana Creek, before connecting with
Boreas Pass Rd. About 15-18 inches deep here, and getting
deeper! We are about to switch to single file skijoring as it
gets deeper than Zorro.

Last night delivered some high quality snow to the Colorado High Country - today delivered a perfect skijoring outing for Max, Zorro & I. The highlights:

(1) No tracks for the first 7.6+ miles of our outing. We were breaking trail for 7.6 miles straight!

(2) Untouched powder as deep as 20+ inches (deeper than Zorro). We had to switch to single file skijoring for a while to use Max's snow stilts (long legs) to break trail with Zorro riding in behind Max.

(3) 4+ inches of untouched powder for the first 7.6 miles (the majority with 6-20 inches). Now that is a Siberian Workout!

(4) Perfect Siberian temperatures, around 3 degrees when we started (and dropping as we went up in elevation) and only about 12 degrees when we finished. Max & Zorro will tell you that is perfect conditions for hauling me around the backcountry.

Max & Zorro's take on the outing? Perfect! We were skijoring for about 1h 50m straight through all this deep trail breaking when I stopped for a quick break to text Nancy where/when we'd be finishing. Both Max & Zorro showed *no* sign that they'd been running, with long stretches of deep deep snow, for almost 2 hours! They just wanted to strap back up and sprint the last 15 minutes of our route!

The Route: (1) Indiana Creek winter trailhead and up & out to connect to Boreas Pass Rd; (2) Down Boreas Pass Rd until Bakers Tank; (3) Up Bakers Tank trail until taking a right to connect from Boreas Mountain to Baldy Mountain; (4) Up Baldy until connecting with Forest Service Rd 5281B; (5) Up FR5281B until hitting the high point of this trail and then sprinting down FR5281B and Baldy Mtn Rd to the Baldy Mtn Rd winter trailhead. Note that the majority of this route was "up" - given the difference in elevation between our starting/ending points, we spent about 2/3 the distance in the "up direction" and only 1/3 of the distance in the "down direction". So, breaking trail uphill 2/3 of the route - and neither Siberian showed any sign of tiring!

Vital Stats: 9.1 miles; 135m total time; 126m skijoring time; 21 MPH top speed; 1600 feet of elevation gain; breaking trail in 6-20 inches of untouched powder for more than 80% of the trail!

Extreme trail breaking. The route is straight as Max & Zorro are aligned and
then a gentle right up through the opening in the trees. A bit after taking this
gentle right, the snow got "deeper than Zorro", so we had to switch to single
file skijoring to use Max's long legs to break trail for Zorro and I.

Pretty shot of the snow covered trees all around us where we took a quick break.

Another pretty snow shot. You can see a couple of the ski runs on Breckenridge
Ski Resort off in the distance.

542 miles in 2011

High up on Boreas Pass Rd - nice deep snow. We just
finished our quick break and the Siberians are raring to go!

Today was our last skijoring outing of 2011. What did we accomplish for the year? Well, between Jan-May 2011 (of the 2010/2011 season) and Oct-Dec of this 2011/2012 season:

1) Days on the trail in 2011: 68.
2) Miles skijored in 2011: 542.7 - Woo!

2011 was a good year, just ask Max & Zorro.

Today's outing started a little on the slow side. We did an intense 9 miles with trail breaking and almost 1800 feet of elevation climbed yesterday; and Max & Zorro clearly started out pacing themselves for another intense day. I had a much easier route planned, but still let them set their comfortable pace. About 1.5 miles into the outing and the "pace" took a 180...

Cruising uphill on Baldy Mountain, a snowshoe hare popped out of a cluster of bushes and sprinted parallel with our trail. The silly rabbit was only about 10 feet off the trail and not very far in front of us. He sprinted parallel with the trail for maybe 10-15 yards before disappearing deep off into the woods. The Siberians, you wonder - BOOM, pedal to the metal! We broke out into a sprint for that 10-15 yards and then a dive off the trail. It took all my strength to reel them back onto the trail by the gangline. We then had a short discussion about "forward" and "stay on the trail" and I was able to get the hare focused pair going forward again. But, our pace was now changed from "pace yourself for a long day" to "bunny alert, pace yourself for rabbit food!" The next 6-7 miles of our outing was run with the Siberians on "bunny alert". See for yourself and watch the video below of our final approach to the Boreas Pass winter trailhead - we are flying!

Today's Route: (1) Start at the Baldy Mountain Rd winter trailhead and skijor up Baldy until intersecting with Forest Service Road 5281B; (2) Take FR5281B up & across the front side of Baldy Mtn until taking a side trail to connect us to Bakers Tank trail on Boreas Mtn; (3) Skijor up Bakers Tank trail until intersecting with Boreas Pass Rd; (4) Sprint up Boreas Pass Rd for about a 1.5 miles before taking a break in some nice deep snow; (5) Turnaround and sprint all the way down Boreas Pass Rd to the Boreas winter trailhead.

Vital Stats: 8.2 miles; 92m total time; 72m skijoring time; 22 MPH top speed; 800 feet of elevation gain.

The 20 minutes of "stoppage" - well, my darned phone was acting up again. I intended to text Nancy when we were 40 minutes from our end point. I ended up having to stop about every 10 minutes to try and get a text to go through (they kept failing) - so, 4 stops to take off the glove, dork with the phone and hope for a successful text. Argh... "Why is this dumb phone is causing such interruptions in our downhill sprints!?!" signed, Max & Zorro.

Near the start point on Baldy Mountain - quite a difference in snow depth when
compared to the first photo above with us in deep snow high up on Boreas!

"Here little bunny, come this way. Nothing but us gentle huskies on the trail."

"I love deep snow!" signed Max.

"I love burying my head in deep snow!" signed Zorro.

9 Trails in One

Back home after our extreme, crazy outing. Look who's
not tired!!! Silly Max glancing at the camera, "Well that
was fun, now what?" The human, on the other hand,
is exhausted!

Today is my birthday and Max & Zorro decided to give me an extreme skijoring outing as a present.

Extreme would have been nice, it turned out to be an ultra-extreme, exhausting & crazy outing!  Thanks guys ;-)

Our goal was to do a 10+ mile tour and stay at elevations over 10,500 for as much as the way as possible. Why 10,500? Well, elevations at/above 10,500 is where the snow is best. Below this, the trails are worn over and in need of some fresh snow.

How did we accomplish this goal? By connecting 9 different backcountry trails. Each trail by itself is an "outing" - how did I let these two talk me into doing 9???

The Route: (1) up Sally Barber Mine trail [packed/moderate]; (2) up Nightmare on Baldy [packed/difficult]; (3) across Baldy Mtn [packed/easy]; (4) up Forest Service Rd 5281B [powder/moderate]; (5) break trail up unnamed trail to hop from FR5281B to Bakers Tank trail [deep powder/difficult]; (6) up Bakers Tank trail [packed/moderate]; (7) up Boreas Pass Rd [packed/moderate]; (8) break trail, via the path to Dyersville ghost town, down to connect to Indiana Creek [deep powder/difficult]; (9) sprint down Indiana Creek trail to the Indiana Creek winter trailhead [packed/easy].

That's 9 different trails with 3 extremely difficult sections sprinkled throughout the route. All the moderate sections - well, those were all uphill. Suffice it to say that I am beat. Boy do Max & Zorro know how to throw a wild birthday bash!

Vital Stats: 11.1 miles; 135m total time; 115m skijoring time (20m of breaks and studying the GPS for route alignment); 21 MPH top speed; 1350 feet of elevation gain.

We just broke trail out of Dyersville ghost town and onto the Indiana Creek
trail - Max is lined up and ready to sprint down this last leg. The 3 of us classify
this as an "easy" trail, so if it looks hard to you, then imagine what we traversed
on the other 8 legs of our outing!

Same view as above, but a different husky in the photo. Zorro is now ready to
sprint down the last leg, Max is getting one last "sniff" in the deep powder to
the left before rejoining Zorro on the trail for the final sprint.

A fun "takeoff video" at the Sally Barber trailhead.