Bird

Cresting on the trail at the historic Sallie Barber Mine this morning.

Zipping on by the mine. Wheeee!

We had a blast skijoring up the frontside of the mine trail, then down & back up the backside of the mine before finishing down the frontside. The backside is usually pretty quiet and Jack & Rudy love to floor it along this stretch of trail:

Zooming along the quieter backside of Sallie Barber.

For today's extra entertainment, check out the following photo. Look straight up from Jack's right ear and that black blob against the snow is a bird crossing the trail ahead of us. This bird was either very brave or very suicidal. If it had crossed any closer to Jack & Rudy it would have become bird food! Notice the ears up and full attention Jack & Rudy are giving this potential bird food :)

"Bird food dead ahead! It's flying at 'mouth level'!!!" declares the
focused hunters.

Now come along for the video of the bird crossing. We start the clip cresting on the trail at historic Sallie Barber Mine and then continuing along. But, watch very closely at about 18 seconds into this clip. You'll see a bird fly low across the trail in front of us. Notice how aerodynamic Rudy's ears are tucked against his head to start the clip, but his ears come up at about 17 seconds (this would be when he first detected the bird) and remain up until we get by where the bird crossed (that is Rudy hunting). But, once past the bird crossing, he tucks his ears back in for fast aerodynamics. Funny kid!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The frontside of Sallie Barber Mine is a very popular trail, so we often get the chance to flirt with and fly on by oncoming skiers. Love to put smiles on everyone's faces :)

"Hi! Bye! Made you smile!" says cruising on by Jack & Rudy.

Another great skijor outing, another end of run treat powwow at the trailhead :)

"Do we get that bird for treats today?" asks curious Rudy.
"Yea, how about bird food for end of run treats today?" suggests Jack.

Sallie Barber is one of our shorter outings by Jack & Rudy's standards, but still a ton of fun to skijor now & then: 7.4 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 98 days on the trails covering 862.0 miles with 79,200 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Klutz

What a beautiful shot of fresh tracks Jack & Rudy hovering over the trail this morning!

Awesome terrain, awesome sled dogs! Wheeee!

We did an "out & back" on this seldom used service road tucked away in the backcountry. The trail conditions were incredible and, since the trail is also a service road, we were able to lay fresh tracks out and back each side of the trail. So, the tracks you see in the prior and next photo are our own tracks. What a perfect stretch of terrain!

Hovering in the prior photo and flying in this photo. Zoom!

Come along for the "fresh tracks fun ride" and witness the Corner Klutz (that would be ME) almost lose it for no reason other than being a klutz! About 20s into the video and I overcorrect for the upcoming corner in the trail and almost send myself into a snowbank! What a klutz! But, watch as I do recover from my mistake and get back in line with perfect Jack & Rudy. At least I was only a partial klutz and didn't wipe myself out :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

But, wait, if the tracks to the left in the video are our own out tracks, then what is up with the Jack & Rudy tracks drifting off trail twice (around 30s and 33s in the clip)? Well, this is well known moose territory. So, if your nose catches the scent of moose, you must step off trail to scan the trees for the big smelly creatures!

Only the scent of moose can pull Jack & Rudy off trail like this!
Despite their intensity, we did not see any moose.

What other fun did we have this morning?

Well, I got some nice partial views of the ski runs of Breckenridge Ski Resort across the valley from us multiple times:

Nice partial view of Breckenridge Ski Resort ahead of us.

Ok, fun views for the human. How about Jack & Rudy? Well, how about coming across a large collection of bird feathers scattered around the trail? All the little black objects you see in the next photo are scattered feathers. The scattering spread for about 2-3 times the distance you see in the photo and many of the feathers were still red with bird blood. Some poor bird caught and untimely meeting with a fox or coyote in the past few hours! Luckily (for me) and unluckily (for Jack & Rudy), the body belonging to the feathers had been carried off by the fox or coyote!

"Fresh black feathers with red sauce! Yum!" says the silly kids :)

Since we didn't find any meat to go along with the feathers, we might as well have 'end of run' pork treats with retired mentor Zorro instead:

"You have our full attention!" declares the focused trio.

Great morning with a really fun "fresh tracks" run for part of the outing: 8.8 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 86 days on the trails covering 709.0 miles with 66,600 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Excitement

Lots of excitement on the trail this morning. From great terrain to birds to moose - oh my!

Cruising along the perfect trail in upper French Gulch. Beautiful!

Guess who was ready to go from the time he got out of the jeep at the trailhead?

"Wooooo - let's goooo!" exclaims impatient Max.
"I'm ready & steady!" states all-business Zorro.

We were cruising along the trail when all of a sudden we flushed 3 white birds from under the snow! The presence of bird food was exciting for all!

I have circled the 3 birds in the photo above. Follow the dotted line to the location where the
birds popped out of the snow! You could not see them in the GoPro footage until this shot where
they have a dark background. But, all three of us saw all three of them pop out of the snow
right next to us! Exciting!

Done with bird food and time to find a moose...

Notice the moose tracks intersecting the trail. Max & Zorro sniffed the tracks and then suddenly
rose to attention in the photo above. I followed their stare and sure enough we saw a large female
moose sauntering across the trail ahead! As usual, the moose is camouflaged and just far enough
away to not really show in the photo. But, believe me, we all saw it!!!

Up the trail a bit further and I let Max & Zorro follow the next moose track crossing the trail into the woods. I only allowed us to go about 10 yards as I could see no moose were still there. But the tracks and scent were still VERY fresh!

"We know you were just here! Come back!" declare the intense moose pair.
Notice Max's long tail dangling in the moose post hole.

Perfect terrain to birds to moose - what a day!

"We had a GREAT time!" declare the happy pair at a quick pause on the outing.

8.4 fun miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 55 days on the trails covering 467.2 miles with 495400 feet of elevation climbed.

Bird Food

We almost bagged a pheasant on the trail today. Almost....

Laying fresh tracks in the morning's new snow covering a snowmobile track.

Most of the day looked like the previous photo as we found a snowmobile track to lead us deep into the forest. There was about an inch of new snow on the track, so it was laying fresh tracks as we wound our way through the forest - such a serene outing!

The highlight of the day, though, was nearly bagging a pheasant hiding in the snow just off the trail. Below is the video footage of our near miss in catching fresh bird food. The video is in slow motion as the actual event transpired in under 2 seconds and it is much more fun to watch slowed down!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Ok, now for a little captioning on frames from the previous video:

Trotting along as both heads start to peek to the left as something is drawing their attention...

"Whoa - fresh BIRD FOOD!" exclaim astonished Max & Zorro putting on the brakes as the
pheasant pops out of the snow!

"Get the BIRD FOOD!" lunge the hunting pair. The pheasant is hard to see with the tree
in the background, so I have circled it above.

Love the look on Zorro's face...
"Wow, did a bird really just pop out of the snow right here?" asks fascinated Zorro.
"Where'd it go? Where did it go?" asks Max scanning the air for their near miss.

A somewhat steep & peaceful route through the forest today with an action packed 2 seconds of almost bagging a pheasant: 7.8 miles traveled with 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 40 days on the trails covering 336.4 miles with 35500 feet of elevation climbed.

Juiced Day

Today's outing involved two competing factors: wildlife to juice the Siberians versus complex terrain with deep snow. The juice won...

Breaking trail in the lower meadow of Indiana Creek - wheeee!

Today was our first outing of the 2013/2014 season to Indiana Creek. There is a wonderful network of trails around this area but you have to cross the creek a few times in order to get any real distance. So, it is generally the December timeframe when the temperatures have cooled enough to put a layer of ice over the creek to make it passable. We were delighted to find the creek frozen enough to cross and even more delighted to find an array of wildlife to juice the Siberian engine...

We are in the lower elevations of one of our favorite trails paralleling Indiana Creek and there
were MOOSE TRACKS all over the place! All the indentations you see in the snow in this photo
are MOOSE TRACKS! Encountering moose tracks always adds a little gusto to the Siberians.

FRESH WILD BIRD!!!! This suicidal bird took off from the low branch of this tree just seconds
before becoming Siberian Lunch! It is right there in front of us and a tad to the right as it flies
away. It escaped by about 1-2 seconds; but it did serve to add even more juice to my already
"moose juiced" partners.

Complex & deep terrain. We were in 4-8 inches of snow all day but the Siberians were moving
like we were on flat & groomed trails - wildlife juiced!

Given the terrain and amounts of snow to plow through, it was amazing that we had one of our fastest runs at Indiana Creek. Moose tracks plus bird temptations adds a lot of power to the engine.

Something about this old abandoned cabin in Indiana Creek fascinates Zorro.
Today we see moose tracks leading up towards the cabin! "No wonder the cabin fascinates
me - MOOSE LIVE THERE!" exclaims intensely focused Zorro (& Max).

A great first day of the season at Indiana Creek covering 8.1 miles with 950 feet of elevation gain and a lot of wildlife to put the Siberians into an extra gear!

Yum

"Yum, Fresh Bird Food!" Zorro, 07/20/2012...

Taking a quick break in the shade at an old abandoned cabin high up on Baldy Mountain.

Jogging along the trail to True Romance Mine, having a great time... "What's that off in the bushes? Hey, a baby bird!!!" exclaims Zorro. Dive off the trail, land in a bush, and pull out a yummy baby bird - performs Zorro.

"Whoa, get that out of his mouth - I want half!" declares Max. "What??? Wait! No, why are you kicking the carcass off the trail - that's fresh food!" gasps Max.

Total Damage Done: Zorro pulled a baby bird out of a bush along the trail. I believe it was a Quail, but hard to tell by the time I got to view it. As I pulled it by the tail out of his mouth and onto the ground, it was missing its head and one wing (and Zorro was happily swallowing those parts). To Max's dismay, I then kicked the remaining carcass off the trail before we started off running again.

Today's Trail Running Route: (1) Start at Carter Park in Breckenridge; (2) Jog up to Sally Barber Mine; (3) Hang a right and jog up to the True Romance Mine (eating 1/2 a bird along the way); (4) Hang another right and jog up to an unnamed mine high up on the north face of Baldy Mountain; (5) Connect onto the main Baldy Mtn trail and run down to the Baldy Road Trailhead.

The "True Romance Mine" marker. In the winter all traces of the mine are covered
by snow and this marker is all that is visible.

Dipping our heads into one of the old mine shafts at True Romance Mine. What are
we mining for, you ask? Gold? Silver? No... Furry Creatures! Now that would be
a Siberian Treasure!

The last, unnamed mine on today's route. It was a steep jog up 1700 feet to get
to this high point.