Late March Freshies

It was a beautiful day to lay fresh tracks in 2-4 inches of new snow on the trails at Swan Valley!

A beautiful morning to lay fresh tracks all outing long!

My partners have a pretty extensive vocabulary - ranging from "stop" to "go", "easy" to "fast", "left" and "right", etc, etc. But here's a new one to them:

"Caution? Hmmm, never heard of that -we'll take it to mean GO!" say the sprinting trio
throwing caution to the wind as we fly along the trail :)

We found ourselves laying fresh tracks on the trails all morning long. The only other tracks we encountered were our own from doing an "out & back" on various trails. Come along as we zoom along the trail laying fresh tracks to the right and you can see our "other direction" fresh tracks to the left. Fun day!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Love this fast action shot. Jack really is a tad bigger than Zorro and not that much smaller than Rudy; but he looks like a tiny bowling ball in this shot :)

Flying Zorro, running Rudy and bowling ball Jack!

Two things typically happen on the trails at Swan Valley. First, we usually encounter other dog sled teams to flirt with on the trails. Second, we often encounter moose on or nearby the trails. I paused to see if I could hear dog sled teams or find a moose. Well, I paused, so....

"You stop, I roll!" demonstrates goofy snow rolling Jack.
"Searching for sled dogs, searching for moose!" declares intense Zorro.
"I'm just a happy young guy!" adds cute Rudy.

While we failed to have an encounter with either sled dogs or moose, we did have fun laying fresh tracks all morning long. A satisfying outing for everyone?

"YES! We'll take Late March Freshies any day!!!" declare the happy trio.

Fresh snow to ourselves all morning long: 6.3 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 85 days on the trails covering 468.5 miles with 42,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Caution

A fast day with a few inches of new powder on the snowmobile trails in & around French Gulch!

It is hard to read the orange sign we are passing to the left - it says CAUTION.
Hmm, skijoring with 2 sled dogs... I've often thought of pasting a permanent "caution sign"
on  my forehead :-)

We looped around the French Gulch area by following a network of snowmobile trails. The fresh snow overnight made the trails perfect for a fast skijoring outing....

About 2 inches of fresh snow on an existing track winding through the trees.

A nice video clip of an "uphill skijoring sprint". Not many people get to experience

"skiing uphill without trying" - so much fun!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Not everything was wide & established tracks all day. Here we are in some deep snow
taking a narrow connector between 2 sections of trail.

Zorro says, "Great day! Do we have to go back???"

Tally for today's outing: 8.1 miles, 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH. Woo!