Cautious to Speeding

Flying to the finish on this morning's fast skijor with smiles all around!

Wheeee!!!!! Such happy kids!

It was "ends of the spectrum" for conditions on this morning's outing. We started in the backcountry and found the trails to be quite slick and icy. Luckily, Jack & Rudy automatically know to proceed cautiously on such conditions. So, it was a gentle jog through the backcountry to start the outing.

Gentle going on slick & icy conditions.

Then, we transitioned onto the groomed trails at Gold Run Nordic Center. What did we find? We were FIRST on the freshly groomed upper loop at the nordic center. What did Jack & Rudy think of the fresh groom? Well, BOOM! Oh my, they were flooring it on the groomie zoomie after being so good and gentle for me on the slick backcountry trails.

Flying on the freshly groomed nordic trail! Zoom!

How much did they appreciate getting on the nordic trails and being able to go full throttle? Well, 25 MPH worth of appreciation as that is the top speed the GPS registered us hitting this morning. Come along for a glimpse into the fast & wild ride as Jack & Rudy topped 25 MPH during this stretch of the outing. Hang on human!!!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We were going so fast that we did the upper nordic loop twice - first tracks on the first pass and second tracks (to ourselves) on the second pass. Finally, we transitioned onto the mani nordic trail to skijor back to the trailhead. While not first tracks on the main trail, we were third as only two skate skiers had been on this trail before us. Third tracks on a recent groom is still groomie zoomie conditions :)

The hover huskies catching air on the main trail as you can see two
sets of skate skis tracks on the trail before us.

What did Jack & Rudy think of the fresh groom?

"So fun, so fast! Need to roll and cool my jets!" declares snow rolling Jack.
"I approooooooooooooove!" woos signing Rudy.

Finally, back to the trailhead for some well earned end of run treats:

"We had a GREAT time today!" declares the happy, happy kids.

From cautious backcountry skijoring to full speed nordic skijoring all in the same outing: 9.3 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 25 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 109 days on the trails covering 932.1 miles with 91,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Repeat

Beautiful morning to "catch air" skijoring atop the solid spring crust at Vail Pass!

xx

We had so much fun yesterday skijoring Vail Pass that we returned again this morning. As I mentioned yesterday, we are getting into that time of year where the only snow left to skijor is on the high mountain passes in Colorado. Well, Vail Pass is one such high mountain pass, so we'll be using it as much as possible while the snow holds up.

But, the change in conditions near the trailhead from yesterday to today was quite shocking. Oh those warm melting afternoons we've been having! Getting in and out of this morning's skijor required a lot of careful navigation through shrubbery starting to poke through the snowpack. Good thing Jack & Rudy listen so well!

Yikes! Shrubbery!!!!! But, Jack & Rudy nicely following
my verbal commands to weave through the weeds.

Yet, once you get through the shrubbery down low, you see why we did it. Compare and contrast the prior and following photo of the conditions down low versus the conditions up high. Amazing difference!

Winding through the shrubbery to get to this up high
was well worth it!!! Wheeee!

Come along for today's fun video highlight. We start out flying along the perfect crust and then eventually transition into a ravine to fly through. So much fun up higher where the conditions are still incredible!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Today's "non skijoring" entertainment from the silly kids, Jack & Rudy: snow angels with a view :)

Pausing to roll snow angels nice mountain
views in the foreground.

Done for the day, time to celebrate with our favorite retired gentleman, Zorro!

"Ready!" declares focused Zorro.
"Patiently waiting our turn!" adds sweet Jack & Rudy.

Two days in a row getting in some really nice skijoring high up on Vail Pass. Today's tally: 9.6 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 151 days on the trails covering 1234.2 miles with 105,700 feet of elevation climbed.

Contrast

 Such focus from the handsome trio for 'end of run' treats this morning!

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

We spent the morning skijoring around Sally Barber Mine with a little bit of fresh snow on the trails. The outing had a couple of fun compare and contrast moments.

First "compare & contrast" - we started the outing with patchy cloud cover and intermittent sun.

Flying along in partial morning sun.

Contrast the prior photo with the following. We ended the morning's run with snowfall developing all around us. Yay for snow!

Big snowflake up & left of Rudy. You can also make out more
snowflakes against the trees.

Today's video highlight? Jack & Rudy flying along as we are second tracks on the back side of Sally Barber Mine. Look closely and you can see the single fat bike track that was on the trail before us. Use Rudy as your guide to locating the fat bike track as he likes to run in the track. Jack, on the other hand, prefers to run in "out of track" powder if it is not too deep to keep pace. Powder Jack :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Now, on to the best "compare and contrast" of the morning. We were cruising along when Rudy launched into one of his patented "high arching rodent swan dives" off trail to search for rodents under the snow:

Beautiful high arching from from Rudy!
"Hey bro, nice form!" says onlooking Jack.

A high arching swan dive means leads to great momentum to dive for rodents :)

"Incoming with serious momentum!" demonstrates talented Rudy.
"Whoa! I need to participate!" declares 'preparing to dive' Jack.

Now we get to contrast Rudy's high arching dives with Jack's low angle lunges. This is Jack's version of a rodent dive. It is still very effective as he gets enough lift to plunge into the snow; but Rudy really has the art of rodent diving down to perfection!

Incoming from Jack the "low angle" rodent lunger.
"DUNK!" from Rudy as you see the result of his high arching dive :)

Partial sun to active snowfall. High arching rodent dives to low angle rodent lunges. A fun day of compare  and contrast: 8.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 105 days on the trails covering 858.2 miles with 74,400 feet of elevation climbed.

Repeat

La-la-land Rudy seemed to forget about 'end of run' treats :)

"Ready!" announces focused Zorro & Jack.
"La la, huh? What 'end of run' treats?" says la-la-land Rudy.

Due to various appointments, we only had time for a short skijor yesterday and a short one this morning. Plus, I was too busy yesterday to get a blog update from yesterday morning's run. So, today you get yesterday and today's skijors put together.

What is fun is to compare & contrast yesterday to today given that we did basically the same trails. We started each day with the kids, Jack & Rudy, skijoring up, over and down the Sally Barber Mine Trail. We then completed each day by adding Zorro once we reached the French Gulch Trailhead.

There was about 2-3 inches of fresh snow yesterday morning. It then continued to snow lightly all day yesterday. While it never snowed very heavy, 24 hours of light snow can really add up. Compare and contrast the conditions in the following photo. The left is laying fresh tracks in 2-3 inches yesterday while the right is breaking trail in 10+ inches today!!!

Freshies to the left and breaking trail to the right.
What a difference 24 hours made on the Sally Barber Mine Trail!

On Wednesday, we met up with Zorro and noticed that French Gulch Road had been only 1/2 plowed. Then meant there was a nice shoulder for me to ski on 1/2 the road. So, as a treat we skijored French Gulch Road giving Zorro the easy plow surface with Jack, Rudy and I rode in the side powder.

Flying Z on the plowed road with powder Jack & Rudy on the shoulder with me.

Even though we got a lot of snow in the last 24 hours, the plow beat us to both sides of the road today. So, we couldn't skijor French Gulch Road and tried the French Gulch Trail instead. Unfortunately there was a very narrow single track on the trail and it is pretty hard for a 3 pack to fit in or share a single track. The out of track snow was too deep for the 'out of track' brother to keep pace with the 'in track brother(s)':

Zorro flying 'in track' with Rudy really trying to fit with him. Jack, meanwhile,
is in very deep powder 'out of track'.

As a result, we only did a short run in French Gulch and then tried the road once more. I rode in the shoulder as best as I could until I couldn't keep balance with my 'in road' partners any longer:

Sled dogs in the packed/plowed road with the human trying
to keep pace in the deep shoulder.

Today's video fun is Jack & Rudy laying fresh tracks near Sally Barber Mine yesterday while light snowfall is coming down around us. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Finally, you knew there had to be at least one comedic moment from the kids across two days of skijoring. The "dunk & dive" brothers:

"Dunk - where are the rodents?" asks rodent dunking Jack.
"Incoming!!!!" demonstrates rodent diving Rudy.

Two days of quick runs showing the difference in snow 24 hours can produce!

Wednesday: 5.6 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

Thursday: 4.6 miles traveled with 300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 75 days on the trails covering 513.6 miles with 48,300 feet of elevation climbed.