Blame

Jack & Rudy wondering why we turned around "early" on this morning's skijor...

"Why are we turning around? Who's to blame?" asks the silly kids.

I tried to remind Jack & Rudy "why" we had a shorter than usual skijor outing this morning. The reason, you ask? Well, it was -13 (F) when we woke up this morning. We kept staring at the thermometer, waiting for the temps to rise; but it was a slow, slow warmup. We finally gave up and hit the trails in the single digits below zero. With such cold, I made the decision we'd do a short run. Did Jack & Rudy buy into my explanation of the "sooner than usual" turnaround? Nope! :)

"No, it's YOUR fault!" declares Jack to Rudy.
"I dare you to say that to my face!" responds Rudy :)

Oh well, I tried to explain to them how cold it was for the wimpy human...

Despite the injustice of the "shorter than usual" skijor, the conditions were wonderful for our teeny tiny outing. See for yourself:

Great conditions as we zoom around a right bend in the trail.

How about a great video clip from the morning fun? Come along for a skijor minute on the Otter Slide Trail at Breckenridge Nordic Center. Does it look like the injustice Jack & Rudy claimed happened this morning?!?!?

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to thaw the human and dish out 'end of run' treats with retired mentor Zorro:

"Silly kids, ALL outings are great outings!" declares mature Zorro.
"Well, ok, we DID have fun; but still, 'so short'!" adds the silly kids.

I'm happy to report that I am thawed and frostbite free, see my decision for a 'shorter than usual' skijor was justified! 5.8 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 107 days on the trails covering 896.0 miles with 84,700 feet of elevation climbed.

Talk

 Hehe - a little comical trash talk between the kids on the trail this morning :)

"You talking to ME?!?!?" asserts Rudy.
"Yeah, I AM talking to you!!!!" responds Jack :)

Aside from the trash talk incident, we had a very energetic skijor on Baldy Mountain, across Baldy to Boreas and on Boreas Mountain this morning. We were able to experience the full range of conditions in one skijor! Come along for the highlights.

It was a fast warmup lap on popular Baldy Mountain as the kids topped 22 MPH cruising the packed trails:

Zipping along! Zoom!

It was then a surprising trail breaking trip between Baldy and Boreas on backcountry connector trails. I expected these backcountry trails to be packed and narrow but, instead, we found many stretches of untouched snow to break trail! Here we are plowing through the deep snow as we exit the backcountry onto Boreas at historic Baker's Tank:

Jack plowing along as Rudy is doing dolphin leaps through the
deep snow. Impressive powder kids!

Once on Boreas, we had another surprise - laying fresh tracks in about 2 inches of new snow. It is rare to be first tracks on popular Boreas! What a day of fun surprises.

New snow on Boreas all to ourselves. Wheeee!

Today's video highlight is back to the fast fun on Baldy. Come along and watch as Jack & Rudy top 22 MPH towing me along the fast packed trail on Baldy Mountain.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun way to earn your 'end of run' treats with elder Zorro:

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

The full range of conditions today as we skijored 9.3 miles with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 81 days on the trails covering 650.6 miles with 57,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Lesson

Nice view of "trail breaking tracks" behind Jack & Rudy and morning fog on the mountains of Breckenridge Ski Resort across the valley.

Breaking trail for the kids. Nice view for me :)

We gave Zorro most of the outing off today as I took Jack & Rudy on the complex backcountry trails on Baldy Mountain. This was Rudy's first skijor on Baldy and Jack's 4th (but his first without Zorro).

The kids got a valuable lesson today. Sometimes, deep in the backcountry, the set trail is only one Siberian Husky wide while the snow outside of the set track is extremely deep. As a result, you have to skijor single file. If you try to go side-by-side, either half your body is in snow too deep or one brother is in track while the other cannot keep pace in the deep snow out of track. It took a little bit of work and encouragement from me, but eventually the youngsters "got it" - simply go single file and you can actually go surprisingly fast!

Sprinting Rudy behind Jack as we go surprisingly fast in a single file configuration.

Of course, everyone wanted to be the "brother in front" at first. This lead to an unapproved discussion between the kids when we first started learning single file skijoring. But, I was impressed that only one such unapproved trail discussion broke out - pretty good for the first time :)

"I WANT to go first!" says Jack to Rudy.
"No! Let's play instead!" responds Rudy.

After I intervened in the unapproved discussion, we all got going and did a perfect single file skijor for many miles. Jack took lead about 75% of the time and Rudy took lead the other 25%. This is exactly what I hoped would happen as Jack has more "lead dog" tendencies than Rudy.

Eventually we got onto the more popular trails on Baldy. At this point there was a set track in the middle with shallow powder out of track. If the powder is shallow, Jack will typically run in the side powder and let Rudy (or Zorro & Rudy) have the set track. We call him Powder Jack for his love of the side powder when it is shallow enough to keep pace:

Powder Jack on the right with in track Rudy on the left.

Today's video highlight goes with the prior photo. Come along as Rudy is running in the set track while Jack happily takes the side powder which is shallow enough for him to keep pace. Powder Jack.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We stopped once to turn around and, well, we stopped...

"You stopped, we roll, roll, roll!" demonstrates the snow angel twins.

Finally, we met up with Zorro to let him join for a short run to the finish. Love this photo of the happy trio:

All smiles as the trio tows me to the finish. Once again, we have Zorro & Rudy in the
set track while Powder Jack is in the shallow side powder.

A great day teaching Jack & Rudy about "single file backcountry skijoring" while giving Zorro most of the day off and then a fun run to the finish with Zorro: 8.1 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 57 days on the trails covering 389.2 miles with 37,700 feet of elevation climbed.

Poke

Such innocent looking little guys at our midpoint break of this morning's outing...

"I'm innocent, I have no idea what you are talking about!" smirks Max.
"Yeah - I'm innocent too!" declares happy Zorro.

Our route today started us on the wide & packed Baldy Mountain Trail and ended on the wide & packed Sally Barber Mine Trail. But, the "connection" between these two trails involves traversing through the backcountry on seldom used terrain. We found the connector had been slightly used by others so it was a narrow single track with deep snow out of track. Not a problem, Max & Zorro always do single tracks just fine and alternate who is in lead.

Jogging along with Max in lead. You can see the narrow single track that requires us to be
single file as the snow is too deep to keep pace if you hop out of track.

Did I say Max & Zorro always do single tracks just fine? Ok, well maybe not always, maybe 99.9% of the time. As we were going along, Zorro gave Max a poke in the butt to say, "Let's speed it up!" This rarely happens and boy did Max take objection :)

"I felt that and now you are going to get squashed!" states silly Max whirling around to let Zorro
know the poke was not welcome!

After pouncing on Zorro, both bounced up to state their final opinions...

"It was just a gentle poke, I wanted to go faster!" Zorro tries to explain.
"Do it again and get flattened again!" declares 'not buying it' Max.

I intervened to explain that we should all just get along as we always do on single tracks. "We will be rewarded with the wide & fast Sally Barber trail, trust me!" I explained. Great, they believed me and we got back to organized skijoring until meeting with Sally Barber and then uncorking the skijor engine!

Zoom, zoom, zoom we go!

Today's short video highlight is Max & Zorro's reward for towing me through the narrow backcountry. The reward: opening up the throttle on the Sally Barber Mine Trail.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A fun day with "backcountry touring", "an inappropriate poke" and "pedal to the metal sprinting": 8.1 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 34 days on the trails covering 255.0 miles with 26,350 feet of elevation climbed.

Trail Talk

A bit of "unapproved trail talk" on the outing this morning :)

Beautiful "synchronized sprint tuck" as we fly along the main Baldy Mountain Trail.
Very approved...

What do I mean by "unapproved trail talk"? Well, let's take a look.

Unapproved...

Kissing your brother at 20 MPH might seem impressive. But it is still unapproved trail behavior :)

Approved...

Synchronized, airborne Siberians - very approved!

Unapproved...

While having a conversation at 20 MPH may seem impressive, it is still unapproved trail talk!

Get the idea? If not, watch it in video below as the first 25 seconds or so are dominated by "unapproved trail talk" that I keep calling out to correct before we finally settle into a proper synchronized skijoring sprint!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A mostly perfect day on the trails with one extended section of unapproved trail talk: 8.6 miles covered with 950 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 36 days on the trails covering 300.2 miles with 31200 feet of elevation climbed.

Discussion

A fun skijor run up & down fast-packed Boreas Pass today.

Zooming along the fast packed Boreas Trail - wheeee!

We took yesterday off from skijoring. We cannot go every day, can we? Don't we need a rest now and then? Well, let's ask Max & Zorro...

"Your fault we only had a measly walk yesterday!" yells Max at Zorro.
"NO! I didn't want a silly 'rest day' - your fault!" asserts Zorro back at Max.

The previous pictured discussion aside, it was a great day running up and down Boreas Pass. The trail was packed the entire 9 miles with a trace of new snow from last night to give the human a little friction and control on the skis.

"Who's at fault" discussion over, back to our normal skijoring ways as we sprint along
approaching the trailhead to end the day's run.

Our turnaround point on Boreas with the usual "quick break antics": Max rolling snow angels
and Zorro chomping down on snowcones.

"Great day; but I'm still not sure about this 'day off' thing!" says happy Max at the end of the
day's outing.

8.9 miles up & down Boreas with 850 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of  18 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 30 days on the trails covering 244.4 miles with 26,300 feet of elevation climbed.