Groom & Zoom

Impressive lift from Jack & Rudy flooring it along a groomie zoomie trail!

The hover huskies doing their thing. Impressive!

The prior photo is actually from yesterday morning skijoring the Dumont Lake Trail at Rabbit Ears Pass. I'm putting yesterday and today together into this one blog entry.

The local snowmobile club we belong to grooms the main trails at Rabbit Ears Pass and yesterday was their first groom of the 2024/2025 season. Jack, Rudy and I were FIRST tracks on this beautiful groom. As you see above and below, Jack & Rudy know what to do with a groomed trail!

The kids catching air again with Rabbit Ears Peak visible in the upper
left of this photo.

Yesterday's skijor tally: 6.4 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

Now on to this morning. We started the day on narrower trails in Dry Gulch. It was a bit slick on the side trails, so we could safely gallop but not fully open the throttle. But a gallop is better than nothing!

Jack galloping along. 
What has Rudy's attention to the left? Well, this is known moose territory;
but if Jack didn't glance too then it was not a moose. I glanced left myself,
just in case, but saw nothing. So, what got Rudy's attention? Well, if you've
met Rudy you know it could have been anything from a leaf to a moose :)

The highlight of today's outing? Topping 24 MPH on Gold Run Road. This is part of Gold Run Nordic Center and typically on of the trails where we top 24 MPH when the conditions permit it. Well, today was such a day. Come along for a fast & wild 24 MPH skijor behind Jack & Rudy. You might notice you see a lot more of my skis than most video clips. Well, I'm in a serious ski tuck to keep pace (and upright) behind the speed demons; thus the reason you see so much more of my skis than normal. There was no "sitting back and gliding" behind them at this pace :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After hitting our top speed of the season, it was time to turn out of the heavily shaded forest trail in the video above and into the bright morning sun to complete the day:

Catching air once again! Not as impressive as the first photo above, but
all hover photos are cool to me :)

We redid one stretch of the upper trail to get some additional distance. That meant we turned around and here's today's turnaround comedy:

The usual snow angels from Jack with the added touch of munching on
snowcones while rolling.
Today was woos from Rudy - you never know which Rudy comedy act
you are going to get each day :)

Back to the trailhead for some well earned end of run treats for the speed demons:

"That was FUN! Love perfect conditions to FLOOR IT!" says the happy
speed demons.

Today's tally: 9.2 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 23 days on the trails covering 180.4 miles with 17,400 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Eek, the Creek!

Everybody having a good time this morning?

"You bet!!!" says the happy, happy sled dogs thrilled to still be on snow in May.

Today's outing took us to the Dumont Lake area at Rabbit Ears Pass. I was hoping for another smooth Spring Crust skijor like yesterday. Although there was a firm crust of snow, it was a very bumpy crust. I was bouncing all over the place trying to keep pace with Jack & Rudy on this bumpy terrain:

Jack & Rudy cruising along while my legs and knees were getting
beat up amidst all the bumps!

Some of this bumpiness was due to heavy snowmobile traffic on this part of Rabbit Ears and some was just the melting snowpack. So, I turned us away from the most popular snowmobile pathways and, sure enough, we found much smoother terrain to run on top of. It was still a little bumpy, but nothing compared to the extreme bumps in the high traffic areas:

"Ah, this is much smoother!" says my appreciative knees :)

What is all that black/brown ahead of us in the prior photo? Well, it is an exposed creek! It's always sad when the creek breaks through on our late season mountain passes as this means the end of the season really is near. Come along for today's video highlight of our skijor to the edge of the creek. We start out on a very nice crust. Then Jack & Rudy slow nicely as the terrain gets a little bumpy as we arrive to the edge of the creek. Of course the smart kids know the fast flowing creek is nothing to mess with, so we stop to turnaround. The creek, by the way, is Muddy Creek which will take all this wonderful snow melt into the Colorado River.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Since the creek was wide and running fast, there was no way to cross, so we backtracked until we found a safe crossing point (a few "snow bridges" are still intact which let you cross the creek safely):

Cruising along the edge of Muddy Creek until we could find a snow bridge
to safely cross over the creek.

Did I use the word "turnaround" above? Yep, so you know what that means:

"Turnaround, roll around!" goes the funny snow rolling kids.

Another sign the season is winding down (in addition to the exposed creek)? Well, when you have to seek out snow piles amidst exposed ground for end of run treats, you know things are winding down :)

At least we found this little snow pile for end of run treats!
The treats just don't taste the same if your toes are not on snow!

Today's skijor tally: 7.7 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 153 days on the trails covering 1292.8 miles with 128,300 feet of elevation climbed.

May POW

Happy kids in wonderful new snow in May at the official Rabbit Ears Pass geological marker!

Smiles all around and look at all that fresh & untouched new snow!!!!

The last two days have been incredible fresh snow days in May! It has been a May POW celebration with Jack & Rudy.

Yesterday we skijored the high elevation trails on Peak 7 in Breckenridge. There was 10-15 inches of fresh snow on the trails. One skier had been out before us, so Jack & Rudy tucked themselves into the two ski tracks and towed me up the mountain:

Tucked in tight as the snow is over 10 inches deep out of the ski track so
one could not keep pace with the other if both did not squeeze into these tracks.

I knew Jack & Rudy would appreciate a little wider "set trail" on the way back as it is hard to run fast in a single set of ski tracks without constantly bumping into one another. So, I skied next to the single track you see in the prior photo all the way up. This meant Jack & Rudy had 4 ski tracks to spread across on the way back. Remember, though, there was upwards of 15 inches of fresh snow. So, a single ski track does not pack the trail, it just makes it slightly easier to run fast in. But, there was still plenty of powder in around the ski tracks. Just look at all this powder flying up around Jack & Rudy on our return leg!

Kicking up TONS of powder as the kids blast fast in the 4 ski tracks trail.

With all that deep snow, it was a short (distance wise) outing yesterday: 5.4 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed. 

This morning we went to the Dumont Lake area at Rabbit Ears Pass. Rabbit Ears is very popular with snowmobiles, so we found 1-2 of fresh snow over pre-existing snowmobile tracks to run in:

Laying fresh tracks in new snow over snowmobile tracks.

It was like mid winter at Rabbit Ears this morning. Quite incredible! Come along and see for yourself as this is near the start of our outing and the kids are having great fun running fast in snowmobile tracks.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Eventually the snowmobile tracks turned away from the route I had planned. We continued on anyway, but then quickly found ourselves breaking trail in over 8 inches of fresh snow:

Breaking Trail - Wheeee!

But, after such deep snow fun yesterday, I wanted to give Jack & Rudy a more shallow & fast outing today.  So, we turned around pretty soon after the prior photo and changed our outing to follow snowmobile tracks wherever they went:

Zipping along laying fresh tracks in snowmobile tracks.
The ski tracks (and dog foot prints) you see to our left are our own tracks
going the other direction on this stretch of trail.

What an excellent set of mid winter powder days yesterday and today in May!!! Right guys?

"Oh, we LOVED it!" says the happy kids propped up no a little snow
wall  to get end of run treats.

Today tally: 8.6 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 147 days on the trails covering 1244.5 miles with 123,500 feet of elevation climbed.

Crust Again

Another beautiful skijor atop the solid Spring crust at Rabbit Ears Pass!

The hover huskies, Jack & Rudy, catching air as we zip along the solid
Spring crust!

After a successful skijor on the Spring crust yesterday, we returned to the same general area this morning to go crust skijoring again. Yesterday we found an awesome Spring crust around Walton Peak at Rabbit Ears Pass. Today, we went the other direction towards Dumont Lake and found the same awesome conditions as you see in the prior photo. Wheeee!

When we skijor the crust near Dumont Lake, we are able to wind our way across vast, crust covered meadows and pay a visit to the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL. The SNOTELs sprinkled throughout the westerns US measure a large range of environmental factors. But, the measure of most to interest to Jack, Rudy and I is the depth of the snowpack Today, this particular SNOTEL reported that the snowpack depth at this location is 62 inches. Nice, a 5+ foot deep snowpack!

Cruising by the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL as we skijor atop over 5 feet
of snowpack to last us for many more weeks :)

We did have one set of obstacles to deal with today - deep & frozen snowmobile tracks. Basically snowmobiles had run through these same meadows when the snow was soft (i.e., in the afternoon) and made deep tracks. These tracks then froze overnight and became today's obstacles. Jack & Rudy have no problem with these frozen tracks, they simply leap over them or run through them. But, me on skis is a different story. I have to cross these deep obstacles at an angle just off perpendicular and push my poles into the snow to give me a little lift. If not, the frozen tracks can grab ahold of my skis and lock me in (which typically leads to a wipeout :)

Jack & Rudy have no problem with the deep & frozen track obstacles as
you see here. Wish I could leap on skis like them :)

But, the tracks are not really that big of a deal, I just have to be conscious of them and make sure I cross at a proper angle. So, come along for today's video fun as we are cruising along the Spring crust amidst a few track obstacles at first before clearing the tracks and finding a nice open straightaway to open up the throttle. I love how Jack & Rudy (especially Rudy) glance back at me after many of the track crossings to make sure I made if over safely. Great partners!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Springtime is, of course, warm to Jack & Rudy, so rolling snow angels to cool off is in order at any break during the outing :)

Rub a dub dub, cooling our jets rolling in the snow!

Finally, back to the trailhead for end of run treats and apparently I was a little too chatty for Rudy and slow in dishing out the treats!

"Ready!" says happy & focused Jack.
"You going to talk or serve?!?" asks curious, head cocked, Rudy :)

What a fun crust skijor outing: 7.1 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 137 days on the trails covering 1172.5 miles with 116,200 feet of elevation climbed.

Quick Recap

Rudy showing off his new trick this season: rolling a snow angel and then finishing it off with a WOO!

Always rolling Jack, of course, is nothing but constant snow angels :)

"Stop, drop, roll and WOO!" demonstrates multi-talented Rudy.
"It will always be stop, drop and roll for me!" adds always rolling Jack.

I only have time for a quick recap of today's fun skijor outing. But quick is better than nothing!

We spent the morning skijoring around Dumont Lake at Rabbit Ears Pass. Most of the day found us on an abundance of snowmobile tracks all over the trails. Luckily the tracks were just soft enough to comfortably ride in skis behind Jack & Rudy. If they had been hard & icy, it would have been very painful on my knees trying to keep under control!

Soft enough tracks to comfortably let Jack & Rudy open it up. Wheeee!

The best of the outing, though, was when we got away from the main trail and found less snowmobile tracks and more shallow powder:

Ah, this is really nice on my old legs :)

But, again, most of the day was dominated by tons of snowmobile tracks thankfully soft enough to ride in. Come along and watch today's video clip to see what I mean. You might ask, "What keeps getting Jack & Rudy's attention to our left (especially) Rudy?" Well, I have no idea. This is known moose territory; but I glanced left every time one of them did and never saw anything. Goofy kids :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Another enjoying outing with my pals, let's celebrate with end of run treats:

"You have our full attention!" declares my happy & focused partners.

A quick outing with a quick recap in today's blog as well: 8.2 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 122 days on the trails covering 1051.8 miles with 103,200 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack 7000

6 year old Jack surpassed 7,000 career skijor miles this morning!

Way to go to happy & powerful Jack!

"I've THOROUGHLY enjoyed EVERY single mile of the 7,000!" states
happy, handsome Jack.

Jack started serious skijoring at about 1.5 years old and is now 6.75 years old (he turns 7 in July). That is quite impressive that he has strung together 7,000 miles of skijoring in just 5.25 years. Way to go wonder Jack!

Today's outing found us skijoring the snowmobile trails around Dumont Lake at Rabbit Ears Pass. It was a very similar outing to yesterday. We started on heavily trafficked and somewhat icy snowmobile trails:

A lot of snowmobiles have run along this trail since the last grooming!

Then, as we got further from the trailhead, the snowmobiles had spread out and we found the occasional "shoulder of corduroy" to safely uncork the skijoring engine!

Ah, perfect, a little bit of untouched corduroy for my skis!!!

We even found one extended stretch of barely touched corduroy on a less popular trail near Dumont Lake! Yay!

Jack & Rudy catching air along this beautiful stretch of trail!

Now come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. I love getting behind Jack & Rudy on terrain safe enough (for me) to let them really open up the throttle. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

One thing has remained constant for Jack's entire 7,000 mile career: he has rolled at least one (and often many more) snow angel on EVERY single skijor outing of his life. He first rolled a snow angel on a walk when he was 5 months old and he's been a snow angel monster ever since. He is such a crackup! 

"I promise I will roll snow angels on EVERY skijor outing of my life!" states
always rolling Jack.

One other constant, along with snow angels, to Jack's skijor career: always smiling when awaiting end of run treats. He is such a wonderful happy boy!

"You have our undivided attention!" says the happy and very
focused kids.

Today's tally: 7.9 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 111 days on the trails covering 949.3 miles with 92,600 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack's Skijor Career to Date: 917 days on the trails covering 7,003.1 miles with 642,650 feet of elevation climbed and over 917 snow angels rolled :)

For the curious. Rudy is 5 months younger than Jack and about 176 career miles behind him. So, he'll be matching Jack and surpassing 7,000 career miles this season as well. Stay Tuned...

Eight Percent

Who's having a great time on this morning's snowy skijor?

"We are having a BLAST!" exclaims the happy, happy kids.

The forecast this morning was "8% chance of snow" (or 92% chance of NOT snowing). Well, when we arrived at the trailhead it was DUMPING snow. The active snow and accompanying wind made Jack & Rudy very frisky and they were raring to go! Here we are 5 seconds into the start of the outing...

This is NOT fog, it is actively falling heavy snow!
You can see one big flake just above Jack's tail about to hit the camera.
All the white speckles you see against Jack & Rudy's fur are snowflakes
as well. 

Here is another look at the dumping snowfall. Usually you can see a bunch of mountains, including Rabbit Ears Peak, from this location. Today, it was very low visibility due to active snowfall instead!

Zipping along what is usually a panoramic view spot; but not today!
You can see a few more snowflakes about to hit the camera in this
shot as well.

We love it when the forecast is wrong in our favor (and our favorite is SNOWING :). The prior two photos do not do justice to just how much it was snowing. So, come along for a video of the outing. With video, you can see all  the snow falling around and on us as Jack & Rudy are truly enjoying the conditions!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We did an "out and back" on trails near Dumont Lake at Rabbit Ears Pass. This meant we had to turnaround at one point. Yep, it was the usual turnaround goofs!

"Turnaround! Roll Around!" goes the snow rolling goofs.

When the snow did let up a bit, we still had fresh snow and wind blown drifts to plow through:

Kicking up powder as we plow through a wind blown drift of snow.

Jack & Rudy really enjoyed today's "active snow skijor" - just ask them :)

"Oh that was FUN!" says the happy kids awaiting end of run treats.
Notice the snowflake on Rudy's red fur by his ear and notice the snowflake
on my neck. It was snowing all outing long - sometimes intensely and sometimes
a bit lighter but snowing the entire outing.

Our favorite kind of "8% chance of snow" - 9 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 90 days on the trails covering 757.1 miles with  73,200 feet of elevation climbed. 

Quick Recap

I only have time to writeup a quick recap of this morning's skijor. But, it was so much fun I had to share some!

We started at Dumont Lake on packed tire tracks left over from the recently completed hunting season in Colorado.

Catching air in the fast packed tracks.

We then turned to follow pre-existing ski tracks out & back around the base of Rabbit Ears Peak!

Love this shot as Jack & Rudy are chest high with me!
They have just flown up a slight rise in the trail that I am about to encounter.

Then, for a real surprise, we hung a left near the Columbine junction and found ourselves laying fresh tracks in untouched snow on days old snowmobile tracks.

Wow, nobody has been this direction until us for days (that's how long
it's been since fresh snow fell).

What was even more of a treat that the fresh tracks segment? Well, back to the first photo. I totally expected the leftover tire tracks from hunting season to be packed & icy this morning. I was ready for slow going until we got onto less used terrain. But, nope. The tire tracks were packed but also SOFT! Wow, what a treat. Come along and watch as we are skijoring in packed tired tracks but you can see snow poofs coming off Jack & Rudy's feet as the tracks were also soft!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

That's all folks! We'll back for a more involved blog on our next outing :)

"We were there, we know how fun it was!" exclaims the happy kids
awaiting end of run treats.

A really nice day skijoring near Dumont Lake and Rabbit Ears Peak: 9.2 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 23 days on the trails covering 186.7 miles with 18,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Ears

Hello from the shore of Dumont Lake at Rabbit Ears Pass!

"HELLO! I'm having a GREAT time this morning!" exclaims happy Rudy.
"Me too, but have to roll snow angels in appreciation!" adds snow rolling Jack.

"Just a smile from Rudy and not a woo or a snow angel?" you ask in astonishment. Oh, don't worry, he belted out a big woo before this smile I was just turned slightly and my arm was blocking the camera as I was adjusting my equipment. 

This morning's skijor fun had us touring around to get views of the ears atop Rabbit Ears Peak. We started far away:

Zipping along as Rabbit Ears Peak is the high point in the upper left of
this photo. The two rocks atop the peak are the "ears" for which Rabbit
Ears Pass is named.

Pretty hard to see the ears in the prior photo, right? Ok, Jack & Rudy will just tow me a little closer:

Rabbit Ears Peak straight up from Jack and the two rocks (the ears) are
more visible now.

Still need a closer view? Ok, how about this:

Rabbit Ears Peak with its ears in the top center of this clip.
Nice work from Jack & Rudy fitting in this narrow single track while
still running fast.

Today's video fun goes along with the second photo of the ears above. Come along and watch Jack & Rudy towing me along this beautiful section of trail. If you can take your eyes off the impressive sled dogs, you'll see Rabbit Ears Peak and its ears coming in and out of view in front of us. Nice scenery!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Other that touring around Rabbit Ears Peak to get views of the ears, what other excitement did we have? Well, fresh smelling moose tracks are ALWAYS exciting and require stopping to inspect:

"Sniff, sniff - very fresh!" declares track inspecting Rudy.
"I know, I know and it went THIS way! We should too!" suggests moose
patrolling Jack. Sorry, Jack, we are not following fresh moose tracks into
the dense trees!

Back to the trailhead and Jack & Rudy found a mini snow wall to climb for end of run treats. It wasn't the biggest wall, but tall enough that I could hand out treats from a standing position.

"This is as high as we can get - ready for treats!" says the happy pair.

A really enjoyable skijor this morning touring around Rabbit Ears Peak: 9.3 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 18 days on the trails covering 143.2 miles with 14,000 feet of elevation climbed.