Such happy sled dogs at our turnaround point in French Gulch this morning!
Smiles all around!
We only had time for a short run this morning and we got 4-8 inches of new snow overnight (depending on your elevation) so our plan was to get on French Gulch while the conditions were still good.
It started out PERFECT. A few pre-existing but still soft tracks and some nice powder in the shoulders and middle. Nice shot of the "tow rope trio" towing me up & out French Gulch:
Beautiful early morning conditions!
After a quick jog up & out French Gulch, it was time to turnaround and fly back. Look at this great shot of the trail with 3 set tracks and one sled dog in each track. Wheeee!
Trio of tracks, trio of sled dogs. Wheeee!
Everything was going according plan UNTIL - UGH the evil awful dirty rotten PLOW! We were almost back to the trailhead when we encountered this demon. If we'd only started 5-10 minutes earlier, we would have avoided it altogether and had a perfect albeit short outing.
"That's just plain EVIL!" express Jack & Rudy.
"Let's go knock it over!" suggests Zorro :)
Come along for the "run to the devil" video clip this morning. We start out on absolutely wonderful conditions having a blast cruising the perfect trail. Until... Well, until we encounter the devil plow on the trail and have to stop.
To be fair, there are a handful of private cabins in French Gulch and the owners are allowed to contract any plow service they want to access their cabins. BUT.... But, the agreement between the county and the owners is the following: You may plow the access road IF and ONLY IF you leave 4+ inches of snow on the trail for backcountry enthusiasts.
Ok, I can live with that agreement, but here is what we found once we got past the devil plow:
"Um, we might be only 2 years old, but we know this isn't 4 inches of snow on the trail!"
says smart beyond their years Jack & Rudy.
I approached this trail damage slowly until I saw I could probably pass over. I think Zorro was as surprised as me that I could navigate the skis over:
"Really? You can make it?" asks concerned Zorro.
I put all my weight on my left leg and was able to cross cautiously
Oh well, no need to dwell on the evil awful dirty rotten plow. We'll just enjoy toes on snow and plan other trails until fresh snow falls in French Gulch again.
"We can forget about the plow and move on to 'end of run' treats!" says the fun trio.
A quick & short outing that was PERFECT until the last 5ish minutes: 4.2 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.
2019/2020 Season to Date: 92 days on the trails covering 629.3 miles with 58,150 feet of elevation climbed.
"HEY! We were using that! RUDE!!!" says the snow loving trio to the evil plow.
"RUDE! Just plain RUDE!!!!!" says Zorro, Jack, Rudy and me :)
It was an interesting skijor for us this morning with a bunch of constraints.
First constraint: I had a "jury summons" to appear for jury selection at 9am this morning. What a rude morning constraint to deal with.
Second constraint: The ski resort reported 13" of new snow overnight at we had over 7 inches at home. So the trails would have between 7 to 13+. No way was I going to miss a morning like this because of some rude jury summons.
Third constraint: At 11.5 years old, Zorro is not really up to breaking trail in a foot of snow anymore. But, with the rude jury summons, we did not have time for Jack, Rudy & I to set a trail first and then add Zorro in to reuse what we packed. Rude jury summons!
The solution? Attempt to skijor French Gulch Road. Two reasons: (1) vehicles drive this in all depths of snow to get to trailheads and a few houses back in the gulch; (2) plows get to this road last on the schedule as they need to do the more populous streets first. As we arrived to French Gulch Road at the edge of the town limit, it was perfect. One vehicle had driven up the road with no plows yet. As a result, we were able to skijor up the road in perfect setup. Jack, Rudy and I took one tire track to let the kids haul me up. Zorro, meanwhile, took the other tire track to run alongside us while letting Jack & Rudy do most of the uphill work. A perfect use of young Jack & Rudy along with elder Zorro!
Wheeee - riding the "2 year olds" tow rope up one tire track while
Zorro keeps pace alongside us in the other track.
We did this configuration all the way out French Gulch Road for a little over two miles before we had to turn around to get me home in time for jury duty. Time to turn around and guess what... :)
"Turning means rolling snow angels first!" says the powder twins throwing themselves into
the deep snow first.
"Kids! What else can you say but 'kids'?!?" says onlooking Zorro.
Once turned around, everyone wanted to get in the same tire track for some downhill speed. Unfortunately only two sled dogs can fit in a single tire track. I spent 50 yards or so making sure everyone knew he could use the right track while the other two used the left track (with various 'over to the right' commands and others). But, alas, nobody wanted to run in the right track alone. Instead, everyone quickly settled on the "Powder Jack" configuration. Zorro & Rudy took the tire track and Jack happily ran in the middle powder right next to the track.
Powder Jack! Go, Jack, Go!!!
Impressive shot of Jack kicking up powder while still keeping pace with Zorro and Rudy
in the tire track.
Come along for a minute of impressive Powder Jack as he is able to "kick up powder" while still keeping pace with his in-track partners. I think Zorro & Rudy actually pulled back a little to make sure Jack could keep pace and they could remain in the set track. Impressive powder Jack and polite Zorro & Rudy - wheeee!
How long did Powder Jack go? Well, refer back to the original photo above. He maintained Powder Jack until we ran into the rude plow coming up the road. Rude! Anyways, once there was a wide plow lane, nobody wanted to run in the powder anymore. That's completely understandable but all the work then fell upon me to avoid obstacles on the road that the plow had exposed!
My partners making use of the fast plow lane while I ride with one ski in the lane and the
other ski in the side powder. I kept switching my weight between the "fast lane ski" and
the "safe/slow lane powder ski" to keep pace while avoiding hazards. I hate when I have
to do so much work :)
End of a short but very fun morning run:
"That was fun! What a great workout!" says happy Powder Jack.
"Look at patient me awaiting my 'end of run' treats!" adds cute Rudy.
"You have my full attention!" declares Zorro.
The "13 inch snow report" from the ski resort was as of 5am and it had been snowing nonstop since then. So, we were somewhere in the 15-20" range by the time we got home. I made one last check on my rude jury summons (it was still 'on' as of 7am) and, YESSSSS, jury duty canceled as of 8am due to inclement weather!!!! Woo Hoo!
Yay to jury canceled but boo to cutting our run short to be able to make it: 4.2 miles traveled with 300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.
2019/2020 Season to Date: 39 days on the trails covering 257.9 miles with 25,800 feet of elevation climbed.
Look at what pure evil we encountered on the trail this morning!
Yes, that is a PLOW in front of us destroying the French Gulch Trail!
As I have mentioned in the past, there are a handful of private cabins in French Gulch and the owners have access to open the "winter gate" that keeps all other vehicles out of the gulch. Unfortunately in the past few years a couple of the owners have been contracting a plow to occasionally blow away all the snow from this otherwise perfect backcountry trail!
As we arrived at the trailhead this morning, this plow passed us in the parking lot and started plowing the gulch. Ugh! It is actually okay the moments after the plowing (there is still enough snow to skijor); but the long term impact is that the trail will be dead and down to dirt & mud after one warm day.
The other problem with today's damn plow? It is slow (to a sled dog, that is). We let the plow get out of sight from us before starting on the trail and, then, within 1-3 weaves up the trail we would catch it again. This happened 5 times! Yes, we had stop 5 times and wait for the damn slow plow to get out of sight before restarting and catching it again. At one point we flew past a cross country skier on the trail and then had to stop again for the plow. While stopped, the skier came up to me and said, "I cannot believe you are faster than the plow! You guys are flying!" I then proceeded to tell her that this was already our third time stopping to let the plow get ahead of us (not knowing we still had 2 more stops to come). Everyone's reaction to our 3rd stop and my conversation with the other skier:
"Tell me about it! Can you BELIEVE we are stopped AGAIN!" says distressed Rudy.
"Yes we are pretty fast aren't we!" adds flirting Zorro.
"I say we just turn around and go fast the other way!" says happy Jack.
The only positive thing you can say about the plow is that it made for a fun fast track for today's run. How fast? Well, today's was young Rudy's top speed of his young life: 22 MPH!
Flying along the fast packed plow track. But look at how HIGH the snow wall is to Rudy's
right. This is how much snowpack SHOULD be in the gulch this time of year if the evil plows
didn't keep removing it! Ugh!
Just how fast? Well, come along for Rudy's first 22 MPH skijor. Zoom!
Despite the evil plow, we always have a great time on the trails, right guys?
"Hi mom - I had a BLAST today!" says cute Rudy flashing Nancy a happy face.
"Fun? Yes, but how about some of those 'end of run' treats?" asks happy Jack.
"Yes, dish them out!" adds focused Zorro.
Consider this... We followed the evil plow for about 2.5 miles and had to stop 5 times to give it a head start. Either Zorro, Jack & Rudy are FAST or plows are slugs.... I think the former :)
5.6 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.
2018/2019 Season to Date: 33 days on the trails covering 175.5 miles with 15,500 feet of elevation climbed.
Having a blast breaking trail in about 15 inches of fresh powder in French Gulch! Wheeee!
Gliding along in 15+ inches of powder. What impressive sled dogs!!!
This is young Jack's first real season of skijoring, so we will be experiencing a lot of milestones as the season unfolds (recall last winter was just short & easy training runs for Jack). Today had two milestones: (1) Jack's first 8+ mile skijor (8.4 to be exact); and (2) Jack's first extended time breaking trail (we had about 1 to 1.5 miles of what you see in the prior photo). Impressive young Jack (and just as impressive veteran Zorro :)
We are at the tail end of a great storm from the previous few days dumping upwards of 2 feet of snow in and around Breckenridge. Today we decided to take Zorro & Jack for a long run in French Gulch to enjoy all the new snow. There has been so much snow, that we were able to start on French Gulch Road and run in tire tracks until entering the real French Gulch Trail.
Flying along in packed tire tracks on French Gulch Road. Zoom.
Once we transitioned from the road to the trail, we were able to ride in a set of ski tracks for a while and then we eventually out skied all existing tracks. Once this happened, you got the first photo above: breaking trail for over a mile in 15+ inches of powder!
Besides great snow, the biggest attraction of French Gulch is ... MOOSE!!! We did not see a moose this morning, but the "scent of moose" drew Zorro & Jack off trail once into deep snow as they scanned the forest for the source of the moose aroma. No visuals, but still fun to scan:
"Come out, come out wherever you are. We SMELL you!!!!" declare the moose scanning
pair enjoying the deep powder as they scan for moose.
The only drawback to French Gulch - well there are a handful of property owners in the gulch who have keys to the "winter gate" and will occasionally run their evil plows down the trail. Anything that removes snow is evil (except the sun, as it has other uses so we will allow this one snow remover :)
Evil, just plain evil!!!! Why remove snow!!!!!
On to today's video highlight - the evil plow. Come along as we are flying along a "fast packed trail" until we encounter the source of the packness - the evil plow. Love my skijoring partners as they automatically slow as we approach Mr. Evil as we all consider "what to do". All it takes is one gentle "Left" command from me and Zorro & Jack hop into the left powder as we pass Mr. Slow & Evil. Once passed, hop back into the ski tracks on the trail, floor it and leave Mr. Slow & Evil in our dust :)
