Repeats

Great shot of airborne Jack & flying Rudy along one of the great stretches of trail this morning!

Whee - love opening up the skijoring engine! Pedal to the metal!

What did I mean by "one of the great stretches" above? Well, it's still early season and it has been a somewhat dry and warm November. We were skijoring the upper elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning in hopes the high elevation terrain would still be in good shape. Well, it was a mix. Whenever we were in relatively shaded areas, the conditions were great. But, whenever we were in very sun exposed areas, it was, well, ugly!!!

Normally Jack & Rudy are not big fans of redoing a section of trail again & again. But, given the contrast between "good trail conditions" and "bad trail conditions" this morning, they were very willing to repeat anything good. They get it :)

"Yep, we get it - we'll repeat any & all good patches to avoid conditions
like this!" declares the smart kids looking back to me once we encountered
this ugliness.

So, we repeated one nice groom stretch 3 times, then we went off trail and repeated a fun single track 2 times. We then repeated another off trail single track 2 times before returning to the groomed terrain and repeating another nice stretch 2 more times. That's a lot of repeats for Jack & Rudy, but they understood why we were doing it after seeing the trail conditions in the prior photo :)

Off the main groomed trail and in a single track cruising by the
Kathy's Viewpoint warming hut.

Now come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. We had a blast bouncing along in and out of the existing single track as we flew on by the warming hut. At the end of the clip, we turn right and are back on the groomed terrain again.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the main (groomed) trail and time to put smiles on people's faces whenever we fly on by :)

"Hi! Bye! Made you smile!" says fun Jack & Rudy cruising on by
an oncoming skier we encountered.

Now back to the daily comedic interlude from Jack & Rudy. Will it be snow angels from both or angels from Jack and woos from Rudy?

Today was woos and angels for your entertainment!

Finally, back to the trailhead for end of run treats. Not the best camera angle (I guess Nancy is still in early season form too with the camera), but still some very happy & focused sled dogs!

"We earned them today!!!" says the focused kids.

A pretty unique outing for us with 9 repeats of the good patches of trail we encountered; but Jack & Rudy were quite willing to do all these repeats if meant keeping toes on snow and uncorking the skijoring engine! 9.1 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

Unfortunately, with a very warm temperatures today, we are out of skiable terrain until it snows again. Pray for Snow!

2023/2024 Season to Date: 10 days on the trails covering 78.6 miles with 8200 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Interesting

This morning will be our last visit to Elliot Ridge for the 2022/2023 Skijoring Season.

What do Jack & Rudy think of that?

"Must thoroughly roll in this snow if this it is for here!" declares silly Jack.
"Woo is me! I don't want summer!" bellows wooing Rudy.

You might look at al that snow in the prior photo and wonder why I declared this our final outing at Elliot Ridge. Well, come along and see why...

For every beautiful stretch of snow like the following:

Great stretch to open up the throttle.

There was an ugly stretch like the following (and even worse in areas).

Yuck! But, notice I am still on skis. Jack & Rudy are amazing partners.
All I have to do is call out "Easy, easy" and they will slow to a gentle trot
until I give the ok to speed up again.

Then, for one long stretch of trail, we had what was probably our most interesting skijor configuration ever. In the following photo, there appears to be enough snow to skijor. But, the snow was super soft and Jack & Rudy were sinking deep in the snow if they tried to run on it. That's not good for them, especially for multiple miles! But, the snow was good enough for me to ski in. So, I instructed Jack & Rudy to "over the right" onto the dirt and then gave them an "Ok, let's go." They were both puzzled at first. After a little verbal encouragement and praise from me and they got it!

"We can trot in the dirt while you glide in the snow. Interesting, but
we got it!" goes the smart kids.

Along the way, we encountered elk tracks in the snow and moose tracks in the mud. Snow is more fun than mud, so here's a photo of the elk tracks :)

"Sniff, sniff - fresh!!!" declares the elk track inspectors.
Notice the line of tracks in front of us. We excitedly followed these elk
tracks for a little distance but, unfortunately, never caught sight of an elk.

Finally, some well deserved end of run treats from my perfect listening partners today:

"We love to listen and adjust!" declares the happy, smart kids.

Some good, some ugly and some interesting adjustments to soft snow; but the ugly will grow from here on out so this was our last run of the season on this particular set of trails: 7.4 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a mild top speed of 17 MPH (it was never safer to go any faster).

2022/2023 Season to Date: 154 days on the trails covering 1356.2 miles with 123,800 feet of elevation climbed.

Nice up High

Beautiful conditions up high this morning at Breckenridge Nordic Center!

The hover huskies, Jack & Rudy, catching air on perfect
trail conditions up high!

I've alluded to our slow starting snow season in recent posts and today, I bring you the "good, bad & ugly" of where we have to skijor. It was an unseasonably warm October and then unseasonably warm & dry November. The snow we do have (from a few good Nov storms) is drying up! We really need winter to start! 

Usually my "good, bad, ugly" posts occur in October, early November, May or June. I don't think we've ever had a "good, bad, ugly" post in December! Egad! Well, come along for the ride as we reverse the phrase and show the ugly, then bad and finally good.

The Ugly: at our lower elevations, we encountered multiple stretches of "dirt only". Yuck!

"Aw man, you can't even roll snow angels on this!" declares Jack looking
for something else to do while I pause to remove my skis.
"Good snowcones on the shoulders!" demonstrates Rudy :)

The Bad: barely enough cover to cross slowly at the mid elevations of our outing. Good thing Jack & Rudy listen and know to lead me over snow/ice and not dirt!

"This way human, we found a snow/ice path through!" suggests smart
Jack & Rudy looking back to let me know to drift right to get
through safely.

The Good: oh my, so nice up high. The first photo above is a beautiful "good shot". Come along for a beautiful "good video" as we had a blast at our highest elevations of the outing. Wheeee! Oh, and yes, my ski hits a sapling sticking through the snow at about 40s into the video and, yes, I almost wipeout but am able to stay upright :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

With bad/ugly conditions at most of our pauses this morning, did Jack get in his daily snow angel (or 2 or 3 or 100 :)? Well, yes, phew. We drifted off trail a bit at our highest point and this allowed Jack to get in his patented angels at our high point turnaround.

"Ah! Turnaround, roll around!" demonstrates funny Jack.
"I'm hunting for rodents instead of rolling angels today!" declares hunting Rudy.

Back to the trailhead with retired Zorro. Everybody squeeze in tight so we can fit all 12 feet on snow and not dirt!

All toes on snow - ready for end of run treats!!!!

The warm/dry start to the season is SUPPOSED to come to and end next week. Pray for Snow!

A quick outing today on what terrain we could find: 6.4 miles traveled with 850 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 24 days on the trails covering 184.6 miles with 17,650 feet of elevation climbed.

24 Again

Another Day, Another 24 MPH Skijor! Zoom!

Jack & Rudy flying along the fast nordic trails. Zoom!

I have been mentioning that the Colorado snowpack is far less than normal for the end of November. I've been omitting most ugly photos from our blog as it is more fun to showcase the good stretches of snow we do find on our outings. But, today, I had to show the following, yikes:

"Hey dad, wasn't this snow covered yesterday?!?" asks puzzled Jack & Rudy.

Yes indeed, the same patch of trail you see in the prior photo was snow covered just yesterday morning! This photo gives you an indication of the thin (to disappearing) cover we have at lower elevations and/or terrain exposed to afternoon (warm) sun. Yikes!

Now, compare the prior photo to the following. Wow, the difference is night and day! The prior photo was on the most sun exposed and lower elevation of our outing. The following photo is near our highest elevation and least sun exposed section of trail. What a difference! Hard to image we could crawl over ice & rocks at one point and floor it past 24 MPH at another point on the same outing!

Upper & sun protected trail - zoom!

Here we go with a great video clip of Jack & Rudy flying along the beautiful upper trails. While the two kids are really flying this whole clip, pay attention to the last 20 seconds or so as you see the speed demons kick it into another gear and zoooom!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Ok guys, we have an option. Go back & forth and back & forth on the perfect section of upper trail or loop around and deal with more of the lower, sun exposed and snow disappearing trail. Typically Jack & Rudy don't like to repeat the same section of trail. They'll give me a "boring, already did this" yawn or woo if I try to repeat too much. But, not today, given the difference in trail conditions!

"Repeat! Yes, Repeat! We love snow!" declares my happy partners
showing me their approval of turning to repeat the good trail instead
of wandering back towards the ugly sections down lower :)

Here's a new one from Jack (just when you thought you had the cracker all figured out :) We encountered some moose tracks on the side of the trail. Rudy did the usual "sniff inspection" of the tracks; but Jack, on the other hand, decided to roll snow angels in the moose tracks today. That's a new one from Cracker Jack!

"Sniff, fresh!" declares Rudy.
"So fresh I need to roll in them!" adds Cracker Jack.
Despite the apparent freshness of these tracks, we never saw the actual moose.

So fun to bring our favorite retired gentleman back into the team for 'end of run' treats!!!

"As usual, I'm front & center!" states elder Zorro.
"We are happy to yield to Zorro!" declares polite Jack & Rudy who
have so much respect for their retired mentor who taught them
how to skijor.

An ugly day on lower and/or sun exposed terrain versus a super fast day on upper & sun protected terrain! 8.1 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 20 days on the trails covering 155.3 miles with 14,900 feet of elevation climbed.

Good, Bad, Ugly

Yay for our second outing of the 2019/2020 season on October 12th!

Celebrating a fun day on the trails at the of this morning's run.
"It was 'interesting' but we still had a blast!" declares the happy trio.

Snow in October in Colorado typically only lasts for a few days and then it melts & dries in between storms. It is not until November or December that you expect the snow to stick between storms. We had a nice dump of snow on October 10th for our first skijor outing of the season and went out early this morning in hopes of getting one more run before this storm's snow melted.

How did it go? Well, it was The Good, The Bad and The UGLY. Come along for the details.

The shaded parts of the trail were wonderful, just look at the following example of The Good:

Beautiful October 12th conditions as Zorro, Jack and Rudy are in a fast "sprint tuck" flying
along the great conditions in the shade.

But wait, what is that in the bottom center of the prior photo? It's not "ski tips" but, instead, it is the front of our dog sled. I knew today's outing would be a mix of good and bad. Well, using skis requires good conditions. The sled, on the other hand, can handle bad conditions. We go out very early when we use the sled and expect bad conditions as the sled can bounce and slide over frozen ground just fine.

As expected, we had many stretches of The Bad. Note the narrow "ribbon of death" ice going down the center of the photo. Rudy is aligned on the ice while Zorro & Jack jog on either side. The sled is also centered on the ice. If you look closely, you can tell by my shadow that I have both feet on the left runner of the sled. The right runner can bounce & slide on frozen ground IF my weight is not on it. So, I have both feet on the left runner with just enough ice to slide down the trail behind Rudy.

The Bad - riding a "ribbon of death" ice patch down the center of the trail.

I totally expected patches of The Bad today; what I did not expect was The UGLY! We found ourselves on extended patches of no snow or ice! Zorro, Jack & Rudy can pull the sled over this completely exposed yet frozen ground; but I have to get off the sled for this to happen. I attach myself to the sled by another gangline and I try my hardest to run fast enough for my pals behind the sled. The UGLY sure is a workout for the human!

Nice view of Breckenridge Ski Resort across the valley; but what UGLY conditions on the trail!

The conditions may have been all over the map, but we still had a very fun outing. The usual antics from the youngsters at our turnaround point and the usual happy Zorro flashing me a smile.

"It's still better than summer!" declares happy Zorro.
"Rub a dub dub, love rolling in the snow!" demonstrates the goofball youngsters.

Well, that wraps up what we will get out of this past storm after much more UGLY than expected on the trails this morning. But, we did get two short & fun outings out of the storm. We'll take that in October any year! 4.8 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 16 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 2 days on the trails covering 8.9 miles with 1100 feet of elevation climbed.

Us Too

Somewhere there is a crazy guy telling his friends, "I snowmobiled Rabbit Ears Pass on June 3rd. It wasn't always pretty, but I did it!"

Replace "snowmobiled" with "skijored" and "3rd" with "4th" and that was us this morning :)

Following a fresh snowmobile track high up on Rabbit Ears Pass. Just one crazy snowmobiler
and 3 looney skijorers still out on the trails :)

This time of year we start summarizing outings we three ratings: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Here we go for this morning's outing:

(1) The Good: we did a steep trail for Rabbit Ears as we hoped the snow up high would be better than what we encountered down low. Well, it was - opening the throttle on a stretch of The Good...

Wheeee and zoooom we go on a nice stretch of the good.

(2) The Bad: we refer to terrain as "bad" if we can keep the skis on but have to slow down for narrow and hazardous conditions. Some of the bad...

Barely two Siberians wide with mud on each side! Note the crazy snowmobiler took this same
path yesterday and barely kept his machine on snow!

(3) The Ugly: no way to cross without taking off the skis to walk over dirt & mud. Yuck - so ugly!

"Impassible!" declares shocked Zorro.
"We could leap over the dirt to the snow to the right, couldn't we?" asks Max looking at snow
within his leaping distance to the right :)

We had to take the skis off 6 times for The Ugly and had quite a few slow and cautious encounters with The Bad. But... We are still on snow in June! 7.8 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 152 days on the trails covering 1279.0 miles with 139,250 feet of elevation climbed.

Good, Bad, Ugly

Every year we get at least one outing that can be summed up by "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". It is typically an early season run in October or late May/early June.

Well, today was this season's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...

Taking a quick break high up on Boreas Pass before heading back down.
"Why, yes, I am having a great time!" states sweet Max conversing with me at the break point.
"Yum, yum - snowcones!" demonstrates funny Zorro.

Okay, follow along for today's Good, Bad and Ugly...

The Good: cruising along in 4+ inches of soft, champagne powder. So fun!

Beautiful!

The Bad: yikes - look at that ice covered puddle and spotty dirt along the trail! You must be thinking, "No way you skied on that terrain - impossible!" Well, you are right. The conditions were too poor to take out the skis today, so we used the dog sled instead. The sled can handle hitting dirt & rocks while skis cannot. The downside of the sled is we cannot go as far or as fast as it is just Max & Zorro trying to pull me along. You could say the sled is our ultimate set of "rock skis" :-)

Yikes!

The Ugly: oh my - where did the snow go!!!! As I said, we were on the sled so traversing over frozen ground is still possible. But, I have to get off the sled and run along with Max & Zorro who can suddenly go much faster pulling & bouncing an empty sled over frozen ground. I wear my skijor gangline and hook it to the back of the sled so they do not lose me taking off with the empty sled (but I still have to run as fast as I can to keep up)!

Oh My!

Below is the comical shot of the day. We came upon this large water crossing and Max & Zorro smartly drifted to the left for the shortest part of the crossing. But, upon reaching the short part, water averse Zorro took flight. He hates touching non-frozen water and can long jump just about any water crossing.

"Toes on snow - NEVER on water!" exclaims airborne Zorro.
"What? It is just super cold & refreshing water!" states Max causally trotting through the creek.

Sled outings are never as far, fun or fast as skijor outings but it's better than summer say Max & Zorro!!!

A day of bouncing the sled along good, bad and ugly terrain between Baldy and Boreas Mountains: 6.1 miles traveled with 450 feet of elevation and a top speed of 16 MPH (which is actually pretty fast for the terrain and the sled instead of skis).

2015/2016 Season to Date: 3 days on the trails covering 22.8 miles with 2950 feet of elevation climbed.

It's Better Than Summer

The theme for today's "sled dog" outing:

Well, it's better than summer!

"What do you mean 'sketchy conditions'? We could go all day!" say the happy pair simply
excited to be on snow at a beautiful 21 degrees.

We expected degrading conditions for our outing today as Sunday's snowfall was not enough to hold up against multiple days of rising temperatures.

If we are expecting degrading conditions, then we follow two rules: (1) Use the dog sled instead of skis as the sled can handle hitting rocks or dirt and skis cannot; and (2) Get an early start so that any mud from yesterday is frozen ground today. The downside of the sled is that we cannot go as far as our typical outing on skis as 2 sled dogs cannot tow a human uphill like they can when I am on skis. Yet, it is an outing on snow!

How to summarize today's outing... Well, it's better than summer! But, oh my, were the conditions really degraded in areas. Follow along below for the good, the bad and the ugly of the outing:

The Good. Laying fresh tracks in 3-4 inches of untouched snow!

The Bad. Eek, look at all the exposed ground! Thus the reason we were on the sled and not skis
today. But, do notice the "sled frame" at the bottom of the image and you can see I was still
able to keep the sled runners on snow - it just looks really bad.

The Ugly. Egad, not enough snow to keep the runners off ground. But, notice the shininess
of the ground - we are on frozen ground and ice, so the sled keeps going. Pretty ugly, but
it's 21 degrees and it's not summer!

The, um, well... <insert your most distressing word here>... Dog sledding without snow (but
on a sled). Thank dog for frozen ground or we would have been carrying the sled on the poor
human's back at this point!

Max & Zorro's opinion of the day? "Well, it's better than summer! A cool 21 degrees to let the sled move across frozen ground and we are able to run much faster with the human on the sled runners instead of feet!"

A 6 mile sled run today with 850 feet of elevation climbed and the good, the bad, the ugly & the "oh my god" of trail conditions.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 3 days on the trails covering 20.7 miles with 2850 feet of elevation climbed.