Another Day Another Foot

Another day, another outing breaking trail in over a foot of untouched snow!

"Breaking trail and road sprinting - what a fun day!" say the happy Siberians at the
end of the outing.

Our plan was to skijor the trails in Indiana Creek today and we fully expected to find a well-tracked and wide trail since it has been a few days since the last snow. Wow, were the expectations wrong! We arrived to the trailhead to find a single set narrow track leading up the trail:

Heading up the single set narrow track. Notice the weaving back & forth nature of the track.
I was laughing imagining a drunk snowshoer or skier setting the strange zig-zag track up
the trail. Oh well, it was "set", so we followed it :-)

What could be more amazing that finding only a single set narrow track at Indiana Creek? Well, how about having the set track end in under 1/2 a mile. Amazing - we were breaking trail the rest of the day in Indiana Creek after the first 1/2 mile!

Within about a 1/2 mile and we are breaking trail in a foot or more of snow!

Breaking trail for long distances always causes Max & Zorro to get in a single file configuration
and take turns being the harder working husky in the front.
Do you see the trail? I bet not, but Max is dead accurate in following the true trail in what
looks like a trail-less field of snow - impressive lead dog!

Endless trail breaking, so it is Zorro's turn to run lead. A nice set of wildlife tracks
to help mark the route on this section of trail.

After getting a very aerobic trail breaking working in Indiana Creek, we decided to add a cool down sprint along Indiana Creek Road to close out the day. Here's a portion of our cool down run along the road before stopping for the day.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Another day with the mileage cut short by extreme trail breaking, as has been the norm for the past week or so: 6.3 miles with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2013/2014 Season to Date: 83 days on the trails covering 708.7 miles with 83,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Home Run

We awoke to trace amounts of new snow this morning. Then, it really started to dump and we had over 3 inches of new snow by the time I finished breakfast (and still falling). So, Max, Zorro and I hit the trails for a morning fun run...

Cruising along the Blue River Trail. As you can see, the trail is only "One Siberian Wide",
so we were single file skijoring for 4 miles along this route. A few times, the sides of the
trail were taller than Max! I tried to snap a photo of this and immediately fell out of the
narrow single track and into the snow. So, put the camera away and pay attention....

We started at the Indiana Creek winter trailhead. As we were driving on Indiana Creek Road to the trailhead, I noticed how deep the new, fast falling snow was on this city road. "Hmmm, we could skijor the road before the plows come out!" I noted...  We then started our fun route out & up Indiana Creek - laying fresh tracks in 3-4 inches of snow near the trailhead and breaking trail in 4-8 inches as we got further back into the Indiana Creek Gulch.

We have a lot of hiking/biking/snowshoe trails near our house. These trails are skiable immediately after a fresh, fast falling snowfall (and then get beaten down to non-skiable ice & rock soon after). But, we were out skijoring on the cusp of a fresh dump of new snow. As we were cruising around Indiana Creek, I said to Max & Zorro, "I bet the snow is new & deep enough for us to make a run all the way home!" As we got back to the Indiana Creek trailhead, I noticed the plows still had not been out and I said, "Ok, lets go for a home run - Max, Zorro forward!" and my two pals happily galloped through the trailhead and started down Indiana Creek Road. Wheeee, we cruised down the road until meeting up with the Blue River Trail - this popular snowshoe trail would wind us back into Breckenridge and drop us a few blocks from home. So, I sent Nancy a text telling her we didn't need a ride home and off we went on the Blue River Trail. What Fun! We found beautiful, untouched snow the entire route! The trail had steep snow walls on each side and was only one Siberian wide; so, it was single file skijoring as we were breaking trail in 4-12 inches the entire route! Eventually we dropped back into town and had to carefully navigate a couple of blocks of recently plowed roads to complete the route home. What a Blast!

Vital Stats: 9 miles; 130m total time; 110m skijoring time (quite a few sections of deep snow and/or single file tracks kept the overall speeds down); 21 MPH top speed; 1100 feet of elevation climbed.

Max making a very nice Snow Angel in the fresh snow! The sun popped out
for a about a 1/2 hour during our outing. But it is back to dumping snow
again now.

Zorro inspecting the new snow for the "right spot" to dunk his head.