Close Encounter of the Moose Kind

Look who is blocking the trail AGAIN!!!

"Hey, no stopping on the trail!" yells Rudy.
"Yeah, RUDE!" adds Jack.

These are the same two moose who where blocking the trail in this EXACT same location 48 hours ago. Now here's the thing, it is rare to unheard of to encounter moose at the same place 48 hours apart. The big animals wander through large spaces to forage in the forest. They already picked the trees in this location clean 48 hours ago, so what are they doing back? So much for "unheard of"...

Today was probably the scariest moment I've ever had on skis, brought to you by these "shouldn't even be here" moose. We were skijoring along, minding our own business, when suddenly the mother moose SHOT out of the forest onto the trail in front of us. Holy smokes!

Big ass moose jumping out from the trees to cut us off.
Pun intended (big ass :)

Come along for the slow motion video of this ridiculously wild moose encounter. As I said above, we are skijoring along, minding our own business, when suddenly the MOOSE pops out of the forest onto the trail and takes off in front of us. I immediately throw my body to the ground to stop everyone. My full body is the best brake I have on this skijoring machine :) My goodness, cutoff by a MOOSE! Whoa!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After collecting myself from this ridiculous cutoff, I got up to see where the moose went. Well, she ran down trail to collect her kid. So, here we were again blocked from proceeding by two moose. A lady we had passed earlier eventually caught up to us stopped for the moose. We all studied the moose trying to figure out how to get them to move.

Rudy screaming at the 2 moose as we all ponder what to do next.

This lady became our new friend for a while. As she and I were discussing the moose with Rudy screaming at them in the background, she eventually said, "I'm surprised they don't leave due to him [Rudy] screaming like that!" I agreed, but Rudy wasn't moving them. 

Here's a zoomed in shot of the two trail hogs.

Mom on the right, kid on the left.
Make note of that bush in front of the kid.

What did we do? Well, Jack, Rudy, myself and our new skier friend skied back up trail to give the moose time to leave. We'd ski a little ways and then one of us would ski back to see if the moose were gone. The moose were moving down trail, but VERY slowly, snacking along the way. Each time we reverified the moose were still in the way, the 4 of us would reverse and go back up trail for a bit. Along the way, Jack & Rudy decided to inspect all the places the moose had snacked. Remember the bush next to the kid in the prior photo? Well, here it is up close...

"Sniff, sniff - juvenile moose slobber on this bush!" declares Jack sniffing
the bush that the kid was snacking on in the prior photo.

Not to be outdone, Rudy found where the mother shot out of the forest when cutting us off.

"Sniff, sniff  - big mama slobber! Even better than kid slobber!" declares
Rudy inspecting the bush the mother was apparently eating before shooting
out of the forest in front of us.

Our new group of 4 tried to get past the moose 6 times, each time going a little further on the trail but still running into the moose eventually. On attempt #7, we finally got clearance! Our new friend is pointing out where the two moose are FINALLY off trail. Of course, Jack & Rudy already alerted me to their location; but still nice of her to point it out.

"Thanks for pointing, but we are already ON it!" says the moose spotters,
Jack & Rudy.

Finally clear and it is back to the trailhead for some much deserved end of run treats!

Given the situation - being cutoff by a moose, Jack & Rudy were incredibly
good today listening to me and turning around 6 times due to moose
blocking the trail!

Yowza, what were those two moose doing in the same location 48 hours apart?!?! Unheard of!!! Anyway, 11.2 miles traveled with a top speed of 24 MPH and 800 feet of elevation climbed.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 123 days on the trails covering 1096.0 miles with 99,500 feet of elevation climbed.

Moose

Cruising by the historic Sallie Barber Mine on this morning's skijor. 

On by we go.... Wheeee!

We had what began as a very peaceful skijor at Sallie Barber Mine this morning. There was a couple of inches of new snow with a couple of pre-existing ski tracks on the popular frontside of the mine and no existing tracks on the less popular backside of the mine. We skijored up the frontside, then down & back up the backside and finally back down the frontside. 

The backside has some fun dips & lifts along the trail where Jack & Rudy rise above my waist height as they go up a lift before me. This makes for some cool photos:

Jack & Rudy higher than my waist as they crest over a little lift in the trail
before I do.

For today's video highlight, we'll show one of our favorite stretches of trail on the frontside of the mine. Come along as we start in a straight section of trail. Then we get to dip into a sharp left, glide around a gentle right and finally really open the throttle in an extended straightaway. Zoom!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As we were nearing the end of what was a "peaceful skijor" all moose broke out :) As we came upon a corner near the end of the outing, Jack & Rudy stopped suddenly and low & behold there was a moose laying right off the trail! We had been by this corner just 40ish minutes earlier and there was no moose! I thought this was a pretty big moose at first, little did I know...

Jack & Rudy locked on the moose laying down just feet off the trail. Yikes!

I quickly got Jack & Rudy under control and moved backwards to get a safe distance away before deciding how we were going to avoid this moose and still get around the corner. Well, as I was backing the kids up, Rudy let out one of his patented "moose screams". The scream caused the moose to stand. As I was watching the large creature stand, suddenly another moose arose from the other side of the tree. Much to my amazement, the original moose was actually a kid and the second (that I did not see at first) was the mother who stood to tower over the kid. I continued moving Jack & Rudy back until we were at a safe distance. Meanwhile, the mother meandered over next to her kid while we all decided what to do with each other :)

Mother and kid standing with mother slightly behind the kid!

Not convinced there are two moose the prior photo? Ok, let's zoom in as much as I can before the photo gets too blurry:

You can now make out at least 6 separate legs. Yep, 2 moose.
Oh, 4 very interested husky ears too :)

What happened? Well, Rudy saved the day. He belted out another round of moose screams and the mother got sick of listening to him and gathered her kid and sauntered off into the trees away from us. Of course, Rudy didn't want the moose to leave; but luckily he cannot keep his mouth shut and the moose did not want to listen to him :)

Moose out of the way, time to safely get back to the trailhead to share our usual end of run treats:

"Got any moose meat in that bag?" asks the curious kids.
Sorry guys, no moose in here, just the usual pork treats!

A peaceful quick run around Sallie Barber this morning with an exhilarating moose encounter to end the day: 7.2 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 83 days on the trails covering 722.6 miles with 66,450 feet of elevation climbed.

Moose Follow

Happy boys finishing a very successful "moose seeking skijor" in French Gulch this morning!

"Whew, that was FUN!" says my happy trotting partners.

One of the reasons (and the primary reason) we love the French Gulch Trail is the population of moose that live in the gulch. But, to our displeasure, we have not had a real good "moose sighting" this season. Despite tons of moose evidence such as entrance/exit troughs from the trail to forest and tracks (and poops) on the trail, the elusive moose have simply toyed with us all season.

Today started much the same as this season in French Gulch as we found a very fresh smelling moose exit trough near the trailhead. I knew it was an exit trough as there were no prints going up the trail and only a couple of prints crossing the trail from an entrance trough a few yards behind us. Darn, I thought, we just missed the elusive moose again!

"Very fresh moose trough!" says trough sniffing Zorro & Rudy.
"Scanning, scanning, where are the moose?" asks forest scanning Jack.

After thoroughly inspecting the trough above, we resumed skijoring out French Gulch with me assuming we failed to sight a moose once again. But, just around the corner from this trough and look what we found standing in the middle of the trail - MOOSE!!!!!! You can barely make out the entrance trough just above and to the left of Rudy's ear. The moose came back within 50 yards of the exit trough we found above! Oh boy - love to see moose! There were actually two (a mother and child) - this is the child you see below and the mother is just around the bend in the trail behind the kid.

"Moose, moose - let's go!" says my excited & ecstatic moose seeking trio.

The mother and child proceeded to go out & up the French Gulch trail. We followed them for almost 3 miles playing a fun game of "stop & go". If the moose stopped, we stopped. If the moose went, we went. Stop, go, stop, go, etc etc for almost 3 miles of entertainment.

You stop, we stop:

"Hi! We see you too!" says my stopped and intense moosers.
This is the mother and the kid is hidden behind her here.

You go, we go:

Mother and child are running up the trail single file (so it looks like just one).
"You go, we go - here we come!" says my moose followers.

You stop, we stop:

Mother on the right, kid on the left.
"I vote for 'you stop, we still go'!" Rudy tells me :)
Sorry, Rudy, if moose stop, we STOP!

You go, we go:

Nice view of mother and child running up the trail side by side.
"Here we come again!" says the moose following trio.

You stop, we stop:

The pair of moose stopped ahead again.
This is actually the last time we saw them as they finally took off
for a long distance instead of the "stop, go, stop, go" they
had been doing.

Today's video highlight is, of course, the moose fun. Come along for an excerpt of "go, stop, go, stop, go" with the pair of moose. Watch how hard I have to work to maintain the "stop" with my moose seeking partners. Turn up your volume and hear talkative Rudy doing his "moose scream" during some of the stoppage. What a fun day :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After almost 3 miles, the moose finally exited the trail and went off into the forest:

"Moose exited here! Can we too?" asks Jack deep in the exit trough.
"I vote for following Jack!" adds Rudy.
"I still smell them, let's follow!" agrees Zorro.

I vetoed all the above votes. No way are we going to follow moose into deep snow in the dense forest! With the moose gone, we turned around and ran back down French Gulch jogging and sniffing the tracks that had been laid by the moose all the way out! 6.2 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 94 days on the trails covering 640.7 miles with 59,350 feet of elevation climbed.

Repeat

Everyone OK with repeating the same skijor outing as yesterday?

"Yes! I could repeat the same trail with fresh snow every day!" declares happy Zorro.
"Yes! So much to explore, I could do it every day too!" adds curious Jack.
"Yes! But can we get going yet!" adds Rudy.

With the Boreas Pass trail coming back to life with the recent snow, we decided to return again today. Since the trail was down to dirt/mud just 1 week ago, we know the trail is one or two warm days from being dead again. So, let's redo this trail and enjoy it as much as possible.

Well, this morning was a repeat of yesterday in just about every way possible! Come along for the fun...

As with yesterday, we were first on the trail and found ourselves laying fresh tracks up Boreas Pass:

Trotting along in the morning's fresh snow. Late April Freshies - wheeee!

As with yesterday, we were laying fresh tracks up Boreas ALMOST the entire way up. As with yesterday, the only time we were not laying fresh tracks is when we encountered moose tracks on the trail! We were at most 50 yards from the location of yesterday morning's fresh moose tracks when look at what we found again:

"<sniff> <sniff> - these are VERY fresh!' declare the moose inspecting trio.

Look at the prior photo and you can see the moose tracks go off trail to the right of Jack and go up trail in front of us. Which way did the moose go? Well, let's ask the expert....

"Children, they are fresh UP the trail, not off the trail!" declares Zorro the expert moose tracker.
"Are you sure? Maybe they went off trail!" says Jack.
"I have NO 'moose direction' yet, but I'm going to submerge myself in these delicious
smelling tracks going off trail!" adds young Rudy.

Of course, Zorro was right. Eventually he convinced Jack & Rudy that the moose went up trail, not off trail. Once he had his partners properly focused, it was time to search for moose:

"Ok, we smell what you are saying - they get fresher up trail!" say Jack & Rudy joining
Zorro to go moosing up trail :)

After maybe a 100 or 150 yards of following moose tracks and they left the trail to go off into the woods. Zorro knew this, time to give the kids a lesson:

"Yes Jack - this is a MOOSE EXIT! It was a MOOSE ENTRANCE before!' declares teacher Zorro.
"Okay, okay, I get it. It just smelled SO GOOD before that I got confused!" says young Jack who is
still refining his moose direction skills.
"Let me see, let me see! How do you tell an entrance from exit?" asks youngest Rudy who
has a lot of work to do on his moose direction skills :)

The only difference from yesterday? Well, it got really deep at the upper elevations of our morning's outing. Time for some powder plowing up high:

"Powder flying!" demonstrates Zorro.
"Powder hopping!" demonstrates Jack.
"Powder plowing!" demonstrates Rudy.

Two days in a row of "fresh tracks" and "moose tracks" on Boreas Pass: 5.7 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 107 days on the trails covering 609.0 miles with 56,800 feet of elevation climbed.