Patience

Jack & Rudy whipping me around a gentle left in the trail. Sled dog power! Whee!

The fun kids hug every corner very tightly, it's up to me to
try and stay upright and keep pace on skis :)

Today's outing took us on the upper elevation trails on peaks 7 & 6 in Breckenridge. Along the way, we found some snowcat tracks going up one of the Peak 6 service roads. With fresh snow over the snowcat tracks, this was safe for me to traverse on skis, so we followed. Eventually the snowcat turned around, so we did too. Did I say "turn around?" Yep...

"Turnaround, roll around!" goes the snow rolling sillies.
You can see the wide cul-de-sac like turnaround the snowcat did.

Once the kids were done rolling, it was time to go back down the way we came up. This service road gets a bit steep in areas, so I like to take it cautiously. I only have to call out "easy" a few times to Jack & Rudy for them to get the message that we are taking the trail slower until I say otherwise. Great partners!

Believe me, they WANT to go faster than this; but a couple of "easy"
commands from me and they oblige as jogging is better than stopping!

After doing the side tour on the snowcat tracks, it was back onto the main trail on Peak 7. This is technically one of the trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center which is now closed for the season. I had turn on skis to get from the snowcat tracks back onto the main trail. Come along and watch as Jack & Rudy sit SO patiently waiting for me to turn on skis. Once around, I only need to mutter "Ok," and off we GO! I love to reward their patience with the opportunity to floor it :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the video. The tracks (ski and dog prints) you see are our out tracks on this same trail. So, go back and watch again and pay attention to seconds 24-25 in the clip. It looks as though my skis and Jack & Rudy's footprints seem to go off trail. Well, here is what happened at this point on the way up :)

Jack first lunged off trail looking for rodents under the snow.
Rudy, as usual, followed suit with one of his high arching rodent dives.
Together, both nearly pulled me completely off trail! Now you understand
the prints in the video :)

It was actually quite a nice morning with a light layer of new snow atop the (now closed for the season) nordic trails. We will not be able to use these trails again unless there is new snow as they get beat up quickly this time of year.

Whee - what wonderful April 20th conditions!

Back to the trailhead and we are still finding snow walls to climb for end of run treats; but they are melting fast :(

The fun kids found yet another snow wall to scale so we could be face to
face for end of run treats. Fun guys!

Today's tally: 6.8 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 97 days on the trails covering 742.1 miles with 72,700 feet of elevation climbed.

New Extension

The kids were a bit frisky on this morning's skijor outing :)

Frisky kids deciding to play on the trail!

Today was a new feature for us on otherwise well-known trails. We were skijoring the upper elevation trails of Breckenridge Nordic Center which spans peaks 6 & 7 of the 10 mile range - nothing new about this, we skijor these trails all the time. But, the new feature is the nordic center ran the groomer up the Peak 6 Service Road until it connected with the ski lifts of Breckenridge Ski Resort on Peak 6. Normally this service road is not groomed in winter and brave backcountry skiers tackle it on their own (making your own path up/down). I did this once years ago with Max & Zorro only to realize, "Whoa! That was a steep climb which means a death defying descent!" and swore never to do it again :) After all, I am on cross country skis and those are not designed for steep descents in deep powder. But, with the slow/low snow we've had to start the season, the nordic center ran the groomer up this service road in an attempt to give us more terrain to ski. With a groomed trail, I had no fear in going up & down it with Jack & Rudy.

Success, we skijored up the groomed trail to the base of ski operations on Peak 6. It was a nice ride up for me behind the Siberian Tow Rope (Jack & Rudy):

"Phew, gotta cool my jets after hauling the human up!" demonstrates Jack.
"Do I get paid for towing you to the base of operations?" asks all-business Rudy.

After the wild (and steep) ride up/down Peak 6, we continued the day on the usual trails of the nordic center. The highlight of this leg of the outing? Snowfall!

The big blur in the upper left is a snowflake hitting the camera.
The white blob in the upper right is another incoming snowflake.
All the white speckles you see are more snowflakes falling around us!

It wasn't heavy snowfall, but it was snowfall and we'll take EVERYTHING to build our snowpack. The prior still shot does not do justice to the snowfall; so come along for a video clip where the lightly falling snow can be seen quite clearly. Yay for Snow!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and ready for 'end of run' treats with elder Zorro. Everybody ready?

"Yep! Do I get them all?" asks reliable Zorro while the goofball twins
are off trail digging for who knows what in the snow!
Love my focused albeit retired Z!

Let me ask again... "Everybody ready, yet?!?!?"

"Should have given them all to ME!" states Zorro.
"Haha, hehe, we are here now!" adds the la-la-land twins FINALLY
coming into the 'end of run' treat party.

A new, but very steep, extension to our skijors on Breckenridge Nordic Center trails: 6.5 miles traveled with 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 41 days on the trails covering 322.3 miles with 30,500 feet of elevation climbed.