Peak 7

Fresh tracks fun on the trails on Peak 7 in Breckenridge. Wheeee!

A wonderful layer of fresh snow all to ourselves. Yay!

We were on the trails that will eventually become Breckenridge Nordic Center once there is enough snow to support a groomer. While we expected enough snow for a groomer, it is not quite there. But, there was plenty of snow to support Jack, Rudy and I! So, it was a "backcountry style" outing on the soon to become nordic trails on Peak 7 this morning.

It was 8 degrees (F) when we started the outing. You know what that means, Jack & Rudy had to stop and use the Hallelujah Warming Hut we encountered along the way. This is how a Siberian Husky uses a warming hut:

"8 degrees! So hot! Must stop, drop and roll to cool our jets at the
warming hut!" declares the snow rolling sillies.

While we were first tracks in the fresh snow most of the day, eventually we encountered evidence of others. Not a problem, there was still plenty of fresh snow for us to use next to some other tracks on the trail:

Fresh tracks down the middle of the trail with another set of ski
tracks to our left. Plenty of untouched snow for us!!!

Now come along for some video fun. Watch as Jack & Rudy are having a blast towing me along in the fresh snow as we round many corners on the trail along the way. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Then, we got a real treat - our first fresh smelling moose tracks on the trail for the 2025/2026 season. Delectable!

"Sniff, sniff - these are FRESH!!!" says the moose track inspectors.

What was better - the fresh snow, the moose tracks or the end of run treats. Hmmm, I think it was a tie amongst all three!

"End of run treats are ALWAYS special!" declares the happy & focused kids.

Great day laying fresh tracks on Peak 7: 6.2 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 4 days on the trails covering 22.0 miles with 2600 feet of elevation climbed.

Let's Dance

Fresh snow in May - Yay! Let's Dance!!!

Jack & Rudy doing a "fresh snow celebration" dance :)

Fresh snow in May is always such a treat! Today we found ourselves laying fresh tracks in 1-2 inches of fresh snow on the upper elevation trails on Peak 7. It was a beautiful May Day for a skijor!

Laying fresh tracks in May! Yay!

This time of year I prefer to do "out & back" skijor outings with the out direction being more up than down. This way, on the way up (going a little slower) I am able to see all the obstacles I'll need to avoid coming back down at much faster speeds. But, with the wide trail on Peak 7, we were able to lay fresh tracks both directions by hugging the right side of the trail on the way up and the flying in the center on the way down.

Freshies down the center of the trail with our "up tracks" to our left.
What a fun May Day!

Now come along for the video highlight of the day. I had so much fun video footage to choose from, I chose the following for the fun curves in the trail along the way. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The snow was a bit wet and heavy (as it usually is in May) and temperatures were right around freezing (maybe a little below to start the day and a little above to end), so I was expecting snow angels to cool off from the comedians at our turnaround point of the day. Yep...

"Turnaround, roll around! Need to cool our jets!" goes the snow
rolling sillies.

What a May Day treat, right guys?

"Yes, that was FUN!" declares the happy & focused fun kids.

A fresh tracks May Day covering 5.2 miles with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 102 days on the trails covering 777.5 miles with 76,700 feet of elevation climbed.

Yay Snow

Look at all the snowflakes (white speckles) in today's opening shot for our skijor outing!

Active snowfall in late April. Yay!!!!

We had a light dusting of snow overnight, so I decided to head out to the trails on Peak 7 with Jack & Rudy this morning. This time of year, the trails start to get very slick and beat up. But, all I need is a dusting of snow to make the conditions safe to ski again. I call this the "Safety Dust" and this morning's plan was to use the overnight safety dust to skijor Peak 7. But, much to our pleasure and surprise, it started snowing moments after we started the outing and continued all morning long. This added to the safety dust and made for an incredibly enjoyable outing. Let's try and showcase some more of the active snow:

All the white speckles you see against Jack & Rudy's fur and the trees
ahead and to our left are active snowflakes. Yay for Snow!

Ok, let's try another:

More white snowflake speckles on Jack & Rudy and more
speckles against the trees. Whee!

Ok, enough trying to capture active snow in a still photo. Let's get to the video highlight of the morning. Come along and watch as we have wonderful and quite active snowfall coming down on us as we skijor Peak 7. Yay for Snow!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Our last two skijor outings the temperatures were above freezing, so we got the comedians rolling snow angels to cool off at any break point. Well, today was below freezing, so I knew Rudy was going to switch from rolling to singing. Jack, of course, ALWAYS rolls. Sure enough:

"Stop, drop and roll!" declares always rolling Jack.
"Woooo! I love snow!" belts singing Rudy.

Back to the trailhead and I think I was talking about the fun outing too much instead of handing out the end of run treats:

"You going to chat away or dish them out?!?" asks perplexed, head cocked Rudy.
"I can taste them in anticipation, come on!" adds slurping Jack.

A beautiful morning skijoring with a layer of safety dust and active snowfall: 5.7 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 101 days on the trails covering 772.3 miles with 75,900 feet of elevation climbed.

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.

Heavy Workout

Look at what we awoke to find this morning!!!

Yes, that is the Breckenridge Ski Resort snow stake which measures 24 hour
new snow at mid-mountain on the resort. Yes, that is about 11 inches of new
snow on May 12th!!!!

The forecast did call for snow overnight last night, but nobody expected this much! With such a surprise on the Breck snow stake, we headed to the trails on Peak 7. These trails are very close to the snow stake. We start a little lower in elevation than the snow stake and then go higher than the stake on the way up. So, we found about 8 inches of fresh snow at our starting point and over a foot at our highest point. The only drawback? Well it was very heavy & wet snow as is typical for the middle of May. Not a problem, Jack & Rudy can power through heavy & wet snow, it is just quite the fun workout!

Nearing our highest point of the morning as we are breaking trail in over
12 inches of fresh, but heavy & wet, snow at this point!

Along the way, a moose had crossed the trail and headed into the trees. Jack & Rudy thought we should too :)

"Moose went this way! We should too!" says the silly moosers.
The real trail goes up the left side of this photo, I had to convince my pals
to return to the real trail and abandon following the moose into the trees :)

With such heavy & wet snow, we did an "out & back" route today so that we could reuse our out tracks on the way back. An out & back means you have to turn around, right? Well, that does not go unnoticed by Jack & Rudy :)

At first I thought the kids were going to simply turnaround and go.
But, no, we all turned around and then did our turnaround comedy for the day.
"Turnaround, roll around!" goes always rolling Jack.
"Turnaround, woos abound!" adds singing Rudy.

Then, as planned, we picked up the speed using our "out tracks" on the way back. But, with only our single out tracks and the wetness & heaviness of the snow, it was still a real workout on the way back!

Fun kids pulling strong as we reuse our out tracks on the way back.

How much work on the return? Well, come along and see for yourself. Jack & Rudy are running hard in our out tracks but, as you can see, it was still quite the workout. Fun & powerful kids!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

It was heavy & wet, but still quite the treat, especially for mid-May, right guys?

"Oh, we had a BLAST and those end of run treats are going to taste great!" says
the focused & happy kids at the end of the day.

A wonderful mid-May workout: 5.7 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 149 days on the trails covering 1257.2 miles with 124,800 feet of elevation climbed.

May POW

Happy kids in wonderful new snow in May at the official Rabbit Ears Pass geological marker!

Smiles all around and look at all that fresh & untouched new snow!!!!

The last two days have been incredible fresh snow days in May! It has been a May POW celebration with Jack & Rudy.

Yesterday we skijored the high elevation trails on Peak 7 in Breckenridge. There was 10-15 inches of fresh snow on the trails. One skier had been out before us, so Jack & Rudy tucked themselves into the two ski tracks and towed me up the mountain:

Tucked in tight as the snow is over 10 inches deep out of the ski track so
one could not keep pace with the other if both did not squeeze into these tracks.

I knew Jack & Rudy would appreciate a little wider "set trail" on the way back as it is hard to run fast in a single set of ski tracks without constantly bumping into one another. So, I skied next to the single track you see in the prior photo all the way up. This meant Jack & Rudy had 4 ski tracks to spread across on the way back. Remember, though, there was upwards of 15 inches of fresh snow. So, a single ski track does not pack the trail, it just makes it slightly easier to run fast in. But, there was still plenty of powder in around the ski tracks. Just look at all this powder flying up around Jack & Rudy on our return leg!

Kicking up TONS of powder as the kids blast fast in the 4 ski tracks trail.

With all that deep snow, it was a short (distance wise) outing yesterday: 5.4 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed. 

This morning we went to the Dumont Lake area at Rabbit Ears Pass. Rabbit Ears is very popular with snowmobiles, so we found 1-2 of fresh snow over pre-existing snowmobile tracks to run in:

Laying fresh tracks in new snow over snowmobile tracks.

It was like mid winter at Rabbit Ears this morning. Quite incredible! Come along and see for yourself as this is near the start of our outing and the kids are having great fun running fast in snowmobile tracks.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Eventually the snowmobile tracks turned away from the route I had planned. We continued on anyway, but then quickly found ourselves breaking trail in over 8 inches of fresh snow:

Breaking Trail - Wheeee!

But, after such deep snow fun yesterday, I wanted to give Jack & Rudy a more shallow & fast outing today.  So, we turned around pretty soon after the prior photo and changed our outing to follow snowmobile tracks wherever they went:

Zipping along laying fresh tracks in snowmobile tracks.
The ski tracks (and dog foot prints) you see to our left are our own tracks
going the other direction on this stretch of trail.

What an excellent set of mid winter powder days yesterday and today in May!!! Right guys?

"Oh, we LOVED it!" says the happy kids propped up no a little snow
wall  to get end of run treats.

Today tally: 8.6 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 147 days on the trails covering 1244.5 miles with 123,500 feet of elevation climbed.

Late April Powder Day

Look who was enjoying this morning's Late April Powder Day!

"Yay for new snow! We are having a BLAST!" says the happily snow covered
kids at a momentary pause on the trail this morning.

Yes, that's right, it was a wonderful powder day in late April! We found ourselves laying fresh tracks in 5-10 inches of new snow all morning long (5 inches at our lowest elevations and 10 at our highest). Even though the snow was a bit on the wet/heavy side, Jack & Rudy were excited to go snow plowing all day long:

Laying fresh tracks in a beautiful layer of fresh snow!

I love riding behind these two and watching them blast through deep powder. So impressive:

Powder blasting - wheeee!

Typically in April, I like to do "out & back" outings so I see on the obstacles on the "out leg" that I need to avoid on the "back leg". This works great when the out leg is mostly up and the back mostly down. But, with the amount of new snow we had this morning, I decided to do a loop with the kids so we were able to lay fresh tracks almost the entire outing in rolling up & down terrain. The end of the outing repeated one short section to get back to the trailhead, thus, fresh tracks almost the entire outing. Along the way, my fun pals decided to switch positions for a little while. Switched positions, same results :)

POW again as we now have Jack on the left and Rudy on the right.

I've put today's video highlight in slow motion as I love watching these two blast through powder in slowmo. Come along and watch for yourselves. Such impressive powder plows!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

You know what else deep, fresh snow is good for? Well, rolling snow angels with some extra gusto to cause the powder to fly up around you. Just ask Jack & Rudy, this is the best way to roll angels :)

"Rolling with extra gusto to make powder fly up around and on us!" demonstrates
the snow rolling funnies.

What a late April snow treat, right guys?

"Oh, that was FUN! We love fresh snow!" exclaims the happy & focused
kids awaiting end of run treats.

What a fun powder day, especially for this late in April: 7.4 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 138 days on the trails covering 1179.9 miles with 117,100 feet of elevation climbed.

Nice Up High

Turnaround, roll around. Turnaround, woos abound.

Classic Jack rolling his snow angels at our turnaround point this morning.
Singing Rudy offering a tune of woos for his turnaround fun :)

The conditions are pretty nice in the prior photo, right? Just a single set of ski tracks and lots of untouched snow. Well, that photo was at our highest elevation and furthest from the trailhead point of this morning's outing. Here is what we had to endure to get to these "nice up high & far" conditions:

It was tracked up and beat up down lower and close to the trailhead. So beat up that I had to take my skis off and hike down the final hill to the trailhead on the way back! Ugh!

Going gently on super tracked up, choppy and icy trail conditions!

The further we went, the less tracked the trail became, but it was still cautious skiing at the mid elevations of today's outing:

We were able to trot at the mid elevations, but not much faster than that!

Then, as typically happens with my assistance from Jack & Rudy, we out skied just about all existing tracks and footprints. At our highest and furthest from the trailhead section of the outing, it was picture perfect! Only one or two skiers had been out this far before us. Oh my it was BEAUTIFUL up high:

Amazing conditions, especially compared to the mid and low level photos above!

How nice up high? Well, come along and see for yourself. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Today's comedy interlude was hopping off trail at the mid elevations of our outing to search for those pesky rodents hiding under the snow. 

"I think the rodents are down HERE!" declares dunking Jack.
"Really? Well, then, INCOMING!" responds rodent diving Rudy leaping
to join Jack's location.

Once Rudy's dive was complete, the kids started a joint excavation of snow in search for the rodents:

"Dig, dig, dig, where are those pesky rodents?" asks the excavating kids.
Despite lots of searching and digging, nobody came up with a rodent in his mouth!

If you can't chew on a rodent, you might as well accept end of run treats instead, right guys?

"Ok, treats are good; although we'd prefer fresh rodents!" says the
happy & focused kids.

Today's outing was on the short side because I expected the tracked up and hard to navigate conditions at the mid and low elevations. If only we could teleport ourselves to & from the wonderful conditions up high!!! 5.7 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 133 days on the trails covering 1138.7 miles with 112,800 feet of elevation climbed.

Freshies

A beautiful Fresh Tracks Thursday for our skijor this morning!

Jack & Rudy zooming, laying fresh tracks, in about 4 inches
of fresh powder. Yay!

Our outing took us once again to the upper elevation trails of Breckenridge Nordic Center. With a pre-existing packed base in areas and 3-5 inches of fresh snow, I knew we'd be in for a treat most of the morning. Can you just feel the power from Jack & Rudy in this photo?

The power twins towing me quickly through fresh powder!

Sometimes I really like to watch Jack & Rudy skijoring in slow motion to appreciate their sheer power. This is especially true when they are powering through fresh snow. Come along for today's video highlight - a slow motion clip showcasing Jack & Rudy's powder power, wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We did a large loop on the trails this morning, so that meant we were laying fresh tracks the entire outing!

Fun shot of the powder kids in the morning sun.

At our midpoint of the day, I paused to check our time out on the trails. Well, I paused...

"You pause, we Stop, Drop & Roll!" says the goofy snow angel rolling kids.

Finally, there's nothing as fun as enjoying end of run treats after a morning of powder power running :)

"You have our FULL attention!" exclaims the happy kids.

Super fun fresh tracks morning; 8.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 9 days on the trails covering 69.5 miles with 7300 feet of elevation climbed.