Premonition

A wild day chasing wildlife all over Rabbit Ears Pass!

"No that was FUN!" exclaims ecstatic Max.
"Moose and porcupines - my favorite!" declares silly Zorro.

How fresh were the moose tracks we encountered on the trail this morning? Well, fresh enough for Max to break out into his patented "bucking bronco moose scream" even though we never saw the moose. The tracks and scent of moose were sooooo strong that Max broke out into his bucking moose scream without a moose visual! He's only done this once before in his life - normally it takes a visual for him to turn into a bucking bronco screamer...

"MOOOOOOOSE!!!! I SMEEEEELLLL MOOOOOSE!!!!!" screams bucking bronco Max.
"Must be to the left, must be to the left!" declares intense hunting Zorro.

How prevalent was the "scent of moose" along the trail this morning? Well, so prevalent that Zorro could not maintain a forward-focused sprint for very long before scanning left, right, left, right, etc for moose!

"Smells so moosey to the left! Where is it?!?" says sprint-n-hunt Zorro.
Max is still focused forward, so you know there is not a moose to our left; but silly
Zorro had to keep scanning every direction!

Zorro was so focused on scanning left & right that I had to stop reacting to him and watch Max. At first I would start to snowplow with each of his scans so I could safely look that way too. After many false alarms I noticed Max was not scanning as much as Zorro. So, I switched to watching Max and only slowed to glance when Max did too. Zorro had "moose on the brain" and couldn't focus :)

Funny story... I was telling Nancy on the way to the trailhead this morning that I had a dream last night that we skijored this section of Rabbit Ears and encountered a moose, herd of yak, porcupine, bear and mountain lion. Was this premonition on my part?

We encountered one snowless patch of trail where I had to take my skis off to cross before starting again on snow. As we started to cross this patch of dirt, a porcupine waddled from a nearby tree and climbed up the tree. We treed a porcupine. Fresh moose tracks then treed porcupine, I started scanning the forest for yaks, bears and mountain lions! :)

Yes the picture is ugly (no snow). But I just had to show Max & Zorro staring intensely
up the tree the porcupine climbed. We could see it partway up the tree even though it does
not come out well in this photo. Treed a porcupine, oh my!

Oh yeah, we did some skijoring too :)

Zoom, zoom, zoom we go in between moose and porcupine events.

Next time I dream of moose, yak, porcupine, bear and lion, I will not go skijoring on the trail where the dream occurred! 8.2 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 153 days on the trails covering 1281.5 miles with 135,900 feet of elevation climbed.

Sprint and Hunt

Combining two fun activities on this morning's outing: sprinting and hunting! 

We started on a packed side trail with a 1/2 inch or so of new snow - just enough fresh snow to safely uncork the skijoring engine:

Zoom we go, flying along the fast trail.

The original goal of the outing was to skijor the backcountry until arriving at our favorite "groomed loop" in the forest. Once on the groomie zoomie, we really floored it and topped 25 MPH zipping around the loop:

Zorro the flying z-ball and Max the long-bodied sprinter :)

Partway through the outing and Max & Zorro found another goal for the morning - hunting! As we were gliding along, both of their radars went off and they wanted to ditch the packed trail and go hunting in the deep powder. It is usually the scent of moose that causes this type of "radar firing" from them. I could see into the nearby trees and there were no moose tracks, so I decided to entertain Max & Zorro and let them pull me through the deep snow for a bit...

"Oh boy - radar says something very smelly & tasty this way!" declare my powder plows.

Well, it turns out that there are two species of animals that smell delicious and really attract Max & Zorro's noses.... Moose and Porcupines!!! I thought we were completely safe going off trail as I would have been able to see a moose in the shallow trees. But, as Max & Zorro approached a cluster of trees I suddenly spotted a porcupine moving in the snow. Yikes!!! Plant my butt on the ground and start to reel Max & Zorro back towards me!

"Bingo - we see that tasty smelling porcupine!" declare my hunting pair.
The porcupine is not really visible, but I just followed Max & Zorro's stare and saw it moving
and getting ready for any prey that might come too close. Yikes.

Sprinting and hunting is quite a workout - time to cool off at our turnaround point of the day:

"Aaahhh, rolling snow angels to cool off!" demonstrates Zorro.
"DUNK! Cooling my head!" shows head dunking Max.

A fast day on speedy trails with a deep powder porcupine tour added in for fun: 9.1 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 25 MPH.

2016/2017 Season to Date: 76 days on the trails covering 614.7 miles with 65,900 feet of elevation climbed.