Leftovers

Catching air with the Rabbit Ears in view to our upper left, whee!

Fun Jack & Rudy catching air!
Nice view of the ears for which Rabbit Ears Pass is named in the upper left;
the two rocks atop the peak to our upper left are the ears of Rabbit Ears Pass.

Today's outing can be summarized by one phrase: Groomer Leftovers. Yesterday found us being first tracks on freshly groomed snowmobile trails at Rabbit Ears Pass. Today we were playing leftovers from yesterday's groom. Since it is late April, not a lot of traffic was out on the trails yesterday (go figure, some people apparently think it is springtime or something :) As a result, we were able to hug the shoulders of the trails most of the day to find some leftover groomer corduroy to enjoy today. 

In the photo above, we are on a really nice & wide strip of leftover corduroy on the left shoulder of the trail. In the photo below, the leftovers are much smaller, but still enough to safely let Jack & Rudy floor it!

Much narrower leftovers than the prior photo; but still enough for me on skis.

For some added fun to the outing, we veered away from the vast open meadows we usually stick to at Rabbit Ears in Spring and did an out & back on a lesser used snowmobile trail. But, it was the same theme as the rest of the day: hug the shoulders for groomer leftovers for my skis and let Jack & Rudy do their thing :)

Still enough leftovers for my skis on the right shoulder as Jack & Rudy
zoom down the middle.

Let's go back to the first photo for today's video highlight. Come along and watch as we have some really nice leftover corduroy on the left shoulder for an awesome & endless skijor. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As with yesterday, it was above freezing all morning. So, you know what that gets you from Jack & Rudy:

"Stop, drop & ROLL! Need to cool off!" says the snow rolling sillies.
That is the official geological marker for Rabbit Ears Pass behind Jack & Rudy.
Notice talented Jack is rolling AND eating snow at the same time. Talented!!!

For some reason, Nancy's "end of run" video had either me or Jack (or both) cutoff for most of her footage. I guess she wanted to focus on Rudy today, haha!

At least most of Jack & I are in this frame (most were missing much more of us).

Another really nice late April skijor outing: 9.1 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 100 days on the trails covering 766.6 miles with 75,100 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack 7000

6 year old Jack surpassed 7,000 career skijor miles this morning!

Way to go to happy & powerful Jack!

"I've THOROUGHLY enjoyed EVERY single mile of the 7,000!" states
happy, handsome Jack.

Jack started serious skijoring at about 1.5 years old and is now 6.75 years old (he turns 7 in July). That is quite impressive that he has strung together 7,000 miles of skijoring in just 5.25 years. Way to go wonder Jack!

Today's outing found us skijoring the snowmobile trails around Dumont Lake at Rabbit Ears Pass. It was a very similar outing to yesterday. We started on heavily trafficked and somewhat icy snowmobile trails:

A lot of snowmobiles have run along this trail since the last grooming!

Then, as we got further from the trailhead, the snowmobiles had spread out and we found the occasional "shoulder of corduroy" to safely uncork the skijoring engine!

Ah, perfect, a little bit of untouched corduroy for my skis!!!

We even found one extended stretch of barely touched corduroy on a less popular trail near Dumont Lake! Yay!

Jack & Rudy catching air along this beautiful stretch of trail!

Now come along for the video counterpart to the prior photo. I love getting behind Jack & Rudy on terrain safe enough (for me) to let them really open up the throttle. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

One thing has remained constant for Jack's entire 7,000 mile career: he has rolled at least one (and often many more) snow angel on EVERY single skijor outing of his life. He first rolled a snow angel on a walk when he was 5 months old and he's been a snow angel monster ever since. He is such a crackup! 

"I promise I will roll snow angels on EVERY skijor outing of my life!" states
always rolling Jack.

One other constant, along with snow angels, to Jack's skijor career: always smiling when awaiting end of run treats. He is such a wonderful happy boy!

"You have our undivided attention!" says the happy and very
focused kids.

Today's tally: 7.9 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 111 days on the trails covering 949.3 miles with 92,600 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack's Skijor Career to Date: 917 days on the trails covering 7,003.1 miles with 642,650 feet of elevation climbed and over 917 snow angels rolled :)

For the curious. Rudy is 5 months younger than Jack and about 176 career miles behind him. So, he'll be matching Jack and surpassing 7,000 career miles this season as well. Stay Tuned...

Shoulder Corduroy

Zipping along in leftover corduroy on the right shoulder of this wide snowmobile trail.

Lots of snowmobile tracks going along this trail but look at that wonderful
span of untouched corduroy we found to ride on the right shoulder!!!

Today found us skijoring snowmobile trails on Walton Peak at Rabbit Ears Pass. There is a "main trail" that gets groomed a few times a week and then lots of side snow and open meadows for snowmobiles to go explore off the main trail. We like to skijor this main trail as the grooming keeps it from getting too bumpy as you'd find on the side trails. But, the groomer had not been out on the trail for at least a day or two; so, most of the "groomer corduroy" was missing from lots of snowmobiles riding the trail. Thus, most of the outing found us on the following conditions:

Running in snowmobile tracks along the main trail with pretty much all
of the recent groomer corduroy missing.

But, as you saw in the first photo, we found the occasional wonderful stretch where the snowmobiles had converged to the middle of the trail and one or both shoulders had some great leftover corduroy. Jack & Rudy know what to do when they get my skis on a corduroy - floor it!!!

Nice span of corduroy under Jack; so I moved my right leg behind
him, shifted my weight right and, zoom, off we went :)

Now come along for a video example of what I've been talking about. This clip goes along with the first photo above. Just enough leftover corduroy on the right shoulder for us to safely uncork the skijoring engine. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Today's comedic interlude from the comedians, Jack & Rudy, is a really funny one - leap frogging rodent dives! The interlude starts with Jack hopping off trail for rodents as we were jogging. Rudy was to the left and, when he noticed Jack lunge off trail for rodents, he did a beautiful swan dive in front of me to Jack's location. Keep in mind we were jogging when this started - I almost smacked into Rudy as I was trying to stop!

Beautiful high arching rodent swan dive from Rudy as I'm attempting
to stop and not smack into him. Note a bit of Jack's head on the right
edge of the photo as he is already dunked in the snow searching for rodents.

Rudy landed his dive in front of Jack which caused Jack to lunge forward in case Rudy was onto some rodents he may have scared forward under the snow from his first lunge:

BOOM, Rudy just landed his rodent dive.
"Hey bro, are they up there? Here I come!" comes Jack with a little
dive forward of his own.

But, it turns out Jack did NOT land next to Rudy to search for rodents. Nope, Jack  leap frogged Rudy and went rodent searching again. This did not go unnoticed by Rudy who then leapt up to dive again to where Jack had leap frogged. 

"Hey! You leapt past me! Here I come! Incoming!" goes re-diving
Rudy to join Jack's leap frog.

Despite a hilarious sequence of leap frogging rodent dives, neither kid came up from the snow with a rodent in his mouth (as Rudy did recently). Oh well, nice try guys :)

Back to the trailhead for end of run treats. Which was more fun, zooming on the shoulder corduroy or leap frogging rodent dives? 

"We loved BOTH!!!" says the happy & proud kids.

I, of course, enjoyed the shoulder corduroy the most - so much softer on my knees than frozen snowmobile tracks! 9.3 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 110 days on the trails covering 941.4 miles with 91,900 feet of elevation climbed.