Proud

Breaking trail in about 8-10 inches of fresh snow with Jack & Rudy at Sally Barber Mine!

Nice shot of Sally Barber Mine and beautiful shot of trail breaking
Jack & Rudy!

We did a split run this morning where Jack & Rudy towed me up, over and down the Sally Barber Mine Trail before adding Zorro to do an out & back in French Gulch. In addition to the fun trail breaking you see above, we had lots of other fun along the way to meet Zorro. Come along for the highlights...

Cruising along the trail when Rudy suddenly launches himself in a rodent swan dive off trail into the deep snow:

"Incoming!!!!" demonstrates airborne Rudy.
"Nice form little bro!" says onlooking Jack.

The result of a rodent dive? Well two things today. First, a dive results in a fully submerged DUNK in the snow. Second, any dive or dunk will get a similar response from your brother :)

"DUNK!" demonstrates submerged Rudy.
"Hey, wait for me!!!!" says diving Jack. As you see, Jack doesn't get quite the lift
that Rudy does in dives; but the resulting dunk is often just as good :)

More fun from the day comes along in today's video highlight. We showcase the difference between skijoring and skiing in this clip. Come along as there is a skier on the trail in front of us working hard to propel himself along. Meanwhile, I am sitting back on the skis as my skijor partners do most of the work and we catch the skier quickly. I start snowplowing near the end of the clip to keep us from running the guy over, waiting for him to notice us. He doesn't notice us, so I eventually stop to give him a head start before catching him again (he noticed us on the second catch and moved over so we could pass :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Done with Sally Barber and time to add Zorro in the group. We were second tracks on the French Gulch Trail with the first tracks belonging to a moose!!!!! Eventually the moose tracks went off trail and into the gulch, so, of course, Zorro, Jack & Rudy's attention went into the gulch as well:

"Beep beep - our noses say moose this way!" declares the moose monitors.
Despite seeing lots of moose tracks weaving through the deep snow in the gulch, we
failed to see an actual moose itself :(

We did a short out & back in French Gulch. Here we are on the way back as Zorro & Rudy ride the track we set on the way out while Powder Jack continues laying fresh tracks to the right:

Love the snow poofs around Powder Jack :)

We did a short out & back in French Gulch as the snow eventually got too deep for older Zorro. We had a set time to meet Nancy at the trailhead and since we did a short out&back, we decided to see if we could skijor French Gulch Road until meeting Nancy driving up the road. This road gets plowed, so whether or not we could skijor it was in question.

The following photo is the proudest moment I have of young Jack & Rudy's skijoring career. Why so proud? Well, look at the thin layer of snow with lots of exposed ground on the road. My skis are on the left shoulder behind and to the left of Rudy; but this is very thin cover too. They only way to proceed was cautiously - no sprinting or opening up the skijor throttle. Now look at this photo and see that all three of my partners are in a gentle trot even though they are a road where they could sprint. Veteran Zorro knows to slow on sketchy conditions without any instruction from me. Well, today that happened with Jack & Rudy too. I never said a single "easy" or other command to keep them in a gentle trot. The kids automagically switched to a gentle trot to match the sketchy conditions! A year ago I would have had to take my skis off and walk this road because Jack & Rudy would not understand slowing down. The youngsters really are maturing into incredible skijor partners like Zorro! So proud!

A gentle trot to preserve the human on sketchy conditions. What professionals!

From trail breaking on Sally Barber to Moosing in French Gulch to a perfect mature trio on sketchy French Gulch Road - what a fun day: 7.5 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 41 days on the trails covering 273.8 miles with 27,100 feet of elevation climbed.

Skijoring not Skiing

As daily temperatures started rising in March and continuing into April, Rudy has followed Jack's lead to roll at least one (and usually more)  snow angel on every skijor outing!

"Apparently the duo are going to do this every outing now!" says Zorro looking back to me.
"Ahhhh, I was right, it feels great, huh little bro?" asks snow rolling Jack.
"I'm hooked! Love rolling snow angels now too!" adds goofy Rudy.

Sometimes a picture can really demonstrate the difference between skijoring and cross country skiing. A skier needs to fan the skis out to make progress uphill. The skijorer need only put the skis parallel and ride the "sled dog tow rope". If it is very steep, I'll shuffle my feet to help of course, but I am still being propelled uphill and only a shuffle is necessary!

Skijorer (me) - skis parallel as I get towed up the trail.
Skier tracks to the left - note the wide, diagonal strokes the skate skier needs to propel
themselves uphill.

I prefer skijoring. Although to be fair, uphill is easier skijoring than skiing but downhill is harder skijoring than skiing (you try riding 4 feet behind downhill sprinting machines :)

Following snowmobile tracks as you can still make out the diagonal ski strides of
skier while I am still riding the sled dog tow rope :)

Yesterday we introduced Rudy to the concept of "spring crust", today we gave him an extended introduction to the crust. The spring crust is the phenomenon that happens this time of year when the daily temperatures get well above freezing while the nighttime temps are still well below freezing. This daily thaw then refreeze makes for a crust solid enough to hold us on early morning outings.

Trotting along the crust with an inch or so of snow over the crust.

Today's crust was firm but not super strong. This meant we could trot or jog on the crust but if you went too fast, then you would punch through. We took Rudy off the set trail twice to test the crust and he wanted to go too fast to not break through. We went back to the set trail each time. Then, on the third test, Rudy followed Zorro & Jack's lead and kept at their pace and, suddenly, we were gliding along the crust for miles. Come along for a short clip of the "spring crust jog" as everyone is smartly going the speed the crust will support and not a step faster. Smart guys!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Fun day teaching Rudy more skijoring tricks. At a quick pause on the trail and I had the HAPPIEST faces looking back at me. Unfortunately, the GoPro is on my chest and Zorro was barely blocking Jack's face from my chest viewpoint. But, believe me, he had a supper happy smile too!

"He's coming along nicely, what a pack!" says happy leader Zorro.
"That was interesting and FUN!" adds happy Rudy.
"I'm smiling too! I'm smiling too! Down in front!" says Jack.

A nice day of lessons for Rudy. He got to learn about extended runs on the crust and he got to learn that sometimes faster is not better and a jog can send you farther than a sprint! 6.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 87 days on the trails covering 481.7 miles with 43,300 feet of elevation climbed.

Trail Breaking Day

It was a "trail breaking day" as we climbed far & high into the backcountry to find Sunday trails all to ourselves!

Climbing a steep section of trail before cresting onto a plateau.
Siberian Uphill Power at its best!

A key thing to note in the previous photo: the trail is steep & deep but my skis are still parallel. This epitomizes the difference between cross country skiing and skijoring with sled dogs. A cross country skier would have the skis fanned out and be in a difficult and very strenuous "duck walk" on terrain like this. A sled dog skijorer, on the other hand, can uphill with parallel skis! Sure I have to help with poling and shuffling my feet; but the difference between poling/shuffling and duck walking is not even comparable. I love my Siberian Uphill Power!

Weekends are typically crowded days on the popular cross country trails; so we tend to go to places less traveled on these busy days. Today was such a day as we headed to one of the most hard to access snow caches high above French Gulch. It is a steep climb to get there; but you are rewarded with miles of untouched snow and the chance to lay fresh tracks on the "main trails" and break trail in 8-12 inches of snow on the "side trails". Highlights of the days action below:

Breaking trail in 10+ inches of snow on a little used side trail. Gangline taut as the
Siberians are working hard to plow through the snow and tow me along.

Laying fresh tracks on the main trail. Snowmobiles occasionally pack down the main trail; but
it is still sufficiently unused to be fresh tracks most days.

More breaking trail in a nice downhill trot & hop in 8-12 inches of snow!

"Great day! Great snow all to ourselves!" express my happy partners as they look back when
I called out to 'wait' while I check the GPS to see whether we have time to go further or
head back to the trailhead.

Stats for the day: 7.2 miles with 1200 feet of elevation climbed, a top speed of 17 MPH and breaking trail most of the day. A great way to spend a Sunday Funday away from the crowds!

Skier or Skijorer

Happy faces all around as we take a quick break high up on Boreas Pass Rd

"Hi! We are having the BEST time - we love skijoring!" express Max & Zorro.

Cross country skiing versus skijoring - what is the real difference? Well, the video below tells it all. We were coming down Boreas Pass Rd when we caught a couple of skiers trekking down the trail. This couple was skiing down from the Boreas Summit: a pretty long trek for a cross country skier so you need to conserve your energy and ski at a pace suitable for a long outing. Us skijorers, on the other hand, have no need to conserve energy - we are in a natural lope as we cruise along the trail at a very comfortable trot for Max & Zorro. "Conserve energy - what for?" say Max & Zorro. If you have your volume up high, you can hear the first skier exclaim "Woo!" as we pass by - she clearly knows Siberians :-)

Skier or Skijorer - which would you rather be?

The Siberian Skijoring Pace is quite fast compared to the average Cross Country Ski Pace.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

During our break at our high point of the day, I had some extra equipment adjustments to make. Max was unimpressed with the extra time I was taking:

"Boy are you slow! I'll be down here enjoying the snow and sun until you FINALLY get
ready to get going!" states sun-bathing Max.

Today's outing took us from the Baldy Mountain winter trailhead up & over to our high point on Boreas Mountain and then down Boreas Pass Rd to the Boreas winter trailhead: 9.7 miles with 1100 feet of elevation climbed.