Season Finale

Jack & Rudy ready to complete our 2024/2025 skijor season:

Ready to go!

Our final outing was actually the morning of Wednesday, May 21. I am just getting around to writing up our finale this morning. While Jack & Rudy are poised and ready to go in the prior photo, notice all the indentations in the snow. The kids often roll snow angels BEFORE we get started on our outings because I clearly take way too LONG to put my skis on. So, you might as well roll before you go while you wait for the slow human :)

Our final outing took us out the Harrison Creek trail atop Rabbit Ears Pass. This trail has a quick elevation rise and is well shaded; so it is often the last usable trail at Rabbit Ears. The conditions were soft & slushy, making for a very aerobic outing for all!

Jack & Rudy's deep footprints demonstrate just how soft and
slushy the conditions were. The last outing of the season is always
quite interesting conditionwise.

Being the end of season meant we came across many hazards to navigate around as well:

"Uh, now what?" asks Rudy as he knows I cannot cross this on skis.
"Hey, I see a smidget of snow to the left!" declares smart Jack.
Yes, I was able to ski over that small patch of snow to our left.

The conditions were getting softer and slushier by the minute as we were going out. The elevation rise at Harrison Creek was not enough to out race the warming temperatures. So, I turned us around after less than 2 miles as I wanted to be able to get back safely & comfortably before it became too mushy. Our turnarounds typically go as follows: I callout "Wait, time to turnaround." and Jack & Rudy take this as "Stop, drop, roll snow angels and then turnaround." Well, my call to turnaround so soon clearly caught them off guard as they turnaround without the "drop & roll" ritual. But, once around, they realized a turnaround is a turnaround so snow angels must still be rolled:

We completed the turnaround BEFORE the kids rolled snow angels.
Typically they roll first and turn second. So, I clearly caught them off guard
but they sure made up for it once turned :)

Our final video clip of the 2024/2025 season goes along with the prior photo. Come along and watch as we start the clip with the comedians rolling snow angels before rising and taking off back the direction we came. You lose complete view of Jack & Rudy for a bit as I am in a tight ski tuck trying to stay upright on a downslope in soft/slushy snow. Once the terrain levels out, I'm able to rock back and we get full view of the fun kids again :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The return leg was a bit easier than the out leg as we had the tracks we set on the way out to compact the soft/slushy snow a little bit. But, it was still soft & slushy :)

Making use of the ski & foot tracks we set on the way out for a little
firmer conditions (but still soft) on the way back.

This season was not a record by any means (see our 2022/2023 season of 1444 miles for a record season), but any & all seasons on snow are fun, fun, FUN! Right guys?

"Yes, we LOVE snow!" says the happy kids who found snow hump to climb
to end the season climbing up for end of run treats as they love to do.

A soft & slushy finale, but still a great time: 3.7 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2024/2025 Season Recap: 108 days on the trails covering 822.8 miles with 81,200 feet of elevation climbed.

We'll be back in September or October (weather dependent) to start our 2025/2026 skijor season. Until then, enjoy boring summer and Pray for Snow!!!!

Great May

Closing out an incredible "May winter" with excellent snow pack to carry us into June!

"We have had SO much fun this month!!!" declares the happy & focused trio at the
end of our morning run.

How great was our May winter? Well, consider this - we had a very warm April and were wondering if we would really be skijoring into June as April ended. Then, Mayuary came and put our trails back into February or March like conditions. Take a look at the endless snowpack in the following photo from today, May 31st!

Sprinting along endless snowpack as far as the eye can see! What a May winter we had!

We got a later start to the outing than we prefer this time of year. The result, the trails started to really soften during our outing. The prior photo was near the start of the day and the crust looks (and was) very firm. But, now take a look at the softening conditions near our turnaround point of the morning:

A cluster of slush balls coming off Jack (visible in Zorro's shadow).
Lots of footprints & ski tracks in the softening snow.

Softer and softer the trail became until slush was flying off Zorro, Jack & Rudy and into the camera (and me)! All the white speckles you see in the blue sky and against the trees are slush balls flying off my partners' feet and into the camera. Attack of the slush bombs!

Speckles of slush all over the place :)

There is one good thing to do with soft snow - roll in it! Just ask Jack & Rudy:

"Aaahhh - rolling to get the soft, cold snow into our fur!" declares the silly pair.
"These two are such snow rolling goofs!" says Zorro.

Completing the day's outing and Rudy flashed a happy "Hi Mom!" to Nancy as we ran by to finish the day.

"Hi Mom - what a fun day!" flashes Rudy to Nancy.
"Still going!!!!" say happy & forward looking Zorro & Jack.

You could not ask for a better May 31st that we had today atop Rabbit Ears Pass. Snowpack as far as the eye can see with a perfect crust to start the day but quickly softening snow to complete the day: 6.9 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

Come back tomorrow as we will get out early to celebrate Zorro's 11th birthday on the great snowpack!

2018/2019 Season to Date: 126 days on the trails covering 735.3 miles with 68,800 feet of elevation climbed.

Maintenance

It was a great day on fresh snow at Sally Barber and French Gulch!

A great day until (read on to see).....

Zipping along the Sally Barber Mine Trail as we are second tracks on the morning's
fresh snow.

We skijored up & over Sally Barber Mine and then took a peek at French Gulch to see if the morning's new snow was enough to continue out & back the gulch. We were delighted to find 3-4 inches of untouched snow on the main French Gulch Trail. "Woo hoo!" we all thought as it looked as though we were going to have a successful run in the gulch...

Laying fresh tracks up French Gulch! It looked so promising at the beginning of
this trail.

I have mentioned in a past blog, some idiot plowed the lower French Gulch Trail in early March. Since that plow disaster, lower French Gulch has been skiable only 2-3 days after fresh snow and then it deteriorates down to rocks, dirt & puddles. Well, we had fresh snow overnight, so we were hoping this would make for a fun run out & back in the gulch. It started great, as shown above; but a couple miles out and disaster happened...

As we were cruising along the trail, almost to the end of the plowed atrocity (and into pristine upper French Gulch), we had a slush disaster on the trail. For a stretch of about 10-15 yards, the trail was complete slush (from side to side) hidden by the morning's fresh snow. We tried to avoid the slush but could not as it spanned the entire width of the trail. The result was I came out the other side of the hidden slush with my skis caked with 3+ inches of wet slush. The skis were completely unusable as the slush would not come off the skis and, thus, the skis would not slide. Disaster...

Coming back on the French Gulch Trail and you see the wet slush disaster in the trail. You can
see by the footprints that we tried every angle to get through this without destroying the skis
but with no luck. I am carrying the skis over this section on this return section of the outing.
Note the snow wall to the right - this is how deep the snowpack is supposed to be in French
Gulch this time of year! Plow Jerks!

I took the skis off and hiked up the trail a bit with Max & Zorro (trying to get the thick slush off the skis as I walked). It was beginning to look hopeless when I got a great idea - use the sun to help! There was a bright shining sun in the ski and we were at around 11,000 feet elevation - the sun had to help! So I called everyone off the trail and into a patch of sun to work on the skis...

"Right? Okay, but why are you still carrying those skis? You sure are slow on foot!" say my
agreeable partners.

Into the sun and I planted the skis with their slushed bottoms facing the sun. The skis are black, the sun was bright and we were at 11,000 feet close to the sun - this had to work, I thought:

Skis planted in the direction of the sun to help get the stuck slush off the bottoms.
"How long do you think this is going to take? I'm bored!" whispers Max to Zorro.,

It worked, it worked!!! Within minutes of help from the sun, I was able to knock the thick slush off the skis and then pull out my swiss army knife and scrape the last layer of slush off the skis. Oh boy, it is working; but this is sure taking a while. Such good boys to be patiently waiting for me...

Scrape, scrape - removing the disaster from the skis so they will glide in the snow again.

Such good boys patiently waiting for me until... Until I took toooo long! After about 10-12 minutes of watching me dork with the skis and Max & Zorro lost patience:

"Woo - you are soooo slow! Let's gooooo!" insists Max.
"Aaaahhh - I'm getting bone rot waiting soooo long!" exclaims Zorro.

Well, we finally got the skis back in order. We then hiked and carried the skis back past the slush obstacle and then (finally) we were back to skijoring:

The human is finally back to skijoring normal! Zoooom we go again!

A day that started so promising but then was slowed by extended "ski maintenance": 7.6 miles with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 107 days on the trails covering 924.9 miles with 98,350 feet of elevation climbed.

Still Going

Yesterday may have been May 29th; but we were still going on skis at Rabbit Ears Pass!

Happy brothers looking back in approval of the day's outing as we approached the
Rabbit Ears Pass Landmark.

We have never been "on skis" this late in May as the best we have done was be on the sled in late May (you can hop off the sled and/or take the sled over rocks, you cannot do this on skis :-)

Unfortunately, though, the "end of the season" was visible all around us on our short run yesterday. Rabbit Ears Pass has the best snowpack in Colorado at this point in May; so the deterioration of Rabbit Ears is clearly marking the end of our incredible 2013/2014 season. Come along for what is probably one of our last outings of the season:

At the start of our run as you see a narrow & shallow trail with exposed ground taking over
the terrain. As you can see behind Max & Zorro, the snow we were on was deep, heavy and
wet slush. Max has moved to the right to get in less slush and tow me up the trail while Zorro
has a loose gangline as he works to move just himself up the slush trail.

Most of the day looked like this, at best - a narrowing trail with ground closing in on both side.
"Leave my snow alone!" declares Zorro giving the encroaching dirt patch to the right a disapproving
glance. "Mushy, slushy - tow yourself!" says Max falling loose on his side of the gangline as he
tries to find a consistent patch of trail to run on.

But, we did find the occasional stretch of wide open & snow covered terrain. Every such stretch got everyone excited and we put the pedal to the metal as you can see in the video below. If you turn the volume up high, the "clicks" you hear throughout the video are "slush bombs" flying off Max & Zorro's feet and hitting the GoPro cover (too bad you do not also hear all the slush bombs hitting my legs, chest and face too! :-)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As great as the previous video looks, most of the day was not that nice...

"Ok human, you steered us down this path - now what!!!" ask the distressed pair seeing no way
to continue! We are actually at the trailhead as the parking lot is at the other side of this patch of mud.
"Doesn't matter, I do not do mud!" protests the always water averse Zorro.
"Really, walk through the mud, ok..." says more agreeable Max...

It was a quick morning run atop Rabbit Ears as we expected the deteriorating conditions we found and set aside time for only a short outing: 4.5 miles with 350 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH - still pretty good for a May 29th!

2013/2014 Season to Date: 155 days on the trails covering 1334.4 miles with 151,900 feet of elevation climbed.

Slush Layer

We had a layer of slush atop the trails on our run at Vail Pass this morning.

For the first time this magical 2013/2014 skijoring season we can see deteriorating conditions suggesting that we really won't be able to skijor through the summer :-)

A slush layer has two impacts on the outing, as shown below:

You can see the tracks Max & Zorro are laying in the slush layer.
Slush is wet & heavy which means it slows the outing as it is extra work to run through
(think about running on sand, that is similar to running on slush)

The other side effect of a slush layer is slush bombs!
A slush bomb is a junk of slush that flies off Max & Zorro's feet and pelts the poor
musher behind them. The "white blob" in the upper right of this photo is a slush bomb
that just flew up from the trail behind Zorro and into the GoPro.
I always joke I need mud flaps on Max & Zorro during slush runs :-)

Today's video highlight showcases the side effects of the slush layer. You can see Max & Zorro going a little slower than normal as they work through the heavy top layer and if you watch closely you can see the occasional slush bomb flying back into the poor guy on skis. But, it is still skijoring on May 25th, so no complaints from any of us!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Any problems with the slush layer slowing us down? Let's ask...

"Nope! No problem. Still on snow on May 25th and we are as happy as can be!"
exclaim my snow loving pals.

A fun, albeit slush slowed, run atop Vail Pass today covering 7 miles with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a modest top speed of 16 MPH.

2013/2014 Season to Date: 152 days on the trails covering 1314.2 miles with 149,900 feet of elevation climbed.

Oh Mother Nature

Oh Mother Nature, why must you tease us so?

Wet snow atop slush atop mud - yuck!

It was just a few days ago that I was marveling at the snowpack we had in & around Breckenridge as I was expecting skijoring deep into May and dreaming of June outings. Well, Mother Nature exerted her authority yesterday and made sure I knew who was boss and who is really in control of the May & June conditions. Mother Nature's authority came in the form of a rainstorm Saturday afternoon and evening! Nothing destroys snowpack faster than rain; not sun, not warm temperatures but rain is the quickest snow destroyer. We were talking with a friend who has lived in Breckenridge the last 20 years and he said, "I can count on one hand the number of times it has rained in April!" It does not rain here in April - it snows or it shines, that's it. The Saturday afternoon/evening rain eventually turned into snow; but that did not fix the damage the rain had done to the trails...

The day's route took us out & back in French Gulch. We were first tracks on the trail; but it was wet snow on top of slush for most of the day. The slush was the damage done by the rain before it was covered by 2-4 inches of wet snow.

Laying fresh tracks in what looks to be pristine conditions. But, look closely at the footprint
behind Max - we were cutting through the fresh snow and into slush most of the day!

Eventually we got above 11,000 feet elevation and everything came back to normal - fresh snow atop snowpack. So, the rain clearly did not occur above 11,000 feet; but all of our trailheads start between 9500 and 10500 feet elevation.

Above 11,000 feet elevation and climbing towards French Pass.
The conditions are still soooo good up high; but the rain beat up the entrance from
every direction.

As the previous two photos show, we were laying fresh tracks most of the way out French Gulch and eventually breaking trail at higher elevations. About 1/3 of the way back from our turnaround point, we ran into snowmobile tracks for the remainder of the return leg.

Sprinting along the fresh snowmobile tracks. We go so fast on set tracks!

Unfortunately there was one big problem with snowmobiles - they are heavy! So, while the tracks gave us a fast track to sprint, it also frequently exposed the slush below the snow. Today's video highlight shows the constant obstacle of the day - running fast and then slowing to navigate & avoid slush patches. It was this way most of the return route: run, run, slow to avoid slush - repeat...

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

If only we could stay above 11,000 feet all day...

"Exactly - it is GREAT up high!" say the approving pair once we got above the
slush layer and into pristine conditions.

The day covered 8 miles, 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH with a huge rain induced slush layer from Mother Nature to remind us who is really in charge...

2013/2014 Season to Date: 134 days on the trails covering 1159.1 miles with 133,900 feet of elevation climbed.