Crust Again

Another beautiful skijor atop the solid Spring crust at Rabbit Ears Pass!

The hover huskies, Jack & Rudy, catching air as we zip along the solid
Spring crust!

After a successful skijor on the Spring crust yesterday, we returned to the same general area this morning to go crust skijoring again. Yesterday we found an awesome Spring crust around Walton Peak at Rabbit Ears Pass. Today, we went the other direction towards Dumont Lake and found the same awesome conditions as you see in the prior photo. Wheeee!

When we skijor the crust near Dumont Lake, we are able to wind our way across vast, crust covered meadows and pay a visit to the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL. The SNOTELs sprinkled throughout the westerns US measure a large range of environmental factors. But, the measure of most to interest to Jack, Rudy and I is the depth of the snowpack Today, this particular SNOTEL reported that the snowpack depth at this location is 62 inches. Nice, a 5+ foot deep snowpack!

Cruising by the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL as we skijor atop over 5 feet
of snowpack to last us for many more weeks :)

We did have one set of obstacles to deal with today - deep & frozen snowmobile tracks. Basically snowmobiles had run through these same meadows when the snow was soft (i.e., in the afternoon) and made deep tracks. These tracks then froze overnight and became today's obstacles. Jack & Rudy have no problem with these frozen tracks, they simply leap over them or run through them. But, me on skis is a different story. I have to cross these deep obstacles at an angle just off perpendicular and push my poles into the snow to give me a little lift. If not, the frozen tracks can grab ahold of my skis and lock me in (which typically leads to a wipeout :)

Jack & Rudy have no problem with the deep & frozen track obstacles as
you see here. Wish I could leap on skis like them :)

But, the tracks are not really that big of a deal, I just have to be conscious of them and make sure I cross at a proper angle. So, come along for today's video fun as we are cruising along the Spring crust amidst a few track obstacles at first before clearing the tracks and finding a nice open straightaway to open up the throttle. I love how Jack & Rudy (especially Rudy) glance back at me after many of the track crossings to make sure I made if over safely. Great partners!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Springtime is, of course, warm to Jack & Rudy, so rolling snow angels to cool off is in order at any break during the outing :)

Rub a dub dub, cooling our jets rolling in the snow!

Finally, back to the trailhead for end of run treats and apparently I was a little too chatty for Rudy and slow in dishing out the treats!

"Ready!" says happy & focused Jack.
"You going to talk or serve?!?" asks curious, head cocked, Rudy :)

What a fun crust skijor outing: 7.1 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 137 days on the trails covering 1172.5 miles with 116,200 feet of elevation climbed.

SNOTEL

Cruising by the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL this morning...

Nosy Rudy must nosily check out every and any thing we pass :)
Cool Jack is merely cruising on by.

A SNOTEL you ask? Yes the Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) network is composed of over 900 automated data collection sites located in remote, high-elevation mountain watersheds in the western U.S. They are used to monitor snowpack, precipitation, temperature, and other climatic conditions. As a skijor team, our main interest in the SNOTELs is the snowpack reporting. This morning the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL was reporting 65 inches of snowpack. For fun, we decided to go cruise by the SNOTEL and see the snowpack for ourselves. As you see above, yes indeed there is over 5 feet of snowpack on Rabbit Ears!

Once we verified the snowpack, it was time to test if the spring crust over all this snow was firm enough to support our weight.

Yep, a super firm spring crust. Yay!

With the snowpack and crust verified, it was time to do our favorite Spring activity: abandon set trails and zoom every which way on the solid crust. Jack & Rudy were in a real running groove!

The hover husking catching air on the perfect crust.

Rudy is an absolute beautiful running machine. Jack is no slouch, but Rudy is beautiful and is rarely touching the ground :)

Rudy the flying reindeer alongside fast but not flying Jack.

Temperatures were in the low 20s (F) when we started the outing and increasing as we went along. I knew the kids were going to roll snow angels to cool off when we paused. I didn't know they were going to roll perfectly synchronized snow angels :)

I give that a score of '10' on the synchronized snow angel scorecard.

Do Jack & Rudy get tired on our outings? Ha, no. While they sleep nicely once home, they are full throttle  the entire outing. Come along for the last 75 seconds of this morning's skijor. Can you tell the impressive kids have already run 9 miles by this point? 

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Finally, today's end of run treat snow wall was quite impressive too. 

This might the the tallest snow wall they've been on this season to get
end of run treats!

Beautiful morning playing around the Rabbit Ears SNOTEL on the perfect spring crust: 9.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 145 days on the trails covering 1286.8 miles with 117,800 feet of elevation climbed.