Packed Leftovers

Look who was enjoying "toes on snow in mid-May!"

"We LOVE toes on snow!!!" exclaims the super happy kids thrilled
to still be on snow in mid-May.

We returned to Rabbit Ears Pass for another skijor this morning. We started the day by skijoring yesterday's surprise groomed trail. We just HAD to do this wonderful stretch again today!

The kids flying along yesterday's surprise groomed trail. Wheeee!

After flying along the 1.5 mile groomie, we changed our route from yesterday to follow leftover snowmobile trails towards Walton Peak. There is a network of "primary trails" on Rabbit Ears that get tons of snowmobile and snowcat traffic all winter long. These heavy machines really pack the snow. As a result, the leftover snowmobile trails remain skiable far into May even though conditions off trail are quickly deteriorating. Here's what I mean:

The fun kids catching air as you can make out the packed leftover trail in
front of us as compared to the choppy mess off the trail. Nice leftovers!

Now come along for the video example of what I am talking about. Watch as Jack, Rudy and I are having a blast skijoring the packed leftovers at the base of Walton Peak at Rabbit Ears Pass. What fun!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

This particular network of trails has one "guardian" to how far into May you can use them. There is a "snow bridge" crossing Walton Creek that is formed by snowmobiles and snowcats continually running over snow covered Walton Creek. There is no real bridge, just a bridge of packed snow. Once this bridge melts, there is no way to cross the creek and we have to abandon this route. We are happy to report that the packed snow bridge was still intact this morning!

You can see exposed Walton Creek to our left. Directly in front of us is
a bridge made out of packed snow allowing us to still skijor over the creek.
It's melting fast, but still intact this morning!

We did an "out & back" on the snowmobile leftovers. So, you know what that meant happened at turnaround time :)

Turnaround, roll around!!! You are pretty much guaranteed to get the
comedians rolling dual snow angels once we get into warm May days :)

Back to the trailhead and the kids found a mini snow wall to climb for end of run treats:

"We love snow walls! We LOVE snow!" says the happy kids awaiting
their end of run treats.

A wonderful mid-May skijor this morning: 9.6 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2024/2025 Season to Date: 105 days on the trails covering 801.7 miles with 79,200 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack 6000

5 year old Jack surpassed 6000 career skijor miles this morning! Way to go Jack!!!!

"And I have LOVED every single mile!" declares happy, happy Jack.
"If we are not celebrating ME, I'm not paying attention!" adds poor Rudy.
If you've met Rudy, you KNOW that is what he was saying :)

Jack is currently 5 years and 10 months old and he has accumulated 6000 career skijoring miles (6007.0 miles to be exact). Now, consider that almost all of those miles happened since he was 1.5 years old (as he was too young or doing short training runs before that) and we've had a few evil summers in the way and that is quite an impressive career he's putting together! For the curious, Rudy is about 5 months younger than Jack and about 175 career miles behind him. Rudy will have to wait until the 2023/2024 season for his 6000th career mile; but it will happen early next season.

Back to today, We went to Rabbit Ears Pass to get what was left of the rapidly melting snow. Conditions were actually much better than I expected for May 20th and the amount of remaining snowpack. We started the day on the (old) groom track that we and others have been using in May. It hasn't been groomed in over a week but it is still pretty much intact!

Starting the day on the leftover groom track.
It is not obvious we are on the groom track from this photo with the sun
behind the clouds; but it was clear in person. You'll see the clear groom track
in a photo below when the sun was out on our return.

After a successful skijor on this 1.5 mile groom track, it was time to see if we could still get out to the open meadows at the base of Walton Peak. In order to do this, we had to hope that two snow bridges were still intact. These are not real bridges but bridges built from a season of groomers and snowmobiles packing the snow over two creeks. I was actually quite surprised to find both bridges still intact as I was planning on having to modify our outing at one of the bridges!

Crossing the first of the two snow bridges we needed to be intact! Yay!

Why were the bridges so important? Well, if you get over both water crossing then you are treated to some endless snow at the base of Walton Peak. How's this for May 20th once we got over both bridges?

The hover huskies catching air at the base of Walton Peak!

Now come along for today's video highlight of us skijoring a wonderful trail at the base of Walton Peak. Sure, it's a little bumpy (as you'll see the camera bouncing) but you cannot get much better than this on May 20th in the Northern Hemisphere! Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After doing an out & back skijor by Walton Peak, it was back over both snow bridges and onto the leftover groom track to conclude the day:

See, once the sun came out, the groom track is very evident as opposed
to the shady photo above.

Jack also has another feat to add to his skijoring career: not only has he amassed 6000 career miles but he has also rolled at least one snow angel on EVERY single outing of his career (and many more than one on most outings :)

6000 miles of rolling snow angels. What a silly goof.
"Woooo, I want to be at 6000!" bellows wooing Rudy.

Back to the trailhead and we found a snow wall for end of run treats amongst all the otherwise melting snow!

Yay, I can dish out the treats from a standing position!

A relatively flat outing by our standards today but still a ton of fun: 8 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2022/2023 Season to Date: 159 days on the trails covering 1397.2 miles with 126,600 feet of elevation climbed.

Jack's career to date: 6007.0 miles traveled with 1+ snow angel rolled on EVERY single outing :)

 

Bear Tracks

We had stretches of "perfect crust" this morning; but only stretches with lots of sketchy terrain in between!

Perfect crust stretch with Jack & Rudy - wheeee!

Today's outing found us starting with Zorro to visit our favorite "spring crust meadow" close to home and then I was going to take the kids, Jack & Rudy, up & further for more exercise.

Our favorite nearby home meadow was perfect as you see in the photo above. Unfortunately, the GoPro camera was NOT perfect. Unbeknownst to me, it was not working properly for our entire first leg of the outing with Zorro. Oh well, what I should have had was a nice photo and accompanying video like the prior photo but with Zorro, Jack & Rudy.

At least Nancy had her camera to catch Zorro at our handoff points:

Happy, happy trio cruising along!

Once we left elder Zorro off with Nancy, I took the kids out to tour Prospect Hill. It was along the way with Jack & Rudy that I noticed the camera was not recording. It was a quick fix, at least, to then get some footage with the fun kids. We had to abort our plan to go up Prospect Hill pretty early as the conditions were quickly deteriorating. This trail starts in the trees and then quickly gets into wide open and sun exposed terrain. It was getting "iffy" in the shade, you can only imagine once we hit the open hill.

Good job by Jack & Rudy taking the "snow bridge" over open and flowing
water on each side of us!

Once we abandoned the Prospect Hill plan, we improvised and followed the firm crust wherever it lead us. Eventually it lead us to a set of bear tracks in the snow! Bear tracks are rare on skijor outings because they are sleeping most of the season; but it is not unheard of for us to encounter bear prints in October or May. It turns out this was young Jack & Rudy's first time encountering bear tracks while skijoring (they have seen bears many times in summer). What to make of bear tracks?

"Sniff, sniff - delicious smelling!" says the bear print inspecting pair.
You can see the trail of tracks leading away from us and into
the nearby trees.

Hey Jack, what should we do with bear prints in the snow?

"Roll in them!!!!! Of course, ROLL in them!" demonstrates silly Jack
dropping and rolling around in the bear prints.

Hmm, what about you Rudy? What should we do with bear prints in the snow?

"I agree - ROLL in them!!!!!" demonstrates silly Rudy following Jack's
lead to drop & roll in the bear prints!

Ok, bear tracks aside, we did do some fun skijoring this morning. The best part was time spent in our favorite meadow. We did one lap in the meadow with Zorro, then one lap around the meadow with Jack & Rudy and, finally, one last sprint across the meadow with the kids before dipping into the trees for a little "complex navigation" to get into the next meadow to end our outing. Come along and watch the third leg of the meadow fun (sprint, navigate, sprint).

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead to share 'end of run' pork treats with Zorro:

"You have our full attention!" says the happy & focused trio!

Fun day: crust skijoring with Zorro, bear hunting with Jack & Rudy and then multiple laps of crust skijoring with Jack & Rudy: 6.1 miles traveled with 600 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 162 days on the trails covering 1106.7 miles with 101,000 feet of elevation climbed.