Yay Baldy

Rolling snow angels to cool off at the historic Iowa Mill on Baldy Mountain!

Synchronized snow angels from the comedians at Iowa Mill :)

Today was our first outing of the season on Baldy Mountain. This is one of our favorite trails but two things: (1) it is VERY steep in places and (2) the terrain under the snow is VERY rocky. As a result, we need lots of snow before we can skijor Baldy and we always need fresh snow the day we skijor it. Well, today was finally that day for the 2023/2024 skijoring season.

We did three laps around the historic Iowa Mill that you see in the first photo. Each pass by the mill, I stopped to check our time out on the trails and, thus, each stop by the mill got snow angels from silly Jack & Rudy.

To add entertainment to our outing, we also left the main trail twice to go find fresh, untouched powder. Here we go with Jack & Rudy blasting through some deep snow as they tow me along!

The impressive powder plowing Jack & Rudy.

As we were cruising along this wonderful, untouched side trail, we came across some other skiers coming up the trail. They hollered, "Nice, looking good!" as we flew on by and waved :)

The cool kids entertaining the oncoming skiers.

Now let's get the video counterpart of the last two photos. Come along and watch impressive Jack & Rudy blasting through deep, fresh powder and then see the oncoming skiers wave to us from the right at the end of the clip. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the main trail by Iowa Mill and, as I said, we did three laps by the mill. The first we were second tracks on the trail. The second pass had a few more tracks (ours included) so Jack & Rudy could speed up a bit as they were not blasting through powder.

Running fast in existing ski tracks with still lots of soft
powder all around us.

By the third and final pass, quite a few other skiers had come up this popular trail. What did that mean? Well it meant it was a soft packed trail for Jack & Rudy to floor it!

Final pass, pedal to the metal :)

We love skijoring Baldy, right guys?

"So much fun! We LOVE powder!" declares the happy kids.

Super fun day in fresh powder on steep Baldy: 8.2 miles traveled with 1500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2023/2024 Season to Date: 61 days on the trails covering 515.5 miles traveled with 50,000 feet of elevation climbed.

Skijoring the Ski Resort

One of our favorite annual traditions: Skijoring Breckenridge Ski Resort!

Kicking up dust in shallow powder as we zoom under a ski lift. Wheeee!

We started this tradition back with Max & Zorro. Then, Zorro introduced it to Jack and then Zorro & Jack introduced it to Rudy. Finally, Jack & Rudy have continued to carry on the annual event. We try to "skijor the ski resort" every year when they start to shutdown terrain for the end of season.

Technically speaking, Breckenridge Ski Resort is still open for operations as they try to keep some terrain open as far into May as conditions allow. The resort has ski runs spanning 5 peaks (named peaks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) and they close peaks 9 & 10 in mid to late April and shift all operations to 6, 7 & 8. They then start to close off parts of 6/7/8 as the snow melts until everything is eventually closed. Well, Peak 9 is our favorite peak, so we are thrilled that it is one of the first to close as it usually still has snow to use (it's not profitable to staff & keep all 5 peaks open in April/May).

We try to get out on Peak 9 within days of it closing and this year it closed for the season yesterday. We never know what conditions we are going to find on the peak. But, the ski resort tends to keep grooming a few tracks on the peak for a couple of days for both maintenance and to give locals a chance to ski up & down terrain that all the tourists are told is closed :) As usual, we were thrilled to find a groomed track along one of the runs on Peak 9 - wheeee!

Catching air as we FLY along the groomie zoomie ski run on Peak 9.

This year, though, we had some added entertainment. The resort got upwards of an inch or so of new snow overnight. As a result, there was fresh snow sprinkled across all the runs on Peak 9. With a light layer of powder, we are able to ditch groomed trails and fly up & down any run we chose! Without the new snow, the ungroomed runs would have been too tracked up from yesterday and then iced overnight for me to be able to safely skijor behind Jack & Rudy. But, as you see in the first photo and next photo - we were able to ditch the groomed trails and make our own way laying fresh tracks on endless ski runs. So fun!

Laying fresh tracks as we FLY along a beautiful ski run!

Come along for the video counterpart of the prior photo. It does not get much more fun than this! New snow on fast & endless ski runs. Zoom, zoom, zoom!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As I mentioned, all the locals know that Peak 9 is still secretly "open for skiing" if you know how to get yourself up the mountain. Who needs a ski lift when you have snow machines? Yes, either snowmobiles or sled dogs are the preferred way to get up the mountain today :)

Jack, Rudy & I completing our morning outing as a snowmobile is
towing other skiers up to enjoy the "locals only" ride down too :)

Some use snowmobile to get up, some expend the effort to "skin up" themselves and then some use sled dogs to get up the mountain. I prefer sled dogs!

"Us too! Who wouldn't prefer sled dogs?!?" asks happy Jack & Rudy.
These smiles are at one of our turnaround points after the kids towed me
up. Rudy is just finishing rolling his snow angel to cool off before
we started back down.

So much fun today. Let's go thank retired mentor Zorro for pioneering this annual tradition:

"So Fun!!!!" declares the ecstatic kids.
"I taught them EVERYTHING I know!" adds proud Zorro.

Remember that ski resorts are designed for downhill skiing, so our outings on the resort are always very high in elevation without as much mileage as we do on a normal skijor: 6.4 miles traveled with 1400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 24 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 138 days on the trails covering 1169.7 miles with 109,800 feet of elevation climbed.

 

Take Down

Hmmm, this doesn't look like skijoring...

Is that Jack winning a wrestle match and pinning Rudy in the snow?

Wait, is that Jack pinning Rudy? Jack, my mellow, reliable and mature leader of our team? Yes, normally super Jack lost his marbles at our turnaround point of the morning. Oh Jack, what will I do without a reliable leader?!?!? Oh, by the way, Rudy LOVED getting pinned by Jack. Oh those silly & wild 4 year olds!

With fresh snow this morning, we went to our favorite fresh snow/powder trails on Baldy Mountain. Despite the photo above, we actually did get in some great skijoring in the fresh snow. We spent the majority of the outing on the main trail on popular Baldy, so were not first tracks but still had plenty of powder to enjoy:

Now that's more like it! There's my team! Wheeee!

As is usually the case on Baldy, we took a few detours from the main trail to enjoy untouched powder on lesser used side trails. Fresh tracks fun:

Fresh tracks side trail!

As is also usually the case on Baldy, we had the opportunity to fly on by oncoming skiers/boarders and put huge smiles on their faces as they watched the wild sled dogs propelling me on by. 

Good thing nobody saw the action in the first photo above :)

Here we go, flying along the main trail on Baldy. I love this trail with fresh powder to give me a little control and safety behind my fast partners. Wheeee!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the first photo... I'm going to report the unauthorized wrestle twins and wild (not mellow :) Jack to retired mentor Zorro:

"Well, I didn't teach that!!!!!" declares cool Zorro.
"Hehe, haha, I pinned Rudy!" says silly 'proud of himself' Jack.
"Hehe, haha, I loved getting pinned!" adds sillier Rudy.

A great fresh snow day skijor on Baldy when Jack & Rudy were upright - 7.7 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed. I don't know our top speed due to a GPS malfunction; but it was certainly over 20 MPH and probably 23-24 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 89 days on the trails covering 735.8 miles with 69,400 feet of elevation climbed.

 

New Extension

The kids were a bit frisky on this morning's skijor outing :)

Frisky kids deciding to play on the trail!

Today was a new feature for us on otherwise well-known trails. We were skijoring the upper elevation trails of Breckenridge Nordic Center which spans peaks 6 & 7 of the 10 mile range - nothing new about this, we skijor these trails all the time. But, the new feature is the nordic center ran the groomer up the Peak 6 Service Road until it connected with the ski lifts of Breckenridge Ski Resort on Peak 6. Normally this service road is not groomed in winter and brave backcountry skiers tackle it on their own (making your own path up/down). I did this once years ago with Max & Zorro only to realize, "Whoa! That was a steep climb which means a death defying descent!" and swore never to do it again :) After all, I am on cross country skis and those are not designed for steep descents in deep powder. But, with the slow/low snow we've had to start the season, the nordic center ran the groomer up this service road in an attempt to give us more terrain to ski. With a groomed trail, I had no fear in going up & down it with Jack & Rudy.

Success, we skijored up the groomed trail to the base of ski operations on Peak 6. It was a nice ride up for me behind the Siberian Tow Rope (Jack & Rudy):

"Phew, gotta cool my jets after hauling the human up!" demonstrates Jack.
"Do I get paid for towing you to the base of operations?" asks all-business Rudy.

After the wild (and steep) ride up/down Peak 6, we continued the day on the usual trails of the nordic center. The highlight of this leg of the outing? Snowfall!

The big blur in the upper left is a snowflake hitting the camera.
The white blob in the upper right is another incoming snowflake.
All the white speckles you see are more snowflakes falling around us!

It wasn't heavy snowfall, but it was snowfall and we'll take EVERYTHING to build our snowpack. The prior still shot does not do justice to the snowfall; so come along for a video clip where the lightly falling snow can be seen quite clearly. Yay for Snow!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Back to the trailhead and ready for 'end of run' treats with elder Zorro. Everybody ready?

"Yep! Do I get them all?" asks reliable Zorro while the goofball twins
are off trail digging for who knows what in the snow!
Love my focused albeit retired Z!

Let me ask again... "Everybody ready, yet?!?!?"

"Should have given them all to ME!" states Zorro.
"Haha, hehe, we are here now!" adds the la-la-land twins FINALLY
coming into the 'end of run' treat party.

A new, but very steep, extension to our skijors on Breckenridge Nordic Center trails: 6.5 miles traveled with 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2021/2022 Season to Date: 41 days on the trails covering 322.3 miles with 30,500 feet of elevation climbed.

Rare Treat

 The usual "trail occurrence" - Jack & Rudy putting smiles on skiers we encounter :)

"Hi! Bye! Made you smile!" declares flying on by Jack & Rudy.

We had three different terrain events skijor on Baldy Mountain this morning. We started out on the popular main trail on Baldy Mountain. A few people had been out before us, so we found ourselves going up and then down this section of trail running fast in set tracks (as you see above).

Partway up Baldy, though, you approach treeline. As the trees thin, people fork off every which direction to make their own trails up/down the mountain. Jack, Rudy and I picked our own unused path and found ourselves laying fresh tracks in 4+ inches of snow early and then breaking trail in 10+ inches higher up in elevation! Along the way we got our first ever "synchronized rodent dive":

Beautifully synchronized rodent dive!

Rudy is, of course, known for his patented and high arching rodent dives. Jack will do the occasional dive too; yet, as you see, Jack does not get near the high arch as Rudy. But, still impressive to capture our first ever synchronized rodent dive :)

The treat of breaking our own trail up the higher elevations of Baldy was that we got to run in the tracks we set on the way back down:

Running in the narrow track we set on the way up. If you look really close,
you can barely make out the set track in front of us we are squeezing back
in on the way down.

Ok, so that is two terrain events: (1) up/down set tracks on the lower Baldy main trail and (2) up/down breaking trail on our own upper trail. Our third and final event was turning off primary network of trails on Baldy and dipping into the trails in Laurium Open Space. We were thrilled to find ourselves FIRST on the snow in Laurium this morning. What a treat:

Laying fresh tracks in 4-5 inches of untouched snow!

Today's video highlight is a rare treat. The final descent out of Laurium is a very steep trail through the forest. I am usually slaloming back & forth on this trail to keep us under control and myself upright! But, today we had fresh snow on this steep section of trail. Come along for a rare look at skijoring the steep Laurium trail without having to constantly slalom to stay under control. Love the control we get in fresh snow!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun video and what a fun time we had on the trails this morning! We need to tell Zorro all about it:

"Yea, yea, we'll tell Zorro later! How about those end of run treats?" says tightly
aligned and very focused trio.

A wonderful combination of terrain events on steep Baldy this morning: 6.4 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 37 days on the trails covering 287.0 miles with 26,600 feet of elevation climbed.

Skijoring the Ski Resort

An annual tradition - Skijoring the Breckenridge Ski Resort!

A truly unique & fun adventure, right guys?

"Oh yes, we have such FUN skijoring the ski resort!" declares the ecstatic trio :)

Normally our annual "skijor the ski resort" happens in mid to late April when Breckenridge Ski Resort closes Peak 9 on the resort (Peak 8 is often open until Memorial Day). But, all 30 ski resorts in Colorado (as well as virtually all others in North America, if not all) are now closed to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus. So, today was a rare day as our annual "skijor the ski resort" happened in March! Technically, the ski resort closed back on Sunday, but we waited a few days for the shock & crowds to die down before hitting the mountain ourselves. The mountain is still open for "uphill access", meaning if you are willing to ski up, then you can ski down. Well, very few people have the stamina or energy to ski up a ski resort, so you can bet you are way beyond the 6 foot distance rule to prevent virus spread :)

Anyway, the ski resort is a little too steep for 11-3/4 year old Zorro to come with for a run long enough to fully exercise the kids, Jack & Rudy. So, we started with the kids before adding Zorro in for the end. Love getting towed uphill by my young buffaloes!

The Power Kids putting all their strength into their shoulders as we
start our skijor up the resort at the QuickSilver Super Chair.

Jack, Rudy and I did 3 "up/down" laps on the resort around Ten Mile Station. Each up/down was a different path, but all three culminated at Ten Mile Station. The reward for each steep up was a fast and fun down. Wheeee!

Zipping along as we cross under a chairlift near Ten Mile Station.

Jack & Rudy were having a great time going up/down, up/down and up/down; but we did pass by the same building, Ten Mile Station, three times. The first time we passed by the backside and then next two were the same general angle on the front side. Well, despite trying to stay upright the entire outing, the 2 year olds could not contain themselves on the 3rd pass by.

"C'mon man! Three times by the SAME structure! What did
you expect from us goofy kids! C'mon man!" says the goofs pausing
to stop, drop & roll on the 3rd time past.

Now, remember few things. First of all, a ski resort is designed for downhill skiing so the pitch of the runs is meant to produce forward momentum. Second, they use lifts to take people up as few can propel themselves up once, much less more than once! Meanwhile, Jack & Rudy happily towed me up three times!

Now, come along for a view of the downhill action. But, a few things to note: I am on cross country skis (not the best for downhill slaloming!) and Jack & Rudy would prefer to go straight downhill. I slalom the best I can on XC skis but occasionally have to overcorrect far left or far right as the skis are not slalom grade. This has me telling my partners "left, left" or "right, right" a few times to get them to overcorrect with me. Unique and fun!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Realize that this is Rudy's 2nd and Jack's 3rd time ever skijoring the ski resort and the first time for both without Zorro's guidance. Given that, I'd say they did pretty good listening to my left and right overcorrections despite their desire to go straight down!

Ok, done with a few laps to exercise the kids and as you saw in the first photo above, time to add Zorro to the team for the finale fun. We picked up the fun elder and went up a bit while Nancy went back down. Eventually we turned around for the final leg of today's skijor the ski resort!

Flying trio as we approach (and go by) Nancy on the side of the trail.

Too much fun to pay attention to mom today :)

Zooming on by we go!

Wheeee - hang on dad!!!!

On by Nancy and still FLYING down the ski run.
Hang on human!!!!!

What a fun day for one of our truly unique annual traditions: 6.5 miles traveled with 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 125 days on the trails covering 848.7 miles with 77,800 feet of elevation climbed.

Baldy Fun

Fun shot of the happy youngsters in the deep snow at our turnaround point high up on Baldy Mountain.

"What a FUN powder day!" exclaims the happy pair.

Our route this morning took us up & down Baldy Mountain with a few side tours added in for extra distance. We left Zorro out of most of today's run for three reasons. First, he had a full outing the last two days so it was time to give him a light day.

Second, it is hard to almost impossible to skijor Baldy Mountain with a team of 3. Baldy is so steep that I only feel safe on this trail if there is a lot of new snow. But, if there is a lot of snow, then the set trail will be only 2 Siberians wide with the snow outside of the track too deep to keep pace with the 2 who are in track.

A very tight "2 Siberians wide" trail as you can barely tell where
Rudy ends and Jack starts.

Third, well the forecast was for a ton of snow overnight and that was the case. At Zorro's age, we don't want to ask him to break trail any more (except for an infrequent very, very short distance). The main trail on Baldy was "set" with only a few inches of new snow as people had been out this morning before us. But, our side tours were as expected - POW!

Love this shot of the power twins busting through 15+ inches of
untouched powder on a side trail.

Once you power up & forward in deep powder, you then come down into the snow before powering up & forward again. Time to snorkel in the deep snow before launching up again:

POW POW powder day!

We were able to hit the occasional stretch where the set trail was just wide enough to uncork the skijoring engine:

Wheeee and Zoooom!

But, even these open stretches had snow in the trail and it was hard to fit "2 in" for the entire time. Come along and watch as we open up the throttle but are still slowed somewhat by bouncing in & out of the set trail and into the deep side. Fun thing to watch for - you hardly ever see my left ski in this whole clip as I am riding my right leg "in track" for speed and my left leg "out of track" for control.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As always, Zorro joins in for at least the final sprint to the finish for the day. Such happy boys.

Such a happy trio!

A great day for young Jack & Rudy on steep Baldy Mountain with tons of new snow: 6.6 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 89 days on the trails covering 610.5 miles with 56,650 feet of elevation climbed.

Creativity

Celebrating a successful, albeit creative, skijor in the backcountry this morning!

"We had a GREAT time, now how about those end-of-run treats?!?" says the happy & focused trio.

With the warm & dry start to November we are limited to well shaded trails to continue our skijoring until the next storm arrives.  There is a steep set of mountain biking trails that start close to the town of Breckenridge and take you up quickly into some heavily shaded terrain. We decided to let the youngsters (Jack & Rudy) tow me up this shaded incline this morning.

Nice snow coverage (although narrow & heavily packed) as we ride up & out of town.

Since the trails are so close to town, they are heavily used so pretty packed & slick in places. So, we could go UP these trails but I would certainly die trying to come DOWN them behind 2 or 3 fast sled dogs :)

So the plan was to let the youngsters tow me up and eventually we would meet up with Zorro & Nancy and continue to skijor the much less steep but still heavily shaded backside of Sally Barber Mine. Zorro joined in, everyone ready to go?

"Yes!!!!" exclaims the happy trio.

Once we had Zorro in team, we did an out & back on the shady side of Sally Barber. Unfortunately you run out of safely shaded terrain after just under 1.25 miles. So it was a fast out & back with Zorro and, thus, the reason we did a steep climb to exercise the youngsters first. Although short, this section of trail is still in fantastic condition. If you look closely, there are two packed tracks on the trail with shallow powder in between. Each track is only "2 Siberians wide" so we spent most of the outing on Sally Barber with skinny Zorro & Jack sharing one track and big, husky Rudy running his own track.

Great shot of the "sprint tucked trio" as we fly along a perfect trail!

Time to turn around and....

"Please tell me they did SOMETHING other than this before I joined!" states Zorro.
"We are the snow rolling goof twins!" declares Jack & Rudy.

Yes, Zorro, the kids really did tow me up the mountain; but the most fun was when we added you into the team! Come along for a glimpse of the fun to be had on the backside of Sally Barber.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Finally, winding out the day with the happy trio towing me to the trailhead.

"So happy to be towing the human!" demonstrates the sled dog trio.

A steep start with Jack & Rudy and then a short & mellow out & back with Zorro, Jack and Rudy: 6.5 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 17 days on the trails covering 102.6 miles with 10,350 feet of elevation climbed.

Steep Fun

The "Power Trio" driving to the finish at the Dry Lake Trailhead.

It was a steep and complex day - anybody tired? Nope - just ME!

Zorro got to teach young Jack & Rudy about the fun starting a skijor from Dry Lake this morning. This trailhead is the starting point for Steamboat Powdercats: a touring company that takes people to deep backcountry terrain by snowcat. We always get on the trail head of the cats and then have fun watching them pass and then chasing them up the trail.

We stepped off the trail to let a cat pass us and here comes Jack & Rudy.

"Hey - that machine is cool - let's follow!" declare the pair hopping back on trail to chase.

Where is Zorro in the prior photo? Well, he knows to let the cat completely pass and wait for my release. Ok, all safe, here we go:

"Boing! Here I come - let's catch the cat!" demonstrates Zorro launching himself on trail
to join Jack & Rudy to play chase the cat.

Do we catch the cat? Well, no. The reason: steep elevation! If we are on flat, downhill or shallow uphill terrain we can keep pace and even pass a snowcat. But, the goal of this powdercat tour is to get people up quickly to high elevation powder. As a result, we have fun chasing the cat up steep terrain but cannot keep pace. How steep? Well today's outing was 6 miles with 900 feet of elevation climbed. The outing was an "out & back" so that means we went up 900 feet in 3 miles before turning around and catapulting the human back down.

Quick break at our high, turnaround point:

"Wow, we started way down there and are now way up here?!?!" say young Jack & Rudy.
"Just stick with me kids, I've got so much more to show you!" adds veteran Zorro.

Turnaround and ZOOM we go downhill...

Nice views from our high point. Wheeee!

Come along for today's video highlight as my power trio is propelling me downhill fast. The terrain was choppy and hard packed. My knees feel the result of being catapulted down steep terrain for 3 straight miles :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

The first "extra steep" skijor for young Jack & Rudy: 6 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 76 days on the trails covering 412.9 miles with 37,000 feet of elevation climbed.