Mine Tour

Today's skijor outing took us on a tour of 4 different historic mines on Baldy Mountain.

"Hi, I'll be your tour guide on today's mine tour." says Max.
"Come on, let's go!" expresses Zorro.

We connected three different trails to visit all four mines. Come along and enjoy the tour...

Approaching Iowa Mill. This is one of the "newer" mines on Baldy.
It was established in 1935 and is still partly operational.

Approaching the True Romance Mine Marker (the pole just ahead and to the right of Max).
There is not much to see of True Romance in the winter, but it is an abandoned mine site
from the 1800s that has visible relics in the summer.

Passing what is left of an old cabin at the Mountain Pride mine site. This site, also from the
1800s, has an old, abandoned mine and 6 old cabins in various stages of decay.

Approaching the two structures at the 528 Mine.
I have never been able to find the official name of this mine site, so we just call it the "528 Mine"
since it is located just off County Road 528. This site contains these two old buildings and an
actual mine structure (to the right, just out of view).

Of course, a little sprinting on the trails connecting the mines:

Whee - on to the next mine...
[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Lots of elevation on today's mine tour without a ton of mileage - it was up/down, up/down and up/down to visit all four historical sites: 7.7 miles with 1400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

Just Enough

We got "just enough" new snow overnight to make the steep trails on Baldy Mountain safe to ski down again! So, Max, Zorro & I hit the backcountry trails to skijor up, down and around Baldy.

Shoulder to shoulder in a nice uphill sprint. There is nothing quite like "skiing uphill without
even trying" - Siberian Power at its best :-)

Even though it was cloudy and overcast all day, the temperatures were around 25 to 30 degrees. That is hot to a husky - just ask Max:

"So hot, so hot - gotta roll a snow angel to cool off!" exclaims Max.

As part of our tour around Baldy, we took the lesser used trail out & back to the True Romance Mine - this is always a fun and somewhat narrow trail:

Cruising through the trees on the way to the True Romance Mine.

Taking a quick break at True Romance. Well, ok, I guess I was taking a break. Zorro, on the
other hand, decided to do some mining by digging in the snow all around the mine.
Unfortunately, he did not strike gold :-)

A fun little day cruising around Baldy: 7.2 miles, 1300 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 16 MPH.

Hopping Shelves

Max, Zorro and I went on a hike yesterday and discovered that some of the upper elevation shady trails still had enough snow to sled! "Oh man..." we all muttered, "We could have had the slow human on a sled today! Well, tomorrow we are coming back with the biped on his sled!"

Taking a quick break at our "high point" before sledding back down.
Max, of course, rolling a snow angel to cool off - love the big 'V' he's making with his back legs!

There were a few issues we noticed yesterday to be aware of today. (a) The snow was shallow with the occasional exposed rock: that means we used the 'dog sled' instead of the skis - hitting a rock, on skis while propelled by huskies, tends to break either a ski, a pole or a knee (trust me, I've done all 3 :-) whereas the sled can tolerate the occasional rock. (b) The trails were passable on the primarily shady sections, so we'd have to set our route to avoid sections mostly exposed to sun.

So, our planned route: hop up & across the 3 shelves of trails on the Sally Barber (north) face of Baldy Mountain and then cruise down the east face of Baldy. Each "shelf" can be viewed as a series of trails at roughly the same elevation. Given the conditions (needing to stay in shady areas) we could not take the common switchbacks to go from one shelf to the other. Instead, we had to ascend straight up 500 foot inclines to hop from one shelf to the next. Woo, what a workout! Details and visuals below...

(1) The Sally Barber Mine trails (the lower shelf of our route).

Cruising along the Sally Barber Mine trail. Just enough snow to haul the human up the trails.
Elevations in the 10,300 to 10,500 feet range.

(2) The "0.4 mile 500 foot" straight up ascent from the lower shelf to the middle shelf. 500 feet over 0.4 miles - that's a 24% uphill grade we ascended!

Hugging the side of the trail hopping us from the lower shelf to the middle shelf of trails.
Hauling the sled straight up this 24% grade (I had to hop off the sled and jog behind as two
huskies cannot pull one human up this steep a grade).

(3) The True Romance Mine trails (the middle shelf of our route).

Cruising along the True Romance Mine trail. A bit more snow and fewer exposed rocks than the
lower shelf. Elevations in the 11,100 to 11,200 feet range.

(4) The "0.33 mile 500 foot" straight up ascent from the middle shelf to the upper shelf. If you thought the first hop was steep at 24%... Well, this section is a 29% straight uphill grade!

Taking on the 29% grade moving us from the middle shelf to the upper shelf. You can see Max
really "leaning into the harness" as he and Zorro power up this extreme incline.

(5) The MZ Mine trails (the upper shelf of our route). I have yet to find a name for this mine in the Breckenridge historic mining literature. So, we named it the MZ (Max-Zorro) mine.

Breaking trail near the MZ Mine. Yes - breaking trail! Woo Hoo! We are in about 6-8 inches of
untouched snow at this point. The extreme climbs hopping up the shelves was worth it to get to
our own, untouched trails! Elevations in the 11,700 to 11.900 feet range.

Vital Stats of today's "sled outing": 6.5 miles with 1300 feet of elevation gained and two extreme climbs between the lower/middle and middle/upper shelves of trails. A pretty steep outing for the sled (versus skis). Fun, fun, fun...

Yum

"Yum, Fresh Bird Food!" Zorro, 07/20/2012...

Taking a quick break in the shade at an old abandoned cabin high up on Baldy Mountain.

Jogging along the trail to True Romance Mine, having a great time... "What's that off in the bushes? Hey, a baby bird!!!" exclaims Zorro. Dive off the trail, land in a bush, and pull out a yummy baby bird - performs Zorro.

"Whoa, get that out of his mouth - I want half!" declares Max. "What??? Wait! No, why are you kicking the carcass off the trail - that's fresh food!" gasps Max.

Total Damage Done: Zorro pulled a baby bird out of a bush along the trail. I believe it was a Quail, but hard to tell by the time I got to view it. As I pulled it by the tail out of his mouth and onto the ground, it was missing its head and one wing (and Zorro was happily swallowing those parts). To Max's dismay, I then kicked the remaining carcass off the trail before we started off running again.

Today's Trail Running Route: (1) Start at Carter Park in Breckenridge; (2) Jog up to Sally Barber Mine; (3) Hang a right and jog up to the True Romance Mine (eating 1/2 a bird along the way); (4) Hang another right and jog up to an unnamed mine high up on the north face of Baldy Mountain; (5) Connect onto the main Baldy Mtn trail and run down to the Baldy Road Trailhead.

The "True Romance Mine" marker. In the winter all traces of the mine are covered
by snow and this marker is all that is visible.

Dipping our heads into one of the old mine shafts at True Romance Mine. What are
we mining for, you ask? Gold? Silver? No... Furry Creatures! Now that would be
a Siberian Treasure!

The last, unnamed mine on today's route. It was a steep jog up 1700 feet to get
to this high point.

A Trace - Lets Go!

We had a trace of new snow at home overnight. But, we have not had new snow in almost 2 weeks; so a trace was enough to send Max, Zorro & I out to the backcountry. It was beautiful up high on our lesser used/lesser known trails; but it was a trace of snow over a sheet of ice near the trailhead.

One of the lesser known trails we use to loop up, down and around Baldy Mountain.
Just the 3 of us laying fresh tracks in a trace & up to 2 inches of new snow. Woo

We started at the Baldy Mountain winter trailhead and took off to explore all the hidden pockets of trails on Baldy. The first mile from this trailhead is very well-known and well-used; so it was skijoring with a trace of new snow on sheet of ice. "It will be an interesting path down!" I commented. After the first mile, we got onto our lesser-known trails that loop us back & forth and up & down Baldy. This was wonderful - 1-2 inches of fresh snow on the packed (but not ice) trails. Wheee, we had a blast cruising around Baldy and laying fresh tracks in the snow. But, eventually we had to come back... I talked with my skijoring buddies and we all agreed, "Every path down is going to be only a trace of snow over a trail of ice. We might as well come back down to the Baldy trailhead since we saw the worst (ice) parts of the trail on the way up!"

Just as we expected, it was a slick & difficult path back down. Constant snowplowing to keep our skijoring vehicle under control on ice. Frequent stops to rest the human's burning legs from pushing so hard to keep under control. Phew, that last mile was tough and slow...

All in, we had a fun & fast first 6 miles flying around Baldy on lesser used trails and we had a very slow final mile coming down steep terrain on sheer ice. 6 out of 7 isn't bad - woos from all  :-)

Taking a quick break near the True Romance Mine. Max looking for the "source"
of all those fox tracks to his immediate left and down to his right.

Same as above... But, the sun just broke through the clouds and Zorro is now
in the "where is the fox" observation point...

Another shot of us cruising up & along the trails.

A glimpse of the untouched 2 inches of snow waiting for us on the trail. Our path
from here is fresh tracks forward and then right at the big tree shadow and up & into
the forest. Wheeee!

Vital Stats: 7 miles; 100m total time; 85 skijoring time (15m for one break and rests for the human on the difficult downhill mile of ice); 14 MPH top speed; a fun 1200 feet of elevation climbed. Given the conditions, we never had a path to "open up the throttle" and hit some really fast speeds.

Sightseeing

Approaching our finish at the French Gulch
trailhead. Max hamming for the camera;
Zorro happily lunging forward.

Today we went "skijor sightseeing" to a bunch of mining relics on Boreas and Baldy mountains...

(1) We skijored to Bakers Tank on Boreas.
(2) We skijored to Iowa Mill on the west face of Baldy.
(3) We skijored to the True Romance Mine on the north face of Baldy.
(4) We skijored to the Sally Barber Mine on the north face of Baldy.

A typical cross country skier would visit one of these sights in a days' outing. An expert cross country skier might visit 2 of these in a days' outing. A Siberian propelled cross country skier (me!) visits all 4 of these in a day's outing - Siberian Power :-)

The conditions at the trailheads (start and finish) were hard packed sheets of ice. But, a mile or so away from each trailhead was great - packed powder, not packed ice. We could have skijored peacefully all day on the nice trails deep in the backcountry - too bad we had to return...

Vital Stats: 9.6 miles; 125m total time; 100m skijoring time (we had about 10m of breaks and one unfortunate section of carrying the skis hiking down a rocky, ice path for 15m); 16 MPH top speed; 1150 feet of elevation gain.

Happy running Huskies as we come up a little incline to finish

at the French Gulch winter trailhead.

Cruising along the packed trail to the True Romance Mine. Zorro taking a
peek down the steep incline off the trail.

We'd been skijoring for over 90 minutes straight before taking a quick break.
Is Max tired? "Nope, I'm ready to keep going this direction!" He demonstrates.

"Not tired either, this direction looks fun!" says Zorro.
I guess only the human needed a quick break after 90 minutes of jogging
and sprinting skijoring...

Happy Birthday Max!

Today is Max's birthday! His present from Zorro and I: skijoring up, down and all over Baldy Mountain! Happy 5th Birthday Max...

Skijoring along the trail to the True Romance Mine. Notice the back legs in perfect
unison as we cruise along shoulder-to-shoulder on this narrow trail. We spent most
of the day on "lesser known" (so narrower) trails in the backcountry. Fun, fun, fun!

This 3-day weekend is the busiest of the year for Breckenridge Ski Resort - so the town is full and you want to avoid the wide, well known cross country trails. We did this by sticking to steep and mostly undocumented trails on Baldy Mountain. It was a success, we encountered only 2 other groups of skiers all day! Just Max, Zorro and I skijoring up, down and all over Baldy Mountain!

Vital Stats: 7.1 miles; 90m total time; 80m skijoring time; 19 MPH top speed; 1200 feet of elevation gain. Lots of narrow trails, lots of steep elevations (up & down), lots of Siberian skijoring fun!

Another shot of our narrow, yet very peaceful, trails today.

Max's present to himself: a "snow angel" roll in the snow.

A little "head dunking" exploration in the snow for the Siberians as I was
surveying the terrain for ways to stay on paths less traveled.

Getting our "end of run hotdogs" at the trailhead. Notice Zorro's two feet on my leg - trying to
get a "step up" on tall Max and get closer to the hotdogs.

Where is Everyone?

Very attentive boys at the trailhead as I get out their "end
of run" hotdog treats. And, yes, that exposed right hand
got cold fast!

The temperature was zero degrees with a gusty wind when we started out skijoring today. It was probably around 10 to 20 below zero when you factor in the wind chill. A beautiful day for the Siberians - Max & Zorro were wondering why we did not encounter another soul on the trails today. "Such wonderful Siberian temperatures, where is everyone?" ;-)

Today's route involved a lot of steep hill climbing - the human needed the aerobic effect to keep the blood flowing to avoid getting too cold. We traversed up (and down) 1400 feet in just 6.1 miles. That's a short but very steep course.

We started at the French Gulch winter trailhead and then: (1) Skijored about 1/2 way up towards Sally Barber Mine; (2) Took a left and made a steep ascent all the way up and past the True Romance Mine; (3) Cut across the thick forest to the front side of Baldy Mountain; (4) Started up Baldy until the trees started thinning and the wind was too cold; (5) Looped back to Sally Barber Mine and then down to the Barney Ford/Sally Barber trailhead.

Needless to say, not too many pictures taken today - too cold to stop & too cold to shed the glove to operate the camera!

Vital Stats: 6.1 miles; 82m total time; 74m skijoring time; 21 MPH top speed; 1400 feet of elevation gain. A short & steep route to keep from getting too cold!

Nice shot of the fresh, untouched snow on the trail we are about to
embark upon.

Frolicking in the Snow

Approaching our finish at the French Gulch
trailhead. Happy huskies with snow covered
heads! Bundled up human with no body parts
exposed!

The forecast was for light snow falling this morning as we headed out to the trails. The reality was heavy, constant snowfall! A Siberian Treat...

There were 2 sections of "repeated trail" during today's route. Both times our original tracks were already buried in new snow within 10-15 minutes of our first pass. Highlights of the day:

(1) Sally Barber/Barney Ford trailhead up to Sally Barber Mine - existing tracks for the first 1/3 of the route and then just the 3 of us laying fresh tracks the next 2/3.

(2) Sprint down the Sally Barber trail towards French Gulch laying fresh tracks the whole way. About 1/2 way down, hang a right and ski up the steep True Romance Mine trail (laying fresh tracks again).

(3) Partway up to True Romance and hang a right on the Trail of Tears - laying fresh tracks all the way back to Sally Barber Mine.

(4) Reconnect to the Sally Barber trail towards French Gulch and notice all our "first pass tracks" are already invisible and covered in snow. Sprint all the way down to the French Gulch trail, again laying fresh tracks the whole way.

(5) Skijor out & up French Gulch to the last of the private cabins in the gulch. Following existing tracks for about 1/2 the route and then laying fresh tracks the remainder of the path. Take a quick break and then back down to the French Gulch winter trailhead.

Vital Stats: 9.2 miles; 114m total time; 97m skijoring time; 22 MPH top speed; 1000 feet of elevation gain. Lots of fresh & still falling snow!

Heading up to Sally Barber Mine. Trees filled with snow, laying fresh tracks
in the 2-4 inches on the trail.

A look behind us down the Sally Barber trail we just traversed.

At our turnaround/break point in French Gulch. Clearly Max thinks we should
keep cruising forward instead of turning around. "It's a beautiful day, why not
keep going?" he ponders...

At the French Gulch trailhead - patiently (and intensely) awaiting our hotdog
treats we get after each skijoring outing.