Yay Snow

 Jack and Rudy showing what they think about waiting for me to get my skis on to start this morning's skijor run:

"Dude, you are slow so we roll!!!!" demonstrate the snow rolling goofs.

Notice the blur blocking Jack's head. We embarked on this morning's run amidst steady snowfall with a forecast for it to increase in intensity and wind! This was not a forecast that Nancy and retired Zorro wanted to wait in for us at the trailhead :)  So, Nancy & Zorro stayed home while the kids (Jack & Rudy) and I headed out into the developing storm. Well, since I did not have Nancy's help to get us started, Jack & Rudy showed what they thought of my slow preparation by rolling snow angels while I got all my equipment on. Goofy kids.

Well, the forecast was completely accurate. The snow (and wind) kept increasing in intensity our entire outing. I'd wipe the camera clear only to have it covered and blurred by snow in under a minute. Here is seconds after wiping the camera clear once:

A glimpse of Jack & Rudy as there are snow spots below Rudy,
above Jack and across the top of the video view.

Here is what a "cleared to blurred" video looks like. Come along as I just wiped the camera clear as we are galloping along and the camera becomes blurred again in 30 seconds.

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We were on the trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center most of the outing. These trails had been groomed Thursday evening. So, we found ourselves in a few inches of fresh snow over a groomed trail most of the day. But, we did dip off the main trail twice to get some aerobic trail breaking fun in the deep side trails:

Nice clear shot of breaking trail as I just wiped the camera clear
as we ventured off track. Wheeee!

Did I mention the forecast was for increasing snow and wind? Well, here you go with a shot of dumping and blowing snow all around us:

Skijoring in a whiteout! Wow!

The last 1/3 of our outing looked like the photo above - skijoring in a blinding whiteout! If you can see the trail, then your eyes are better than mine! I could barely see Jack & Rudy. Luckily I know this network of trails, as do Jack & Rudy, so we just glided blindly by memory back to the trailhead. 

Yay for Snow! But, what an interesting day!!! 9.8 miles traveled with 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 7 days on the trails covering 46.8 miles with 4500 feet of elevation climbed.

Blizzard Skijor

Skijoring Baldy Mountain this morning amidst heavy falling to blizzard scale snowfall!

Start of the day's outing and you can see the heavy falling snow against
the backdrop of trees in front of us.

Is that a house in the prior photo? Well, not exactly - it is the shell of an old, abandoned mining cabin from the 1800s or early 1900s. Baldy Mountain has tons of these old, abandoned mining structures in various states of stability or decay.

As I said in the introduction, the snow was DUMPING all outing long. We had the occasional stretches of blizzard scale whiteouts!!!!

You can barely see Jack & Rudy 6 feet in front of me and you certainly
cannot make out the trail in front of us! Blizzard!

Our outing had us laying fresh tracks to breaking trail up steep Baldy Mountain. We decided to do a short run given the conditions. Time to turn around, everyone having a good time? Love snow covered Rudy in this shot (Jack had just shook the same amount of snow off his body too). Love the happy faces on the fun kids.

"You bet - but WE could keep going!" says the happy pair.

What does skijoring amidst heavy snowfall look like? Well, come along and watch. The tracks you see are the tracks we laid on the way up. As you can see, nobody else was out on the trail this morning. With just one set of "up tracks" and heavy falling snow, you see Jack & Rudy really bouncing and plowing through the powder. Impressive kids! Oh yeah, look at that snowfall dumping around us!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Ok, now watch the video again and pause it at around 27-28 seconds in. I said the tracks you see were our "out tracks", but what is the huge mess in the snow to our right at 27-28 seconds? Well, it was the rodent hunters silly antics on the way up, as you see below:

Hopping off trail momentarily to dunk and search for rodents.
Rudy is thoroughly immersed in his rodent hunt.
Jack is coming up for air after a deep dunk of his own :)

Now, here is what was amazing about this morning. In the video you see our "out tracks" as the video clip was immediately after our turnaround. 5 minutes after our turnaround and you get what I show below. Do you see any "out tracks"? Nope, they were completely buried by fresh falling snow in roughly 5 minutes! Wow!

Our "out tracks" are completely buried, so it's breaking trail again!
Breaking trail all the way up and most of the way down - what a aerobic outing!
Look at all the snowflakes coming down around us.

If you thought the prior was an impressive "5 minutes later" for the heavy falling snow, take a look at the following photo. This photo is about "20 minutes later" as we set fresh tracks on this section of trail just 20 minutes ago. There is no evidence anybody had been on the trail recently! Blizzard!

Kicking up powder and breaking trail in deep snow despite
the fact that we had come up this trail just 20 minutes earlier!

This was young Jack & Rudy's first "blizzard skijor". They have had a couple of "heavy falling snow" skijors, but today was another level! The only downside was that it was snowing too hard to add Zorro the team to end the day. He came to the trailhead with us but was happier remaining behind with Nancy in the Jeep and skipping the blizzard day.

Oh well, Zorro will be out again with us soon once the snow lets up. As for Jack & Rudy, an impressive day of powder plowing: 4.6 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2019/2020 Season to Date: 105 days on the trails covering 710.8 miles with 65,600 feet of elevation climbed.