Fun Forest Video

Another beautiful "bluebird day" in Breckenridge...

Cruising down Boreas Pass Rd. A fast packed trail, a beautiful bluebird day - nice views!

A fun skijoring romp through the forest...

Fast Cruise through the Forest on the Bakers Tank Trail.
A nice transition out of the forest and into the sun near the end of the video.
[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Our route today took us from the Baldy Mountain winter trailhead to the Boreas Pass winter trailhead. We have not had new snow for a few days, so the trails were well packed and fast. The lesser known terrain was a "fast packed single track" (see photos below), the moderately used terrain was a "fast packed dual track" (see video above) and the heavily used terrain was "fast packed & wide" (see photo above). Basically, fast, fast & fast - everywhere we went....

Max taking lead on a "single track" trail on Baldy Mountain.

Switch - your turn... Zorro taking lead on a "single track" trail as we are cutting over from
Baldy Mountain to Boreas Mountain.

Of course, if it is a "bluebird day", you all know what that means... Siberian Hot:

Max rolling a snow angel to cool off at our high point on Boreas before we started the sprint
back down to the Boreas Pass winter trailhead.

Tally for the day: 9 miles with 1000 feet of elevation gain. A fun, fast day! Woo!

Fast and Deep

Today's skijor outing consisted of "fast, packed trails" to "deep, breaking trail" and everything in between! Woo - what fun!

"Conditions are great - what a fun day!" expresses happy Max.
"Yum - have you tasted the snow - very tasty today!" slurps satisfied Zorro.
You can see the untouched trail behind them we are about to embark upon - trail breaking fun.

The trails "closer to civilization" were well established snowmobile trails - as shown below:

A beautiful "bluebird day" as we transition out of the forest and into a wide open meadow - following
an established snowmobile track with about an inch of powder on top.

Transitioning from a nice "skijor trot" into a "skijor sprint" - again on an established
snowmobile track with a 1-2 inch layer of fresh snow.
[watch on youtube if no video show below]

The trails "far from civilization" were untouched and all to ourselves. The first photo above shows some of the more shallow (4-8 inches) of untouched trail to break through, the photos below show the deep extremes of the outing...

Great shot of the Siberians powering through deep snow. Max is "taking off" in a leap to power forward
as Zorro lands his most recent leap.

Reverse of the previous shot - Max has landed his recent leap and Zorro is leaping out of the snow to
move himself forward. 

A great day on some of the established snowmobile trails near French Gulch and on some of the lesser used (lesser known) trails far back in the forests - total stats: 8.3 miles, 1550 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

13 below for 2013

The thermometer in the Jeep registered 11 degrees below zero at the trailhead this morning. We were starting our outing a little after sunrise and starting up a "cold trail" with the sun still behind the mountains. So, although we did not "see it" on a thermometer, I can pretty much guarantee that:

It was 13 degrees below zero (or colder) for our initial outing of 2013! 

A Siberian Treat ... a human freezer :-)

Our goal was to do a 10+ mile outing for the Dogs Across America Challenge. We have no hope of winning this challenge as some serious mushers with full sled dog teams are planning to enter; but it was still fun to get our little "2 dog skijor team" in the mix. Our tally for the day:

A nice 10.6 mile run up & down Boreas Pass with a fun top
speed of 19 MPH.

I learned one valuable lesson today - the GoPro camera does not like temperatures in the negative double digits! The lens repeatedly fogged and cleared (and fogged & cleared, etc) all day long. I have some anti-fog inserts for the camera that say to use in "extreme cold temperatures" - I have now found their definition of extreme is in the 10 below range. So, no good videos today, just some nice frame dumps from the few un-fogged sections of the outing:

A pretty shot of the trail as we enter an aspen grove the trail cuts through.

Approaching Bakers Tank on Boreas Pass - this marks the "3 mile point" of our 5.3 mile route
up before returning down the same 5.3 mile path.

It sure looks pretty along the trail - hard to believe something so pretty could be
soooo cold!

Our route was 5.3 miles up Boreas Pass and then 5.3 miles back down the same path: 10.6 miles, 950 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.