Marathon Form

Think of when you are watching a long distance race - you always see volunteers holding water for the runners to grab as they jog by. Well, here is Max's version of the same concept:

Jogging along the trail and Max notices the nice shelf of snow cones to his left. "I certainly could use a
little drink!" says Max as he opens his mouth in the left frame and then chomps down on a bite of snow
in the right frame. Notice by Zorro's movement, that he did not even break stride while Max paused ever
so slightly to grab a snow cone before speeding back up. A marathon runner would be proud :-)

The trail was wide & packed near the Indiana Creek trailhead. Here we are passing 20 MPH as we sprint along the fast trail:

Zoom we go sprinting along the wide trail near the Indiana Creek trailhead
[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

Yet, as usual, we always "out ski" the packed trail as it gets narrower and narrower as we skijor much further than the typical cross country skier travels. Until, eventually:

No more "human tracks" - just us Huskies breaking trail as we follow a set of fox tracks in the snow.

When we took our usual "5 minute midpoint break", Zorro declared it a "snow digging break" and Max agreed:

"Hey Max - there's some lovely rodents under the snow over here!" exclaims Zorro with
Max (originally) unimpressed.

"Whoa - did you say 'rodents in the snow'?" declares Max as he realizes what Zorro is up to
and launches himself into the deep snow rodent hunt!

Total fun for the day: 8.3 miles, 1000 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

Packed to Powder

Today had it all: packed fast trails, single track deep trails and dual powder trails....

(1) To start, we were on packed snowmobile trails. Most of this direction was uphill, so being packed helped us maintain a good uphill trot:

Most of the packed trail was like this: 2 separate snowmobile tracks with deeper powder down
the middle. Max & Zorro each chose one track for themselves and I glided along behind,
alternating which track I rode in. Notice the "snow wall" to Zorro's right - about "Zorro
shoulder deep" - fun!

Still trotting along at a nice uphill pace with each Husky choosing their own track.

(2) After cruising the packed track for a while, it was time to take a lesser known/lesser used single track to cut through the forest:

You can see the "single track" in front of Max. If you step out of the track, you sink to your
Siberian shoulders in deep snow. So, it was single file skijoring as we were gliding along the
fresh snow in the single track.

Sometimes the "single track" is not so obvious. But, it is there and Max & Zorro know to follow
the track to keep from sinking deep.

(3) Our final section widened up from the single track into a "2 Siberian Wide" dual track with 3-5 inches of fresh powder:

Wide enough to run shoulder-to-shoulder again in 3+ inches of fresh snow.

Cruising a "2 Sibe Wide" trail with fresh snow is skijoring at its best! :-)

A fun, albeit somewhat short, outing today: 7.2 miles with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and 3 degrees of different terrain to enjoy.

Happiness

Happiness is...

1) Happiness is sprinting to the finish at the end of the day:

2) Happiness is a head full of snow:

3) Happiness is laying fresh tracks in untouched snow:

4) Happiness is stepping off the trail into chest deep snow:

5) Happiness is uncorking the skijoring machine on a fast packed trail:

Happiness is all of the above! An fun & energetic day running up & down Boreas Pass Rd: 10.2 miles, 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 18 MPH.