Milestones

Having a blast breaking trail in about 15 inches of fresh powder in French Gulch! Wheeee!

Gliding along in 15+ inches of powder. What impressive sled dogs!!!

This is young Jack's first real season of skijoring, so we will be experiencing a lot of milestones as the season unfolds (recall last winter was just short & easy training runs for Jack). Today had two milestones: (1) Jack's first 8+ mile skijor (8.4 to be exact); and (2) Jack's first extended time breaking trail (we had about 1 to 1.5 miles of what you see in the prior photo). Impressive young Jack (and just as impressive veteran Zorro :)

We are at the tail end of a great storm from the previous few days dumping upwards of 2 feet of snow in and around Breckenridge. Today we decided to take Zorro & Jack for a long run in French Gulch to enjoy all the new snow. There has been so much snow, that we were able to start on French Gulch Road and run in tire tracks until entering the real French Gulch Trail.

Flying along in packed tire tracks on French Gulch Road. Zoom.

Once we transitioned from the road to the trail, we were able to ride in a set of ski tracks for a while and then we eventually out skied all existing tracks. Once this happened, you got the first photo above: breaking trail for over a mile in 15+ inches of powder!

Besides great snow, the biggest attraction of French Gulch is ... MOOSE!!! We did not see a moose this morning, but the "scent of moose" drew Zorro & Jack off trail once into deep snow as they scanned the forest for the source of the moose aroma. No visuals, but still fun to scan:

"Come out, come out wherever you are. We SMELL you!!!!" declare the moose scanning
pair enjoying the deep powder as they scan for moose.

The only drawback to French Gulch - well there are a handful of property owners in the gulch who have keys to the "winter gate" and will occasionally run their evil plows down the trail. Anything that removes snow is evil (except the sun, as it has other uses so we will allow this one snow remover :)

Evil, just plain evil!!!! Why remove snow!!!!!

On to today's video highlight - the evil plow. Come along as we are flying along a "fast packed trail" until we encounter the source of the packness - the evil plow. Love my skijoring partners as they automatically slow as we approach Mr. Evil as we all consider "what to do". All it takes is one gentle "Left" command from me and Zorro & Jack hop into the left powder as we pass Mr. Slow & Evil. Once passed, hop back into the ski tracks on the trail, floor it and leave Mr. Slow & Evil in our dust :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a fun early November snow run: 8.4 miles traveled with 800 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 6 days on the trails covering 27.5 miles with 2850 feet of elevation climbed.

Almost

Almost our first "hover husky triplet" skijoring shot. Almost......

Jack & Zorro each have a toe or two on the ground while Rudy is hovering along the trail.
Almost our first "hover husky triplet" - we'll have one soon! :)

The upper section of Boreas Pass got a great dump of new snow overnight. So, we ventured out for what has been our standard "Rudy training route" of this early season. Specifically, we drove up Boreas and then Nancy drove the Jeep back down while Zorro, Jack, Rudy & I skijored down in the set tracks made by the Jeep. A perfect "packed & downhill" trail for training young Rudy.

I love this short section of video from the day's outing. Notice how Zorro has little Rudy along side him as they run in the set tire track. Jack, meanwhile, has put himself in the shallow powder just outside of the track. Zorro, at 10 years old, is happy to take the easy track and train Rudy while Jack is young and full of energy and needs the extra powder to get his exercise :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As was the pattern when we were training Jack last winter, we kept the outing short & easy and took two breaks during the run. Break number one:

"Having a blast!" declares happy Rudy.
"Yes, yes - what fun!" adds happy Jack.
"A break ALREADY?!?!" asks veteran Zorro.

First break over and we got onto a well-traveled section of Boreas that had wide packed tracks. Everyone spread out and go...

Zorro taking point (notice my skis are shifted behind Zorro and Jack) while Jack provides
the mid engine and little Rudy runs at his own pace out to the right.

Break number two...

"Okay, I am having fun in spite of all these breaks!" says happy Zorro.
"Cooling my jets in the snow!" demonstrates little Rudy.

End of the day's run and time for our "end of run pork treats":

"Dish them out!" says intense Zorro.
"Yes, yes!" adds happy Jack.
"I'm right here too!" declares focused Rudy.

What a fun "short & easy" training run with Rudy: 2.4 miles traveled with a top speed of 16 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 5 days on the trails covering 19.1 miles with 2050 feet of elevation climbed.

Treat

No tricks today as were treated to a dump of fresh snow this halloween!!!

Laying fresh tracks in about 4 inches of fresh snow on Boreas Pass Rd. Beautiful halloween treat!

You may have looked at the previous photo and wondered, "That is Zorro and Jack, where is Rudy?" Well, Rudy is still too young for long skijor runs or extended stretches of deep snow. So, while we have a blast doing short training runs with Rudy, we need to drop the little guy now & then to get in some real skijor runs. Our plan for this winter is to drop Rudy once or twice a week and give Zorro and Jack a serious run. Eventually, probably in March or April, Rudy will be old enough to come along full-time. But, until then, you get a "Zorro and Jack" long skijor treat once a week :)

Anyway, back to today's run. We planned on driving up Boreas Pass Road until the snow was fresh and deep enough to skijor. Well, we found it "fresh and deep" at the trailhead, so did not need to drive up the road at all. As you can see in the previous photo, we were first on the road and were laying fresh tracks all the way up to Bakers Tank. What fun!!!

The only flaw in starting at the trailhead was that the trail got sticky now & then on the way down (due to mud creeping up from under the snow). I had to stop a few times to scrape mud off my skis. Well, you know Jack and his "stop antics"...

"You scrape the skis, I roll snow angels!" demonstrates silly Jack.
"Sigh, dumb human equipment, I want to GO!" declares "lined out and ready to go" Zorro.

Partway down and we ran into a Jeep coming up the road (Boreas Pass Road is open to 4WD vehicles until mid to late November). Zorro and Jack provided some entertainment for the tourists coming up the road:

Windows down and iphones out to take photo/video of the pretty sled dogs and the
crazy human attached to them on skis :)

After encountering that Jeep, we had tire tracks to follow the rest of the way down. While the tracks exposed mud in a few places, it also provided a packed speedway in other stretches! Zoom!

Zorro flying along the packed tire track as Jack wants to ride in the powder next to the track.

Here we go flying along the packed tire tracks. Zoom, zoom - love getting towed along by my sled dog pals!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

What a halloween treat, right guys?

"Oh my, that was fun!" declare the happy, happy brothers at the end of the day's run.

A fun day laying fresh tracks all the way up and then opening the throttle in tire tracks down low: 6.2 miles traveled with 750 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 17 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 4 days on the trails covering 16.7 miles with 1850 feet of elevation climbed.