Room for Turkey

 After 15+ miles of skijoring the last two days, we have made room to enjoy some Thanksgiving turkey!

"We'll accept pork as well!" declares the focused trio happy to get
'end of run' pork on Thanksgiving :)

It was a beautiful bluebird day skijoring the trails of Breckenridge Nordic Center yesterday:

What a beautiful morning! What incredible conditions! Zoom!

Along the way, Jack and Rudy decided to make use of one of the warming huts situated throughout the nordic center. What does a Siberian Husky do at a warming hut?

Yep, you roll snow angels at warming huts :)

Need some video evidence of yesterday's beautiful morning? Here you go:

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We only had time for a quick 6.8 mile outing yesterday, so did 8.4 miles this morning to make sure we got 15 "turkey earning exercise" miles. We decided to try French Gulch this morning:

Snow, but super thin coverage in French Gulch.

It was quite disappointing to find the coverage in French Gulch this thin 24 hours after we had a foot of snowfall. I have come to the decision it is time for me to retire French Gulch from our list of skijor trails. It is hard for me to let go, given its history. It was the first trail in Breckenridge we ever dog sledded with our first two sled dogs, Paco & Cisco. It was Max & Zorro's favorite trail (for both pristine snow and seeing moose) for years & years. But, even in Max & Zorro's later years skijoring, French Gulch was becoming increasingly overused and beaten down. I kept trying to hold on to this trail for Jack & Rudy, but it has continued to get more overused and more mistreated every year. I've decided to remove it from Jack & Rudy's list of skijor trails so that I can always have fond memories of the incredible outings I had with Max & Zorro on this terrain. I don't ever want to forget those Max/Zorro memories due to what is now a beat up and abused trail. Not to fear, I have other trails that did not exist in Max/Zorro's tenure that will becomes cornerstones for Jack/Rudy's career instead.

With such poor conditions on French Gulch, we did a quick out & back on this trail and then turned to the Sally Barber Mine trail (which shares the trailhead with French Gulch) to get some better skijoring:

Perfect conditions at Sally Barber Mine while this trails meets up
with an abused and beaten French Gulch just a few miles away!

Pretty parting shot from yesterday's 'end of run' treats with Zorro:

Pretty snow covered peaks in the distant with cute & happy sled
dogs in the foreground.

Beautiful 6.8 miles yesterday. Beat up initial miles this morning and then great miles to finish once we abandoned French Gulch for Sally Barber Mine. Two day total: 15.4 miles traveled with 1250 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 23 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 14 days on the trails covering 104.2 miles with 9500 feet of elevation climbed.

A sad farewell to French Gulch; but the fun Paco, Cisco and then Max, Zorro had with Nancy & I on this trail with forever be etched in our fond memories!

Just Enough

Just enough of a dusting of new snow to glide over just enough snow pack on the upper trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center this morning.

Zooming along! Just enough "snow dust" to safely open up the skijoring
engine on the hard packed surface underneath. Zoom!

The highlight of my day was the dusting of new snow that made it possible for us to skijor without any worries. This same terrain would have been hard packed to icy and very dangerous to skijor just yesterday. But, the safety dust made today a breeze for me to glide behind Jack and Rudy!

Jack and Rudy's highlight of the day? Fresh moose tracks crossing the trail and going into the forest:

Jack & Rudy standing in moose tracks as they scan the forest with
extreme intensity.

I could tell these tracks were very fresh from the kids' intensity. They REALLY wanted to go off trail and follow the tracks into the forest. Sorry, guys, the musher vetoed that idea :)

Back to my fun :) Here we go starting on the left side of the trail. I realize the right side is better conditions for me to ski. So, an "over to the right" command and Jack moves, then another "over to the right" and Rudy moves. Once on the right, it's pedal to the metal skijoring. Also notice about 36-37sec in and everyone slows without command when they hear my skis scrape and then they pick up the speed again once the skis sound right. Perfect skijor partners!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As you can see in the first photo and video, the conditions were VERY nice most of the morning. But, it has been a dry & warm past week, so we did encounter some scary thin patches of trail. I had to take my skis off to walk over one extended patch of dirt and rocks. Then I had to stop to put the skis back on. Yep, I stopped and guess what happened :)

"You stop, we roll!!!!" demonstrate the snow rolling goofballs.

Finally, back to the trailhead and time for 'end of run' treats with elder Zorro:

"Serve them up!" declares the happy & focused trio.

A great day on the trails with just enough "snow dust" for fast & far skijoring: 9.6 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 12 days on the trails covering 89 miles with 8250 feet of elevation climbed.

Elk Encounter

 Celebrating a wildlife entertaining skijor with well-earned end of run treats:

Smiles all around :)

The highlight of yesterday morning's skijor? Elk encounter!!! 

When Jack and/or Rudy get a scent of wildlife nearby, I'll often let them drift to the side of the trail to peek into the forest for what has caught their attention. Since I can see there is nothing (such as a moose or elk) standing at the edge of the trail, it is safe to let us drift over and stare into the forest. Well, today was a bit different. It started out normal as Jack & Rudy wanted to drift to the trail edge to inspect the forest. As we were drifting over I saw what looked like a set of tree branches sticking up out of the snow and I thought, "That set of branches is so cool, it almost looks like antlers!" and I was getting set to get a photo of the antler looking branches. Then, as we got closer, the "branches stood up!" Oh my, it really was a set of antlers on the head of a big bull elk! The elk was laying down off the trail with only the tops of its antlers visible to us until we got closer and he stood up. Whoa! Needless to say, I was in panic mode getting Jack & Rudy reeled in and myself ready to hold them back. 

It's interesting that, despite how big elk are, they are very skittish, much like deer, and runaway quickly. A moose on the other hand (especially a bull) will stand ground and challenge you. But, bull elks apparently do not realize how big they are and they runaway quickly. Anyway, I eventually got myself, Jack & Rudy under control (as I was initially staring face to face with the elk). Once under control, I attempted to turn my chest to get the elk on the GoPro around my chest. He had already started running off by the time I got turned, so I do not have a photo of the impressive and scary initial "face to face" - here's what I did capture (click on the photo to enlarge):

Jack & Rudy staring at the big elk butt running into the forest at
the far right of this photo.

Still hard to see the elk in the prior photo, so here is a zoom into the far right of this photo:

There he is running away. Big "light brown" lower body and butt.
Dark brown shoulders & head with a big set of antlers on top!

How about a video of the encounter? Come along for a super slow motion clip to show the elk moving away once I am under control and able to point my chest towards him. Just watch Jack to see where to look and notice la-la-land Rudy isn't even looking the right direction to start but quickly syncs up with Jack and the elk :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

After this elk close encounter, imagine my work in convincing Jack & Rudy to turn and go the direction AWAY from the elk (that was the direction we needed to go to get back to the trailhead). Well, after a some discussion about why to go the "wrong way", we started up the trail and encountered fresh moose tracks!!!!

We came by this section of trail on the way out only 20-30 minutes earlier
and there were no moose tracks!

Needless to say, the very fresh moose tracks got Jack & Rudy over going the wrong direction from the elk as we were now going the right direction for moose. We never encountered the recent moose, but it did help get the team going the intended direction with gusto :)

Oh yeah, we went skijoring today too:

Initially the conditions were thin and sketchy as were were on a trail
with constant sun exposure.

Once we got onto more protected terrain, though, it was perfect conditions
to run fast, hunt elk and search for moose :)

Whew, what an interesting close encounter of the elk kind yesterday morning! 6.6 miles traveled with 550 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 11 days on the trails covering 79.4 miles with 7350 feet of elevation climbed.