18mph in French Gulch

Nothing like snow on the head!

We hit our top speed of the season today: 18mph on a sprint run up and back in French Gulch!

A beautiful, sunny morning in the high country and we had some Christmas dinner to work off (ok, I did maybe not "we"). Max, Zorro and I did a "sprint run" from the French Gulch winter trailhead 3.4 miles up French Gulch and back.

Keep in mind it has not snowed (other than light dustings) the last few days as we skijored through 4 types of terrain (and then back the same route):

1. Packed, sprint track: French Gulch winter trailhead to junction to Little French Gulch. Most people take this trail as a way to Little French Gulch, so this section of the route was a well-traveled and hard-packed sprint track. We surpassed 18mph on the return route in this section!
2. Packed powder, narrow track: from Little French Gulch junction (up French Gulch) to the last of the private cabins sprinkled in the gulch. This section is lightly used, but still "used enough" to be packed powder as you traverse past the last of the private cabins in the gulch.
3. Wind-blown, parallel track: from the last of the private cabins to the fringes of the next open meadow in the gulch. Rarely traveled, you can see a past skiers parallel tracks that have been lightly covered by wind-blown snow over the last few days.
4. Fresh tracks: through and to the edge of the last "open meadow" in French Gulch (it's all forest and up from here to tree-line, should you proceed ;-)  Guess the humans could not make it this far, we tend to always out-ski the established trails as a Siberian powered skijor machine and blaze fresh tracks & trails on our outings. 

Vital Stats: 6.8 miles; 80 minutes total; 69 minutes moving; 5.9 MPH moving average; 18 MPH top speed (and we maintained a 16-18 mph clip for a significant stretch)!

The "3rd leg": following a infrequently used, wind-blown parallel track from a recent skier. 

The "4th leg": no more tracks, the trail is ours to blaze.

Looking back at where we've been blazing our own trail through the open meadow.

The meadow ends... Beyond this point would be thick forest taking you up until you pass tree-line.
I chose to turn around at this point.

Max says, "what do you mean we are turning around here?!?!! I see all kinds of trails to blaze forward!"

Max says, "fine! But if we must turn around, then I must dig to China in the snow first!"

Exploring Dyersville Ghost Town ... Boo!

Zorro says, "this is great!"

Thursday morning found us skiing to explore the historic ghost town of Dyersville.

The town of Dyersville was inhabited in the late 1800s/early 1900s to work the nearby Warriors Mark Mine. Our goal this Thursday morning was to ski, photograph and perceive both Dyersville and the Warriors Mark Mine. Skiing a success... Photos a success (see below)... Ghosts? No - boo!  ;-)

The route was an interesting contrast in terrain.

1. The first 2.4 miles was a hard packed, uphill & well traveled cross country ski trail - the Indiana Creek winter trailhead up the Indiana Creek trail until the right turn to Dyersville.
2. The next 0.5 miles was exhilarating! As soon as we turned off the main trail onto the path to Dyersville, we were met with deep & untouched powder - Max, Zorro and I trailblazing the path to & through Dyersville and up to Warriors Mark Mine.
3. The snow was so deep in sections that I lost "touch with ground" - that is, multiple times I drove my ski pole into the snow to help propel us upwards and my arm & pole drove straight down past my foot, never connecting with solid ground! Yes, that is the length of my arm plus the length of the ski pole in depth and I never connected with solid earth!
4. The next 0.5 miles was the return (in the same deep powder) from Warriors Mark Mine back to the main Indiana Creek trail.
5. The last 2.4 miles was, again, the hard packed & well traveled trail to Indiana Creek winter trailhead. Except this direction was downhill (the elevation delta over this section is about 1000 feet)... Hard packed, occasionally steep and attached to 2 Siberian Engines - yikes, this was a test for my intermediate skiing skills!

Vital Stats: 5.8 miles total; 2hrs 5 min travel time; 93 minutes moving time (lots of time stopped exploring Dyersville & Warriors Mark); 3.8 MPH moving average (that 1 mile of deep/deep powder really slowed our average!); 14 MPH top speed.

The first abandoned cabin of Dyersville.

Continuing on to see more of Dyersville.
Those tracks in front of us are RABBIT TRACKS!

A water crossing to another cabin of Dyersville.
Note the narrow "snow bridge" to the left - this was our path over the ice cold, fast running stream.

Starting up from Dyersville to Warriors Mark Mine.
Fresh, untouched and deepening powder!

The narrowing & deepening trail to Warriors Mark Mine.

Warriors Mark Mine.
The snow was waist deep in the "shallow sections" here.
I did not want to get too close to the mine for fear of what I could not see under the snow...

Indiana Creek to Boreas

Max surveying the route ahead

We got a nice dump of fresh powder on Saturday - that inspired Max, Zorro and I to head out to Indiana Creek for the first time this season on Sunday morning.

Our goal: skijor from the Indiana Creek winter trailhead (in Spruce Valley Ranch) up towards the ghost town of Dyersville then swing up to Boreas Pass Rd and ski down to the Boreas Pass winter trailhead. We have never skied this route before - so GPS in hand and Max & Zorro ready to go and off we went...

The route was a fun, gradual incline with lots of fresh snow as we went up the Indiana Creek trail and passed the right turn that leads to Dyersville. Once we passed the Dyersville turn, the trail is supposed to sweep you up to Boreas Pass Rd quickly (or so I thought). Well, about 10-15 minutes past the Dyersville junction, it sure did not feel like we were 'quickly' or 'sweeping' connecting to Boreas Pass. We stopped, I checked my GPS and asked Max & Zorro "what do you think, the GPS shows we are close to Boreas, should we continue?" You ever heard a Siberian Husky say, "no, let's turn around?" Well, neither have I, so onward we continued in search of Boreas Pass Road. Another 10 minutes or so of pretty steep incline and we popped over a ridge and onto Boreas Pass Road - we made it!!! From here it was familiar ground - cruising down Boreas Pass Road to the Boreas winter trailhead.

The Route (click to enlarge): Indiana Creek winter trailhead [INCR-TH] up towards Dyersville (passing the SVR shooting range [GUN]) through an open meadow [CLEARING] past the right turn to Dyersville [DYERS] up to Boreas Pass Rd [BORJCT] and down to the Boreas winter trailhead [BOREASHEAD].

Since this was our first tour of this route, we intentionally bypassed Dyersville to conserve our energy for anything unexpected. Next time, we'll probably dip down into Dyersville to get some fun winter pictures of this ghost town.

Vital Stats: 8.4 miles total; 2hrs 15 min travel time; 2hrs moving time; 4.2 MPH moving average (deep and wet/sticky snow accounted for the "less than our typical" moving speed).

Max says, "Onward & upward, let's go - no reason to turn around!"

It was a snowy/wintery day - a glimpse of the conditions: fresh powder, active snow & tons of fun!