Smudged

Skijor in French Gulch this morning, so you know what that means...

Paused to peer over a small snow wall to scan the gulch for the moose Jack
and Rudy clearly have caught the scent of.

French Gulch is known for its active moose population. We never skijor the gulch without Jack & Rudy pausing at least once to stare intensely into the gulch after they have caught the scent of moose in their noses. Sometimes we locate a body camouflaged amidst the trees to go along with the scent and sometimes we do not. But, I know from the intensity of Jack & Rudy's stares that the scent is strong and moose are definitely in the neighborhood. We had no sightings today, but Jack & Rudy made two "exit stage rights" as above to try and location the smelling moose!

Now, what is that down the center line of the photo above? Well, unfortunately it is a large water smudge from snow falling, melting and refreezing to the camera. It was cold this morning (temperature of 5 F at the trailhead with a stiff wind), so water spots were refreezing quickly on the camera. I did not realize that we had this large smudge down the center of the camera after the first 5 minutes of our outing (then for the rest of the day) until I got home. So, today's footage is water smudged down the middle all day long. Oh well, a great time was still had by all!

We started the day following ski tracks from two who had been out before us. We encountered the skiers on their return, so knew it was only 2 that had been out before us in the morning's fresh snow. So, we out-skied the pair and had 3-5 inches of fresh snow to ourselves for about 1/2 the outing! I mentioned it was 5 degrees (F) with a stiff wind. Do you think that had any impact on the comedians? Nope...

"Turnaround, roll around!" goes always snow rolling Jack dropping in the
snow to cool off at 5 degrees!!!
"I apprOOOOOOOve!" woos funny Rudy with the cutest little frosted beard :)

As I mentioned, we had the new snow on the trail all to ourselves for about 1/2 the outing. So, we laid fresh tracks gliding up one side of the wide trail so that we could then continue to lay fresh tracks on the other side for the return. What fun:

Laying fresh tracks down the center of the trail with our "out tracks"
to our left.

Then, the first 1/4 and last 1/4 of the outing was back on set tracks from the previous two skiers and ourselves. But, still plenty of snow to floor it!

Zipping along reusing set tracks. You can see zippy Jack while speedy
Rudy is, unfortunately, smudged out. Oops.

I typically remember to wipe the camera clear on stormy and/or cold days (when it tends to get blurred); but, alas, I forgot today. So, there is no video highlight for today as nothing came out clear for more than a few seconds at a time. No worries, though, a great time was had by all:

"You have our FULL attention!" says the handsome kids.
I love the frosted snow beards on both chins. You know the huskies
are happy when their faces are frosted!

A peaceful outing in wonderful fresh snow: 7.2 miles traveled with 700 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 19 days on the trails covering 117.5 miles with 14,500 feet of elevation climbed.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from me in my Santa hat and my adorable miniature flying reindeer, Jack & Rudy :)

Merry Christmas!

Did I say "miniature flying reindeer"? Well, yes, see for yourself:

Jack & Rudy may be smaller than a reindeer, but they can fly just
as well as any on Santa's team :)

Our outing this morning took us to the upper elevation trails at Breckenridge Nordic Center. As we hoped, the groomer had been out on the trails just before us. While the groomer had not groomed all of the terrain, we did find a few stretches of fresh and untouched groom. Yes, we were first tracks on these sections of trail! We did encounter one other skier along the way, but she was gliding in the classic ski tracks, so that still left the entire width of the trail freshly groomed and untouched for us!

"Coming through! Made you smile!' go Jack & Rudy and they love to 
entertain oncoming skier by flying on by and putting smiles on their faces.

But, aside from that solo skier in the classic tracks, we were first tracks for an extended duration. So fun:

The fun kids catching air as we are first tracks on the fresh groomie zoomie.

Eventually, though, the fun came to a minor pause. Come along for today's video highlight. Watch as we are zipping & cruising along the freshly groomed trail having a blast. Then, we come upon a trail intersection and, boo, there is a loose dog standing in the middle of the intersection. I start to snowplow to slow us down while we see what Fluffy is going to do. We've encountered this dog before, so I wasn't too worried, we just wanted it OUT OF THE WAY! Well, watch as Fluffy finally moves enough to give us an escape gap. I release Jack & Rudy by putting my skis parallel, I don't have to say anything. The great kids feel the release and know they can now run on by Fluffy. Jack & Rudy have absolutely no use for loose dogs, all they do is cause slow downs or stoppages. Sled dogs hate stopping, sled dogs LOVE running :)

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

It was a bit of a warm morning with temperatures in the 30s (F) but above freezing. So, I knew what I'd get from Jack & Rudy at our turnaround pause of the outing:

Yep, rub a dub dub, need to roll in the snow to cool our jets.
It's hard to tell which legs are Jack's and which are Rudy's as they are
a conjoined snow angel :)

A wonderful Christmas outing: 9.2 miles traveled with 1200 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 17 days on the trails covering 104.1 miles with 12,700 feet of elevation climbed.

Scrapes and Glances

Uh-oh....

An unauthorized session of "tag & tackle" breaking out as we reached the
historic Sallie Barber Mine this morning :)

You know what came after the prior photo! Yep, BOOM, tag, tackle, wrestle, flip, flop, duck, dodge - you name it, the playful kids did it!

Prior photo aside, we really did skijor the Sallie Barber Mine Trail this morning. We are still dealing with the aftermath of last week's super windstorm as we have not had new snow to cover any of the tree debris littered on the trails. For the most part, it is just minor debris that we can easily run and glide amongst:

Zipping along with minor tree debris scattered on the trail.

But, there are locations where large and often many trees fell across the trail last week that had to be removed by chainsaws. Unfortunately, in removing these large downed trees, a lot of sawdust and tons of little branches remain littering the trail. While not as bad as exposed rocks, my skis still made a awful scraping noise each time they grazed a pile of dust & twigs. Check this out, for example:

You can see the remnants of the large trees that fell forward and to our left.
You can also see the dust & twig debris covering the trail.

Jack & Rudy are great partners, of course, and they automagically slowed when we approached difficult debris for me to ski over. In fact, each time either of my skis made a scraping noise, one or both of them would glance back to check on me. Such great pals:

"You ok back there, that didn't sound good?" asks the great kids glancing
back to check on me after one of my skis scraped across a patch of twigs.

Now come along for the video fun of what I'm talking about. This clip starts out with us galloping along amidst minor, no issue, debris on the trail. Then, about 30 seconds into the clip and we get to a swath of heavy debris from downed tree removal. Watch as Jack and/or Rudy glance back to check on me a total of 7 times (each time one of my skis scraped) as we pass over this swath of debris. What great partners to keep checking on me!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

I was happy as can be to dish out end of run treats to my perfect partners who had my well being in mind as we scraped through some sketchy patches of trail!

"We'd rather slow, glance and keep you upright than not skijor at all!" declares
the great kids awaiting end of run treats atop a mini snow wall.

A fun, albeit short, outing on the parts of Sallie Barber Mine that have had the downed trees removed (there are sections that are still blocked by trees): 4.1 miles traveled with 400 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 19 MPH.

2025/2026 Season to Date: 16 days on the trails covering 94.9 miles with 11,500 feet of elevation climbed.