Zeena reports no residents today in the hollow log along our trail. Maybe next time.
[#]Huskies #TrailRunning #CaniCross
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In this relationship, Zeena is the morning person, while Tonttu is the "not until I've had my coffee/kibble" person.
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Sun: rises
Coffee: percolates
Zeena: hides behind planter
Tonttu: finishes doing his business (properly offscreen)
Zeena: play!
Tonttu: nah
Zeena: PLAY!
Tonttu: nope
Zeena: PLAYPLAYPLAY!!!
Tonttu: ignores
Zeena: ...fine
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UNPAID ADVERTISING ๐
Jeff Eddy, half of Paws2Trail, is launching "Freelance Basecamp", an 8-week guided course + cohort to help individuals seriously thinking about escaping the 9-5 corporate work world for a self-driven career that puts their experience & passion to better use as a freelance/Fractional knowledge expert.
It's especially focused on professionals who have developed years of experience in their field, but who have found it difficult to advance in traditional corporate structures and who are looking for better ways to use their talents. You want to support smaller businesses who could make use of your talents, but who aren't big enough to hire someone like you full time: consulting & Fractional Leadership are options you've considered, but taking that first step is intimidating! Basecamp provides tools & guidance to plot a strategic exist from corporate life.
If you or someone you know are looking for change in 2025, please read on! ๐งต
https://freelance-basecamp.carrd.co/
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Pet "Friendly" Trails
"We would prefer you to keep your dog at home but we are dog friendly and do allow dogs on our trails."
It's not exactly enthusiastic friendliness, but it seems par for the course when it comes to skijoring around here, especially if you want more than a token 1 mile loop.
It's close to the dog-friendly cabin we stayed at last fall, so a trip back to Ironwood MI might be in the works for later this winter.
https://www.wolverinenordic.com/pet-friendly-trails/
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New Years Day we got in a cold hike at Afton State Park. Still waiting for snow and none in the forecast. ๐ข
[#]Hiking #Huskies
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Even in winter the falls can be swarming with children, but today it was just us. There was an interesting cavern behind the frozen cascade to explore! Zeena checked it out, but ultimately the humans found it more interesting.
[#]Huskies #IceCave #Waterfall
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Today we returned to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park for a bit of hiking in the cold, crisp, bright weather. Perfect for our steam-powered huskies!
[#]Huskies #Hiking #Winter
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The photos are sorted chronologically, for the most part. We've culled out the "best of the best" of 14 years of photos, which we'd previously organized by year. Perhaps 1200 is a more manageable number to browser? ๐
Feel free to reply with your favorites. Our goal had been to limit the album to under 1K, but 1200 is the best we could do! Every photo has a story for us. But we'd love to hear which you find the most notable or memorable.
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Farewell, 2024 and Gypsy.๐
This year marked the end of 14 years of adventures shared with Wolfsong's Gypsum Rose, a.k.a. Gypsy. We've posted about Gypsy before, but please indulge us in one more. She was truly a special dog, quirky in her own ways, but soft and sweet and a pleasure to have around for everything life has thrown at us.
Her final year was tough, but we made 2023-24 the best send-off we could give her. Hiking and skijoring distances got shorter, but we savored every moment until her body could not keep her going anymore. And she managed to surprise us with just how much life she still had in her until the end.
We've managed to filter down the thousands of photos we have of her into a mere 1200 "highlights" of a life lived very fully. Please enjoy:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paws2trail/albums/72177720322879530/
[#]Huskies #DogsOfMastodon #ElderlyDogs
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More construction! When we first saw this down the trail, we were concerned that it would mean the rest of our trip would require hiking, but fortunately it was just a temporary road laid down along a powerline that we easily crossed without having to remove our skis.
Aside from returning down the torn up access trail, we had good (enough) skiing the rest of the way. It was quiet, and aside from one hiker with his hunting dog who enjoyed saying hi to our huskies, we were the only ones on the trail.
...until the end when we saw two different groups of hunters out in bright orange. The park is open for pheasant and goose hunting this time of year, and perhaps we should have been dressed more visibly ourselves. But we didn't get shot! And survive to ski another day.
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We took an easy pace, with many stops to hunt for mouses along the way.
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No fresh snow, so winter hikers continue to trample the more popular multi-use trails. We decided to check out the more remote, eastern loop of UMore Park, which turned out to have decent enough conditions for the Hok skis.
We were worried at first, because heavy equipment had torn up the access trail, apparently doing habitat alteration to turn the forest into more of an oak savanna. But fortunately the work was limited and we had decent skiing for the rest of the trip.
You can see here one of the hills that was steep enough for Nordic skiers ahead of us to have used the herringbone technique to ascend, while we could just shuffle up easily due to the skis skins.
[#]Skijoring #Huskies
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For those who wonder about our reference to "Hok" skis, they're a model of backcountry ski made by Altai Skis with a permanent skin on the bottom for traction. They're also wider than Nordic skis, which give them more float in ungroomed conditions, which is what we often face.
We have the shorter 125cm models, which may be slower (actually handy on downhills with dogs) but very maneuverable and handle twisty snowshoe trails well. We use the same NNN BC bindings we have on our Nordic skis, so we can use the same boots with either.
With the skins, going uphill on these skis is a BREEZE compared to Nordic skis!
Hoks have been called the "gravel bikes of skis" and the moniker fits them well.
https://us-store.altaiskis.com/product/hok-ski-updated-2016-copy-blank-skis/
[#]Skijoring #BackcountrySkiing
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[#]ClimateChange
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We should have mentioned on the posts from UMore Park that this is one of the few places in the Twin Cities Metro region that has significant mileage of dog-friendly groomed ski trails: 11 miles if you do the full loop!
We're happy that it's so close to us, though the years where there's enough snow on this side of the Metro for proper grooming gets rarer and rarer.
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On the way back, Dale and Tonttu took a hillier route through the woods while Jeff and Zeena stalked mouses across the prairie. Here, Tonttu enjoys the end of a downhill run, the last 2 of 3 descents in a row to keep the video under 1 minute & 100 MB.
Hand-held shaky phone-cam in all its glory!
[#]Huskies #Skijoring
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Today we ventured out skijor the Murphy-Hanrehan "pet trails". It was well trampled (as we'd expected) but there was still enough snow for skiing without dragging bottom too many times. The wide Hok skis float over the lumpy surface better than Nordic skis, and are better for the twisty trails through the wooded hills.
(M-H is part of the Three Rivers nanny-state Park District, where dog-friendly trails are all highly trampled multi-use challenges for traditional Nordic skiing. We make do.)
At least it was a beautiful bright, sunny winter day for skiing!
[#]Huskies #Skijoring
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We successfully passed a gauntlet of thick, grabby burdock along the trail on the last leg back to the car.
Both pretty and prickly!
-Fin
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After a bit, the groomer broke off to work a longer loop, so we returned to unbroken snow for the return trip.
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