SNOW!
Yesterday's weather surpassed the forecast and brought us half a foot of wonderful snow. Just enough for the first proper skiing in a couple of years. We loaded up the Hok skis, anticipating ungroomed trails, and ventured out to UMore Park, south of the Twin Cities.
Zeena was in her element... but she wasn't in her pulling harness today. She usually has this game at home of running around to avoid getting in harness before hikes/runs, but today she was extra elusive and hid under the bed at the sight of her X-back harness. The only way we got her out was to put that away and offer her hiking harness instead. Fine. For this sort of trek it works just as well.
Once on the trail she perked up and clearly was enjoying the combination of running downhills and inspecting the trail edge for mouses on the slower flats.
[#]Huskies #Skijoring
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Tonttu had fun too, of course! After a bit of stop-and-sniff at the start, he quickly got into the rhythm of things for a nice steady lope down the trail.
While the trail was clean and ungroomed to start, we were quickly passed by the park groomer setting the base. Our Hok skis are made more for backcountry trekking, but worked fine for a leisurely stroll across the prairie, which was the perfect pace for all of us to start the season.
Hok skis are especially useful for uphill sections! They have a permanent "skin" of fur-like material on the bottom, and are extra wide compared to Nordic skis, for plenty of float in fresh powder.
[#]Huskies #Skijoring
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Speed is not one of the virtues of the permanent-skin Hok skis, so Zeena didn't get as up to speed as she might have pulling us on Nordic skis, but she still had fun on the short hills at UMore.
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And here's Tonttu and @twitchydog descending the same hill.
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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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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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