Breaking trail, shoulda done this in November...

Wow! The snow this year is INSANE!!! It keeps falling and falling and won't let up. It's crazy but way better than having no snow. So I'm not complaining, nope not at all.

For some reason I decided that this weekend I was going to break a new trail, down towards the highway, to give us a nice loop and a couple more km's of trail.

I was going to ski the new trail, ha! This is the old, nice trail that I was actually able to SKI on.


Harris is happy as usual, on the trail here before we hit the deep snow.

I guess I was just bored and looking for ways to exhaust myself and the dogs, because that's exactly what I did.

Yes, notice how they have harnesses here? I thought I was kind of thinking ahead, as I figured that when I got tired, I'd hook them up and we'd be good to go! I'd get a sweet ride home, they're working dogs right? That's what they're supposed to do. But nooooo, they could barely get through the snow themselves, so it was all about looking out for yourself out there in the wild wilderness... (ok, not exactly - we were really never more than a km or so from my place... I like to say things for dramatic effect in case you haven't noticed.)

But I think they had fun - watching them romp in the deep snow was hilarious. In fact, here's a little video of just that:



Lucy, or is that George?? Damned black dogs!

Right, that was George with the red harness, THIS is Lucy.


So we kept plodding along and it was getting darker and darker...

Came across this beaver dam that I'm standing on, it was quite pretty and open!

But to go back towards my place we'd have to slog through not only deep snow but bushy, willowy annoying trees. I opted to keep going forward for a bit because I really wanted to make that loop! I didn't have a headlamp, so we had to hurry.

The dogs are totally oblivious to my concern, hell, they're having fun. And that's all that matters to them.

But holy CRAP I was getting tired.


Happy-face Jack!

It was a little deep and this was one of the shallow spots. The snow was up to my thighs in spots.



Finally I was getting sick of slogging through the snow after a couple hours of my skis getting stuck! So I headed into the bush towards the homestead, when we found... the trail! YAYYYYY!!!!!!



We made it, whew. Didn't get the whole trail done, but there's always another day.

The next day was for trying out the packed trails:

This is my team of "mega-beasts" - the 50+ pounders - Jack/Harris, Ivy/Sage and Rupert leading the way running loose as the newest geriatric.


They were fun. And quite slow. But fun. Notice Harris shedding. It's Feb!

Then my little speedy team:

Ripper, stellar lead dog facing backwards with Esther, and Pooh Bear! freaking out in behind. Loki is back there waiting to be hooked up to the line, but he's last 'cause he likes chewing those lines.

I like to say Ripper has style but a friend, who's leader does the same thing says "he's giving the rest of the team a pep talk!!" Ha! I like that.

Why don't you listen to the madness for yourself??! Turn sound down if you have curious, attentive dogs!


There was pretty much NO trail out here by the highway. We slogged through it for a bit but couldn't see any trace of the trail I had there before. Crazy snow!


So we came back and Esther did a fine job! She is quite cocky in lead and got a little snippy with Ripper when he got too close to her. She still has to work on commands but if she takes any cues from Ripper, she'll be doing good. That is, if she doesn't rip off his head first.

Coming into the home stretch the other day! Look at little Esther go!

Ahhh, good fun you guys!