Backcountry Ski Dog

What do you do when you have snow everywhere? I asked the Food Guy that question this morning when we woke up, and he had an answer before I'd even taken a mouthful of dog food. "Head for the trail, yellow buddy," was his reply. So we did.

We loaded up the mobile doghouse and met some friends in town to head out to Roaring Creek for some backcountry ski action. It was a nice sunny day and the temperature looked like it might even get above freezing today. The blue skies were a sight for sore dog eyes as we stepped onto the trail this morning.

We spent the first couple of hours working our way up the AT near Roan Mountain. I was having a blast following the people and playing with my new dog friends: Ruby and Rose. They're both Sug dog look alikes, so I knew I'd probably get herded a few times today, but I don't mind. I'm used to being herded around- My doggie friend Sug taught me that lesson when the Food Guy first got me. Anyway, after cruising along the trail for a couple of hours, we finally got the top of the first section.

The views were amazing, and the people had fun skiing through a "glade" (new ski lingo I'm learning). Well, the Food Guy took a couple of face plants 'cause he's still figuring out how this skiing thing works. It looked like he was having fun though.

I lost one of my shoes today.

The Food Guy said it wasn't my fault. The snow had a layer of ice on it in some places. When I broke though, it was chest deep. I lost my boot trying to swim my doggie feet back up the surface of the snow.

Once the people were done skiing through the glade, we headed back to the trail to get all the way to the top.

It was so pretty up there.

The trip down was really exciting. In most places the trail was only 10 feet wide. The Food Guy managed to not hit any trees, which I thought was pretty impressive. We finally made our way back down to the trailhead at about 4:30. After, 6 hours of running in the snow, I was SO tired. I'll never learn; I spent the first two hours racing up and down the trail. It always takes me a couple of hours to figure out that I need to pace myself. Hopefully, I can talk the Food Guy into taking it easy tomorrow and watching football most of the day. I think I'll walk really slowly by the wood pile in the morning to drop that hint that he needs to stay home and split some firewood to keep us warm this week.

They Take Winter Serious Here

It's cold, y'all. For real cold. When the Food Guy and I woke up this morning it was -2. I'm not talking -2 with some wussy windchill temperature; I'm talking for real, ambient temperature. And, it was windy too. It warmed up to a balmy 7 by the time the Food Guy drank some coffee and took me for a walk around Ztown. On the good side, we have lots of snow. There's a drift behind the house that's as tall as my back. Most everywhere it comes up to my dog elbows.

I like playing in the snow. I spent about an hour this morning running around with my friend Daisy from across the street this morning while the Food Guy sorted out some firewood. We ran around jumping in the snow drifts and throwing snow up in the air with our noses- pretty good stuff.

Yesterday morning we woke up to about a foot of fresh snow, so the Food Guy decided it was time to put our sledding hill to the test with his new skis. He got some telemark skis so we can head out in the backcountry and get some exercise. The cool thing is that you can also ski downhill on them. Best of both worlds. Put skins on the skis and go uphill, and then take them off and you're ready for some cool downhill action.

I think he had a lot of fun. He must have liked it because he and Greg decided to go to the local ski hill last night for some nighttime skiing.

He said it was pretty cold up there, and I believed him after he showed me a picture of the weather station up there. It was 9 degrees, which I suppose isn't all that cold if you're just going outside to post up on a tree or something. But, if you're riding around a on a pair of skis for a few hours, I suppose it's pretty cold. Check out the 26 Knot winds that were kicking around up there.

We are supposed to get more snow tonight. Luckily, the Food Guy doesn't have class until Tuesday afternoon, so hopefully he won't have to have his class cancelled. Well, I actually would rather they cancelled classes so we could go play somewhere. But, I doubt he wants to start the semester by losing the first day of class. We'll see. Stay tuned for more adventures. You know we can't sit still for too long.