I've been working a lot the past couple weeks, so skiing is limited to the weekends, weather permitting. Today I took a new route. Half the fun is getting out in the woods and exploring. The trails are well used by snowmobiles, so I can't get into any real trouble. I also have enough gear with me to survive a couple days if I were to get lost - as outlined previously.
There is a map of the paths I've used on the Notre Dame Ski Club's website. I've been working on that for a couple weeks, and the bulk of it is completed. The map is made by capturing the plot trails from my GPSr. All the software is free and available to anyone. See the site of the links.
As well as the new route, I made my first circumnavigation of a loop I had only done in sections before. Both combined total about 9km, and I did them in a bit less than 2 hours. That means my speed and endurance has improved slightly. Last week I followed a very experienced skate skier. That was a challenge since he can travel over 3 times faster than me. Other than that time I've skied alone - with the dog. Today, however, I met another skier in the middle of the pond.
The dog, Princess, usually stays pretty close to me and comes when called. Once in a while she'll run ahead, or stop to sniff at something, or chase after a squirrel. I hold on to her when the snowmobiles pass to keep her from getting in their way. There were a lot of snowmobiles on the trails today, and one time she was too busy smelling something to come right away when I called. This caused her to hit the ski of a snowmobile which had stopped in time to avoid running her over. She limped a bit for a few minutes, but was soon running around like normal. I think the people on the snowmobile got more of a fright.
