Dogs on snowy trails

I was up early, and the visage of the elk skull emerging from under 3.5' of snow with the pink sunrise behind it fascinated me.At sunrise, the dogs still snuggled together, sound asleep.
As soon as the snoring canines heard me put on the last of my cycling clothes, they bolted into action. Within seconds of hitting the trails, they moved at warp speed.When they briefly stopped sprinting, they played raucously, churning snow pellets into the air and fake snarling. At the instant of the photo below, R balanced on his hind paws and K kept only one paw on the snow as she lunged.K, the more sensitive of the pair, felt that the play had become too frenzied. She used a standard dog signal - she 'shook off the stress' and told R to chill out. Below, K is in the midst of a full body shake. It worked. She and R ran peacefully together, sans raucous play-fighting, for a while after her shake.
All of this romping was made possible by my amazing snow bike. By getting out early, I managed to float over top of the snow and pedal with my canine duo. I love my Fatback! (And you know that the snow has a strong crust when the bike will stand upright all by itself, no leaning on anything!).
After dropping off the dogs, I headed out for a ride on my own. However, using a term that my friend likes, my legs were 'toxic'. They were so dead that I pathetically whimpered while trying to climb even small hills. I took it easy and hoped that my leg muscles would find some power by tomorrow.

The moon over the mountains awed me again. Will I ever get over how much I love our mountains? I don't think so.
Now, after another day of dental hell mitigated only by having the nicest dentist ever, I'm having a milkshake for dinner! Woo hoo!