The first taste of spring mushing

The sun rose in a nearly cloudless sky this morning and although it was on the mild side of below freezing, Jenn and I decided to take Hunter to her babysitter and then go run our dogs together. Something that we have done only one other time this winter. Totally kid-free. We were sort of squeezing in the run between me dropping Hunter off, some guests coming out to have some dogsled rides and then my business course. Yes, I said it; business course. Those that know me can stop laughing anytime now.

It was a pretty nice spring-like day; bittersweet in some ways because even though the weather was great it only drove home the point that there are a limited few weeks of good sledding left. We have borrowed some harnesses from a friend of ours and so we were able to take out ten dogs today. We could have taken more had I been more industrious and made another section of gangline. After hooking up the trailer, we loaded the dogs and drove to one of our longer trails. Jenn didn't want to go too far because she is working with a new leader who is a bit shy still and who doesn't have a lot of miles on her so her endurance isn't what the rest of our dogs have. We agreed to run up to the lake and back, about an eight mile run round trip.

When we arrived at the trailhead, which is pretty much where the plough stops and turns around, we unloaded the dogs and harnessed them. Here, on their drop-lines, is what our team looks like while they wait to be hooked up.






Jenn has been a little critical of my work with the dogs in that the leaders don't hold the line out like they are supposed to when we hook up. I kept telling her that I thought it was because she really only saw them around the yard, when they were more apt to mis-behave. Today I was let off the hook: my leaders were great and didn't move once I put them in place; in truth, both sets of leaders were very good as we continued to hook up our dogs. I took six and Jenn had four and it wasn't long before they were hooked up and straining to go.

I thought that Jenn was ready to go, so I pulled the hook and took off but looking back, I saw a knot of dogs and Jenn in the middle trying to sort it all out. My departure had spooked the shy leader and she had backed up into the dogs behind her, tangling the lines in the process. There was not much I could do, so I just continued on hoping that things were alright back at the truck. I guess what I should say here is that the brake on the small sled broke yesterday and we only have one prong to use instead of the normal two. I was in the process of fixing it this morning when Jenn assured me she'd be alright with just the one prong, "We don't have a lot of time," she said, so trusting her judgement, I put down the prong and haven't picked it up since. This would explain the body prints that I saw in the snow on my return run. Jenn had fallen off the sled three times in eight miles, but to her credit I never saw the sled without her on it, so she must have managed to hang on, ploughing snow all the while.

We had a less than stellar turn around partly because I made it to the lake before Jenn (a person dragging in the snow behind the team tends to slow them down a bit) and I ran out onto the lake to turn the team around. The whole trail up to the lake was just two tire tracks from a 4-wheeler and they went out onto the lake and looked like they turned around. I debated about following them farther onto the lake but we have had some snow and some mild temperatures in the past week and it looked like there was some pretty good overflow on the lake that I didn't want to deal with, so I just turned the team around where I was. I was just about to tie my sled to a tree when Jenn came around the corner and before I could do anything to help her, her dogs were past me and heading further down the trail. Jenn tried to get them to turn the proper way but they didn't listen (bad dogs!) and there was no solid snow for her snowhook so she had no choice but to run them down the trail further and then try again. About half a mile later we were able to get the teams turned around and we headed back.

All in all it was a fair run. Many of our dogs are still in heat and because it was a bit on the warm side, their focus was not what it noramally is. We let the dogs cool down and Jenn took some photos of them, individually, which I will use for the "team" page that I am working on. Then they got their treats and we loaded them back into their boxes and headed for home with less than half an hour left before our company was expected to arrive.

Our company, a co-worker of Jenn, the co-workers' sister and friend, arrived nearly right on time and we gave them a tour of the dog yard, the dogs, and brief intoduction to the basics of driving a dogsled. At first, only one wanted to drive their own sled so I took one other in my sled and we headed out down our trails for a quick run. It wasn't long before I was passed by two dogs, a sled and no driver. Jenn caught the sled on its way by and another guest took over the driving of it while the previous driver walked up the hill, a little sheepishly, to meet her friend and Jenn. Here in this photo you can see the big puff of snow as another driver doesn't make the corner. (That's her in the snow)



All of our guests took the spills in stride and tried again and again to make it around the trail without falling off. We even had two teams running side by side at some points, which isn't something we normally do, but the dogs surprised me at how well they handled it. We even managed a few passes without incident. Some surprises are good surprises.

With that, I suppose the post is over. Here are some more photos of our guests and our dogs.