the rookie moves up

The rain continues to fall and the snowpack continues to melt ...

My next day off was full of part-time work and seemingly endless errands in town. By the time I got home, it was pushing three o'clock. Remembering my misadventures from earlier in the week and with six more days of perfect trail conditions and no further work commitments ahead, I decided not to take the dogs out. I frequently ran at night last year, and night runs may be my favorite, but taking everything into consideration (including the fact that it was getting weirdly warm & I had not yet run these dogs at night) I opted for a long late-afternoon nap instead.

Sunday morning dawned warm, nearly thirty degrees. It was a sign of things to come. As soon as the dogs had time to digest breakfast, I hooked them up and we headed across the marshes towards the east-valley trails. When the first big marsh-pond came into view (from the white-knuckle open water incident,) I knew things were going to be a little dicey. The snow on top of the pond was covered in brown melt-water where snow-machines & cross country skiers had blown across. There was a huge star-shaped melt-water spot right on the path we usually use to cross. I swung the dogs left, to run on the edges but they weren't much better. We were running over solid ice, but with two inches or more of brown, slushy snow and water sitting on top. We skirted the worst of it, but my boots and the dogs feet were soaked. Crossing the rest of the marshes, we hit several more soft spots.

I had been planning to run the dogs east along the south-valley trail but changed plans at this point. I didn't want to risk crossing Goldstream Creek with this much slush and water showing in the marshes. Instead, we headed straight across the road on the north-valley trail. I figured we would run as long as the trail was on solid ground, and once it started leap-frogging through the marshes again we would turn around and head home.

Despite conditions on the ponds, the trail was perfect. The snow cover was finally sufficient to cover the ruts and the trail was smooth and packed down nicely. I was elated. As soon as it got cold enough to re-freeze the slush, we could start upping our mileage and head into the hills across Goldstream road - a trail system that I couldn't explore last year with just three dogs and no leaders. About a mile past the road, we ran into a skijorer headed our way. Since smaller teams yield to bigger teams (and machines yield to dogs,) I stopped my team while she scooted off the trail and pulled her dog back to hold him. Once she was secure, we started forward. The three Iditarod dogs passed like champs. Pico, on the other hand, dove across Sawyer's back to take a snap at the terrified skijoring dog.

This is a behavior that I saw once or twice in Pico last year. When he is loose or on a leash, he is a sweet and playful, if a little overeager, dog. However in harness, he seems to become aggressive to other dogs & teams on the trail. This is something I need to address, but I'm not sure how yet. He didn't hurt the other dog, or even make contact, but he got my whole team tangled and scared the skijorer and her dog. I was angry & embarrassed.

Once we got untangled, and despite my frustration, I decided to put Pico up front. Since my first few dog shuffles, I've been running Dottie & Leo up front every day. Dottie continues to look back towards me every few minutes (this breaks her stride & pulls Leo's head around, breaking his stride as well.) I was hoping this would decrease as we ran more and she gained confidence up front, but that didn't seem to be the case. I've also found that most of the time when I need Leo to turn and we're doing anything but a simple on-the-fly trail fork, she tends to get totally turned around & tangled causing us to stop altogether. I had noticed on this run (and the last) that Pico had stopped pulling at a 45 degree angle and was running right next to Sawyer and pulling hard. Since trail conditions were perfect and this trail was wide but not huge, I figured I'd give him a shot up front and see what happened.

He did great. He stayed with Leo for the rest of the run (probably 6 miles, total,) never pulling the neckline or giving Leo any reason to lash out at him. The last half-mile, we ran on a wide snowy road and even with all that room he stayed right next to Leo and kept pulling hard. Dottie, now back with her sister with dogs in front of her to follow, never looked back once. I am looking forward to running Pico up front straight out of the yard.

It was a great run, and although there were winter storm warnings in the paper I didn't realize it was going to be our last for awhile. The sled is stashed under the house and the harnesses, which I had accidentally left hanging out in the rain for the first day, are now drying inside. They are calling for more warmth and rain tomorrow, but even with the last two days worth the snow is almost gone. What is left will freeze into cement as soon as the temperatures drop back down. Even the higher elevation White Mountain trails were rained out. I have no idea when we will be able to run again, and I am trying hard not to focus on that uncertainty.


PICO STEPS IT UP:


PERFECT SNOW & SINISTER SLUSH: