transition

The day we flew out to Texas for a first-in-years holiday with family, my agitation grew as the sun rose. Even though I hadn't gotten out a suitcase or purchased a single Christmas gift to take with us, the thought of leaving Alaska without one last run with the dogs was driving me nuts. We hadn't run from the house in nearly a month, and I was still uncertain about my ability to effectively hit the brakes on the road if I needed to. But it had snowed a bit, and the snow plows hadn't arrived yet so I thought we could get out to the trails from the house without too much trouble.

An hour before sunset (at two forty, a week out from solstice) I finally gave in and hauled the sled off the truck, pulled out lines and got ready to go. Even though we've had Billie since Thanksgiving, this would be his first run right out of the yard.

I am so glad we went. The run was perfect. The roads had enough snow for the sled, and Reese corrected quickly when he tried to turn up the wrong street. He found the trail, and the snow berm left by the plows had been broken down a bit by skiers. The overflow on Rosie Creek was refrozen, and the trails were set up with just a tiny crust of new snow. Reese and Billie took every direction I gave them, whipping around corners and flying up trails. Reese didn't once slack his tug looking for an opportunity to turn around. We wove up through the silent milk-and-cookies birch forest on the slopes of the rolling hills the dogs pulled hard and steady, and I managed to avoid hitting any trees on the tight corners. We passed the grizzled old european skier we've run into a few times. He doesn't speak - at least, he's never returned my greetings when we've passed him - and appears to spend most of his days on the trails near our house. That night he was almost a shadow himself, gliding through the blue shadows of dusk in the arctic, hardly breaking stride as he stepped off the trail to accommodate our headlong progress.

We came out onto the big logging road, and I turned downhill this time, thinking we'd find the lightning tree and a long westward loop home. The dogs took the turn tight, despite the broad road, and expecting a gentler turn I flipped the sled and did a header into a snowdrift. But I hung on and the dogs stayed lined out perfectly while I blew the snow out of my nose and righted the sled.

We never found the lighting tree - I figured out later that this particular branch of the logging road is too far east - but the trail we took brought us back around to a familiar path eventually and we looped on towards home. It wasn't a long run, but the dogs to to stretch out and we got lots of good gee-haw turns in. I even felt like Billie - who I wasn't even sure was paying attention to me at all these last few weeks - was taking some initiative in the turns.

This year running dogs has been a tart mix of bliss and frustration. I have felt in over my head a few times, with making the move from four (old) dogs to eight, with juggling the strengths and weakness of various leaders after being so used to Leo's power-steering, with the unexpected loss of trail access from the house that I had been anticipating all year, and even with changing work schedules that have kept me off the trails much more than I'd hoped. And there have been miles and miles of trail, near home and away, with Pete and alone, relishing the trees and the sky and the power and joy of the dogs. There have been moments of elation in finding cool new trails to explore, watching my leaders take a perfect command turn on the fly or passing another team without a sideways glance, seeing them frisky and ready to keep going after what I thought was a long hard run, nuzzling dogs on dark mornings or howling with them after dinner under the insane starlit skies of the north country.

This last run felt like a turning point. Solstice has passed, and we are on to a new year. Now that we are running as a team, now that we've faced and worked through the challenges of the early season, we are ready to push into new territory. We are ready for the white mountains, for longer runs and unknown trails. I've been away from my dogs for what seems like forever, losing track of time in a gridlock of asphalt and cement and traffic and a groomed, gridded suburbia and the nightmare of a retail culture pulling out all the stops for the Christmas Rush. But my life, my real life, the life I have chosen, is waiting. There will be days and days for trails and dogs and miles. Just a little bit longer, and I will be home.

an extra set of hands

Temperatures remained below freezing, though just barely, all week. We got a few snow showers, so I was excited about the coming weekend. My EMT class was taking their state test on Saturday morning and I had made some tentative plans to take the dogs up to a friend's house for birthday sled rides for her son and his friends when we were done. I had given sled rides to this group of kids last winter and had really enjoyed sharing the dogs and the thrill of mushing with the group of five and six year olds. It was a good thing the plans were tentative, though. Unlike my last group of students, this group's test took a lot longer to complete and I wasn't headed home until after the sun was headed down and the kid's birthday was over.

I was sorely disappointed, knowing my days to run dogs were limited with an out-of-state trip coming up, but looking forward to Sunday's trails. I had promised a friend of mine a ride in exchange for helping wrangle the dogs, and my stress level regarding managing the team was reduced knowing I'd have an extra set of hands. I loaded the truck just after the sun came up at ten forty five, swung through town to get coffee and headed out to her cabin. She lives just down the street from the trailhead I've been using in Goldstream.

It turned out to be a good thing I had her with me. As I was hooking up dogs, Reese and Billie - who I had up front - decided we were taking too long and started looping back into the team to say hello to the dogs behind them. Billie - our only intact male - was particularly interested in checking out Pepper who we suspect is going into heat.  We got everyone untangled, and I left Toni up front to hold them in line while I clipped the last couple of dogs in. I had done just that and was walking back to grab my coat from the tailgate when the snub line - which I had attached to the back bumper of the truck - snapped and the team took off. Toni still had a hold of the two lead dogs, so all that happened was a giant ball of dogs and lines.

We got everyone sorted out, Toni in the sled with my coat hastily shoved under her knees, and we were off into the marshes. We were running with  Reese and Billie up front, Pepper and Xtra in swing, Norrin on his own in team and Devilfish and Parka in wheel. Reese did his slowing-and-looking-back routine after about half a mile, on a wide spot in the trail. I've learned this is a precursor to an unauthorized u-turn, and as soon as he started I told him "NO" and yipped to keep everyone going. The second he put tension on his tug again with his nose straight ahead, I praised the heck out of him and ran behind the sled for a minute to lessen the load. This seemed to work (this time) as he didn't try to u-turn again on the fly for the whole run.

We stopped to make some adjustments, and the second the sled came to a stop, Reese tried to pull the team around. With Toni available to stand on the sled, however, Reese never made it around past the swing dogs and he stayed lined out while I got things sorted out. As we kept going and the trails got narrower, I noticed that the sled was tracking hard to the left, running into the snow bank and any trees or bushes in that direction. Toni was getting faces full of snow on every corner and most straightaways.

After another mile or two, I stopped and went to check the line again. The problem was immediately apparent. The shock ring - a heavy-duty elastic ring that takes some of the jarring force of the sled bumping or braking or hitting a tree off of the dog's backs - was very messed up. It hadn't snapped, exactly, but the stretchy part had come apart somehow and escaped from the carabiner on one end (this is still a mystery to me) and lodged in a tiny space between the sled and the runners on the right side. The dogs were essentially pulling on one side of the sled instead of the middle, causing it to constantly veer to the left. Again, Toni was essential in getting some of the tension off the line so I could correct the problem and inspect the shock ring (which had come with the sled and was both old and a DIY job to start with) to make sure this malfunction wasn't a safety issue - at least for the rest of this run.

Soon we were on our way again. Over the next five miles, we passed skiers, walkers and fat-tire snow-bikers with perfect on-by manners and without out a single slacked tug line. My suspicions that Norrin's bad behavior on the lake was 100% influenced by Pico was proved out. He never even looked at the distractions as we passed them.

At about the five-mile point, on a little pond, I stopped the sled and asked Reese to perform his signature move. He did so enthusiastically and perfectly, swinging the team out over the pond and back behind the sled. With hardly a pause and without a single tangle we were on our way down our back trail and I was glowing with relief and pride. I let Toni ride the runners for a bit on this stretch of trail - a particularly smooth and straight bit perfect for a first try - and I got some video from the basket.

On the way back, at the bridge over Goldstream, Norrin balked fifty yards out and refused to cross - even though he'd crossed with just a little bit of tug-slacking on the way out. His bulk stopped the team, but with Toni there I was able to unclip him and calmly walk him across the bridge by himself, then clip him in once we were over. The whole Norrin melt-down went much more smoothly with that option available. I'm still not sure exactly how to address this bridge-balking he's developed, and I won't be able to start until we get back to Alaska after Christmas anyway. I posted a question about it to the mushing forum on Sled Dog Central, and have gotten a lot of advice back to pick and choose from. I have a strategy now, and Norrin's bridge phobia will be a nice project to return to in January.

unseasonable

I woke up to a roar late Saturday night as our roof dumped its load of snow into the yard. On Sunday morning, I rose early to feed to dogs so we could get out on the trails and make the most of the last day we'd have to run this week. I prepared their food and got dressed, then I stepped outside to standing water on the porch and meltwater dripping off the roof of the shed and outhouse. The thermometer read nearly forty degrees. I was heartbroken.

Last year, a freak ice storm in mid-November wrecked the trails and it was weeks before they were manageable again. I had told myself over and over that last year's midwinter thaw was an aberration. Apparently I was wrong. It wasn't long before rain began drizzling down onto the little snowpack that had accumulated so far.

Although many of the competitive mushers I know took their teams out to train in the downpour, on the slushy muck the rain was making of the trails, we did not. We are not training for races, and we are still having enough trouble on the trails without heat and muck and standing water to deal with. Instead, we waited for the rain to stop then brought the dogs inside a few at a time to dry out. By evening, the temperature had dropped down again and the misty rain turned back into snow. But it would take a lot more that that evening's dusting to undo the damage the few hours of rain and thaw had done to the snowpack and trails.

Parka and Devilfish waste no time in joining me on the couch.

In the mean time, I packed up to go back to work for another week of regular hours, a long commute and no trail time until the weekend.

Peter wrote an e-mail to a former classmate that night. In it, he typed: "My wife is a musher so I hope for her sake it stays frozen up and we get a foot or so to make up for what we lost and then some.  Her mood is pretty much correlated with the quality of the trails." True words.

Norrin and Xtra chill out together while their coats dry.

flat labyrinth

On Saturday, Pete and I took the dogs to experiment on some new (to us) trails near North Pole. There is a little recreational area on some small lakes there, maintained by the Borough. A map on their website showed a great little trail system with groomed loops ranging from three to twelve miles. We'd only been out to this area once, in the summer, and had been irritated with the lower-48 feel of the park and crowds. Also, it is a long drive from the house. However the appeal of flat groomed trails was strong, since I planned to run all eight for the first time and have Peter along for the ride. And I figured the mostly-closed park, that doesn't even collect entry fees in the winter, wouldn't be too crowded. 

There were several empty snow machine trailers in the parking lot and clumps of ice-fishers scattered out on the lake but the hastily-plowed parking lots were essentially empty. We parked and unloaded next to a six by twelve foot wooden sign emblazoned with the map I had carefully studied online. Peter has been training hard at being a rock-star handler, and almost before I was out of the truck he had the sled unloaded. By the time I had the lines and sled ready to go at what sort of looked like it might be the trail head, all the dogs were unloaded and harnessed. I must be doing something right! We hooked up the dogs - Billie and Xtra up front, then Reese and Pepper, Norrin and Pico, and Devilfish & Parka in wheel, all of them slamming and yelping to GO! Pete jumped in the sled and we were off down the bank to the lake and hopefully the trail.

Initially, we were following the single snow-machine track I'd lined the dogs out on. I figured that once on the ice, we'd see the official "groomed" trail and easily follow it around the first huge lake and into the woods. When we got to the ice, it was clear there was no such thing. The lake was laced with a web of snow machine trails that left hardly any untouched snow. The dogs picked one that seemed to loop around the shore, and I peered through the blue gloom of cloudy winter days here to try and pick out where we should go. I was at a loss. And the few attempts I made to guide Billie (I'd put him up front with mailable Xtra to see how he would lead without pushy Reese or sometimes-confidant Norrin) just confused him.

So the dogs just went. We followed the track along one shore, up over a little peninsula of land then back down onto the ice just a few yards from some ice fishers with their snow machines and augers and poles. The dogs tried to head in their direction, and it took Peter jumping out of the sled and guiding them the other way to get us moving again. They settled into a nice pace across the huge lake, and since I had no idea where to go I just let them follow whatever path struck their fancy.

At one point, right in the middle of the lake with all the little clumps of ice fishers out of sight, we ran into a huge puddle of slush on the ice. All my panic about an overflow disaster came flooding back as I envisioned the sled, with Peter and I clinging to it, breaking through the ice and sinking. I yelped for the dogs to run faster and started desperately peddling behind the sled. To my relief, every kick sank through a couple of inches of slush and hit solid ice underneath. In seconds, we were past the spot and back on good snow and ice. But my heart was racing hard.

We looped around a little island and passed two cross-country skiers and their German Shepherd. To my horror, Pico and Norrin managed to drag the team sideways to investigate the dog, looking for all the world that they were going to attack him. He was laying on the snow quietly at his owner's feet to let us pass. The owner raised her ski poles in defense and I screamed at them to pass. They never made contact with the dog, but it was close and Pepper ended up tangled from the sideways tug. I was so embarrassed and angry. I'm pretty sure without Pico egging him on, Norrin wouldn't have participated in the investigation at all.

We continued around in the general direction of the truck, but Billie saw some snow machines up in the woods and turned to follow them. The machines were going fast through the trees, and I had no interest in getting anywhere near them, much less getting turned around in the woods with no real trail to follow. I stopped the sled, with no little effort on the ice, and Pete jumped out to try and get the dogs to turn away from the shore and back to any number of possible trails across the lake. Reese, in swing, figured out what he wanted and tried to follow Pete, pulling Billie and Xtra backwards. Xtra, looking stressed, looked back at me in a panic. I had Peter switch Reese and Xtra, and with a burst of confidence, Reese lead us out across the lake. We were flying along for awhile, a little overflow here and there but all solid ice underneath. A loose dog broke free from some ice-fishers and followed us for a little while, barking gleefully at the team but causing no problems.

We got to the other end of the lake and circled around more fisherfolk, when wove in and out of some little coves, following the ice's edge. On the third little inlet, Reese made the command decision to leave the lake. I was pretty sure I didn't want this, but I didn't catch him soon enough and by the time I was trying to hit the brake the whole team was hauling up the steep shore. So up we went. We went careening down a little access road, then through a parking lot where two more loose ice-fishing dogs approached. We got hung up there for awhile, and Peter jumped out and played rabbit, trying to get the dogs headed back at least in the direction of the truck. This worked, and we made it back across several slick parking lots to where we had started. Here, there were several minutes of chaos as the team got wrapped around sign posts, parking lot marker posts, parked snow machines and each other. Pico chewed through his neckline and decided to run at a 90 degree angle to the team. Reese decided that a crowd of snow machiners standing around on the ice looked friendly, and tried several times with varying success to loop back into their midst to say hello.

When he finally got pointed back in the direction of the truck, I decided we were done. We re-loaded and headed home. We had only gone five miles, though at a good clip. I wasn't sure if this was a successful run or not. The mass chaos at the end had taken away some of the mellow feeling of the run overall, I was frustrated (though not surprised) with Pico's unwillingness to work and his bad trail manners, we hadn't really been able to do any command work and the low mileage was disappointing. But it had been a nice day out, we'd successfully run eight dogs, we now knew that this trail system wasn't going to work for us, and it had been fun to have Peter along (not to mention critically helpful.) And there was still Sunday to get out and get some good miles in.

familiar trails

With our trail access from the yard still thwarted by snow plows and a successful load-and-go shake-out with Peter on Thanksgiving night, I decided to load the team and head to Goldstream Valley on Saturday morning. I wanted to give Billie a mellow experience on his first run with us and the comfort of familiar trails, given all the trouble we've been having around here, was appealing.

I loaded the dogs and drove out to a nice little trail-head I had discovered on my very first run with my proto-dog-team two winters ago. There is a little pull-out at the end of a road with plenty of room to get dogs situated and a sled lined out. From there, the trail drops gently into the marshes without any 90 degree turns or steep drops to navigate with a fresh team. I decided to leave Xtra at home this trip, so my team was Billie and Reese up front, Pepper and Norrin in swing and Parka and Devilfish in wheel. I'm not sure, looking back, why I thought it was a good idea to put Reese up with Billie right away. I think I had an idea that Billie would be a steady forward force, even if his command leadership wasn't perfect and that somehow on new trails - trails I was familiar with and confidant navigating myself - the Mysterious Reese Brain would miraculously overcome his directional challenges and u-turn obsessions.

Unloading and hooking up went well. I had spent a great deal of time Friday, before picking up Billie, working on getting the truck as organized as possible for the efficient off-loading & harnessing of dogs. It seemed like only a few minutes before we were flying down the trail towards the frozen marsh. The first part of the run went perfectly. Billie and Reese took my directions to loop around a big pond and then hit the main trail towards Ballaine Road and our old powerline trail. At the road, they took the gee turn at a four-way trail intersection as if they did it every day. We crossed the footbridge over Goldstream creek without a hitch and turned - a perfect gee onto a smaller trail, on command - onto the connecting trail to a long zigzagging powerline trail.

Trail conditions were as perfect as they could get this early in the season. There were some tussoks, but things were generally smooth - even in places where I knew bad ATV ruts were the rule. Once we got under the power lines, however the trail conditions changed dramatically. It almost seemed that the snow had skipped over the trail entirely. Certainly the ruts were much worse. I went from riding mindlessly along enjoying trail and reminiscing about the myriad times I'd run this route to desperately working the sled over the rough trail to keep it upright and moving behind the team. They were still running strong, though, not seeming to notice the sudden change in my work load behind them.

Suddenly the sled slowed, and the runners sank into powder. I looked up and saw that Billie and Reese had plunged off of the trail to the right, following a mostly unbroken ATV track instead of the packed down path. The were floundering in the snow and slipping a bit on the ice underneath. I called them to haw over back to the pack. Reese, on the left, did exactly that ... and when we reached the trail kept heading left despite my yelps of GEE. I tried to hit the brake to stop them, but this wide spot was over a forty foot long marsh-puddle on top of the trail and all my efforts just bounced off the ice as everyone followed an enthusiastic and confidant Reese back the way we had come.

What followed was several minutes of chaos as I tried desperately to hook the sled in, or wedge it against a tussock and get the team turned back around. As always, very effort was thwarted by the Reese Brain which had decided that we were heading east and any other direction was no longer acceptable. The ice under the snow was sabotaging my efforts at control, and even the packed trail - with its suddenly deteriorated condition under the power lines - was not giving me any purchase with the snow hook. At various points over the next minutes-that-seemed-like-hours, between trying to bring Reese around and get him to stay put, I was prone on the ground behind the sled being dragged with one hand on the brake bar, or snowplowing next to the flipped sled with one hand desperately gripping the handle bow, or sliding along face-first inches from the runners with both hands gripping the main gang line at the shock ring, with the brush bow rhythmically slamming into my head. Grace is not my middle name.

At this point, I had kicked the sled over and was trying to ease my grip back from the gang line to the handle bow. My leg had somehow gotten wedged precariously near the stanchion, and when the team lurched forward I had an awful instant of thinking the force was going to snap the bones. I flinched, and when I flinched I lost my grip, and before I had blinked the sled and the team were gone - down the trail without me.

I screamed for them to whoa, launching myself forward only to instantly fall flat on my face on the ice. I scrambled up again, crabbing sideways to the packed trail and sprinting after them. I was already breathless from wrangling the sled and team on the ice, and now, tearing after a team I knew I could never catch, every breath felt like a breath sucked in space - ice cold needles stinging my lungs and no oxygen to be had and hopeless visions of doom with each gasp.

The snowhook saved me. For all the futility of trying to get it to hook in over ice and shallow snow and frozen dirt, it spun, bounced and lodged itself into a giant grassy tussock fifty yards down the trail. When I reached the sled, it took some a great effort to get it dislodged. When it did, the entire miraculous giant tussok came with the hook and landed in a shower of frozen dirt in the sled basket. I leaned over the handles, relieved and exausted and shaking, trying not to throw up or lose my tremulous grip as the team dove forward forward, slamming the sled over endless ruts back towards the main trail.

I hardly needed to give them direction to get back to the truck. Dogs are good at back-trail, after all.  At the trail head, they got some moose snack and a rub down, I loaded everything up and we headed home. I was horribly frustrated, exhausted and disappointed for much of the ride back. But on further reflection, despite a few minutes of high drama right in the middle, the run had gone incredibly well. The dogs were taking commands on the fly, and we did traverse six solid miles at a good clip. Maybe it hadn't been so bad, after all. But my bruised arms and sore muscles and the remembered terror of the lost team flying down the trail without me was a convincing voice to the contrary. 

:: A few seconds of the run back to the truck through the Goldstream Marshes on Saturday :: 

Sunday, we tried again. This time, I put Norrin up front with Billie and left Reese in swing with Pepper. We flew down Saturday's path, and made it all the way around to the trails behind Ivory Jack's without a hitch before turning around. Without Reese up front, however, the turnaround did not go very smoothly. We ended up halfway down someone's driveway, and then wrapped around the only spruce tree in sight, before finally managing it.

On the run out, we had crossed two big constructed bridges and three little foot-path bridges, all covered in a nice layer of snow. I hadn't even noticed the last couple. On the way back, however, Norrin - still up front - decided that bridges were the homes of dog-eating trolls and sat down in the middle of the trail whenever we got close to one, letting the team slam into him without seeming to mind as long as he didn't have to cross. I managed to coax him over the three little foot bridges without too much trouble, but when we reached the first big span bridge, he stopped and wouldn't budge despite the whole team yipping and trying to push and pull him forward. With nothing to hook into due to snow machines grinding the snow down to dirt at sharp turn to the bridge all I could do was stand there and wait for him to gather his wits and start running again. Eventually he did, giving a shake and proceeding over the span at full speed as if there had never been a problem. The next five miles to the Goldstream Creek bridge were smooth and problem-free, but when Norrin saw the bridge from fifty yards out he sat down and proceeded to try and back out of his harness.  I hooked in and switched him for Reese, thinking that being in team would cure his anxiety. I was wrong on that count, but we did make it across after several balking stops and two more tangles, and Billie and Reese led us back to the truck without further incident.

Looking back, I'm beginning to see that my leadership this year is going to have to consist of more intentional management. Billie is a solid workhorse up front, but will cave to whatever stronger-willed Reese decides to do if they are running together. Norrin is calm and capable enough up front with Billie as long as the run is progressing smoothly, but meltdowns are still an ever-present possibility. Their strength as a pair is mostly when presented with clear left-or-right intersections with long, straightforward runs between. They certainly will not turn the team around. For any anticipated directional changes or multi-choice intersections, I need to put Reese up front.  For all my complaints about the Reese Brain, he is the most responsive of the leaders, actively looking for trail when I stop the sled. But I need to keep him in swing until we are at that point, or headed down our back-trail to avoid a command decision by the Reese Brain to shorten our runs on a whim or take us down some random ghost trail he thinks saw as we flew by. I also need more snow to hook in and safely make all these changes with a strong team slamming their lines to keep moving forward, but snow is one factor I can't control at all. 

Two days, two good - if drama-filled - runs. For the two weeks after Thanksgiving, I'll be on a very unaccustomed nine-to-five schedule, teaching a state certification class for the EMTs at work. It will be weird to be sleeping at home and working every day, and I'm not looking forward to only having the weekend to run dogs for a little while, and then a longer break as we head out to visit family over Christmas. Meanwhile, the adventure continues ...

in good company

It was ten above zero and dark when I pulled into the little rural gas station on the way into town. It was ten-cent-off Friday, and my wallet needed the discount as much as my truck needed the gas. When I looked up from the nozzle, another truck with a dog box had pulled in behind me. As soon as the owner saw me glance his way, he called out “How many dogs.”

“Eight. You?”

“Twelve.”

He was older than me, perhaps in his late forties, with an Ester Fire Department jacket flapping open in the slight breeze. I recognized his blue-and-orange dog-box from around town. We continued to pump gas in silence for awhile.

I turned to continue the conversation just as he started speaking again, “Where do you live?”

“Cripple Creek,” I waved up towards the hills rolling to the south and west behind the gas station. “You?”

“Old Nenana,” he indicated the direction with his chin – same hills, just to the north of the artificial barrier made by the Parks Highway.

Gas continued to flow, charges continued to ring upward.

“How far you running?” Now I could hear the thick northern European accent across the cold air.

“Ten to fifteen now, I want to work them up a bit and do some camping.”

“Yeah … camping.” There was a pause, “That’s what we like to do … but now I’ve started to race and I pretend like we’re still just camping.”

I laughed, “Yeah … I’m sure that’s where we’ll end up eventually.”

“It’s a slippery slope. I started with just two, skijoring. Then I got a sled, and needed four. Then four wasn’t enough for camping, so there were six … then eight … and now … “ He chuckled and shook his head. His gas nozzle clicked off.

“I was warned, and I’m sliding down the slope anyway.”  My gas nozzle clicked off, and I turned to set it back in its cradle.

He was opening his truck door, “Enjoy the trails this weekend.”

“You too.” And we pulled out of the gas station, two empty dog trucks headed to town and work, both hoping desperately for more snow before Saturday morning.