a very bad idea

Sometimes, when the seed of an idea gets into your head, you know it is a bad one from the very start. You know it will not end well. That it cannot end well. But sometimes those bad ideas are just a tiny bit compelling, even if grossly misguided. Sometimes, no matter how much logic and common sense you use to debunk your great idea, it gets under your skin until you have no choice but to give in. You must see the thing through. You must push past all those red flags and warning bells and give the thing a try. Just once. Just to get it out of your head. Because maybe it really is a great idea, after all.

My great idea involved our house dog (couch hound) a 90 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback named August. Ridgebacks are a lazy, privileged breed. They spend most of their lives sleeping, preferably somewhere soft in front of a heater. Despite their noble heritage as the brave lion hounds of colonial Africa, the modern Ridgeback does not tolerate discomfort. He will become visibly dismayed at the slightest inconvenience or irritation and will make his displeasure clearly understood to all present by way of a startling repertoire of sighs, whines, groans and huffs highlighted by a remarkably expressive floppy-eared face.


My great idea was that August could get some unaccustomed winter exercise by coming out on a sled run with us. I was convinced he would run happily along behind the sled, sniffing the snow and stretching his long lazy hound legs. He would love the sunshine and the company of the other dogs. He would get to see some new country. It would be beautiful. It would be idyllic. It could not possibly end in disaster.

Never mind that he is terrified of the team, especially the girls. Or that he has never in his life stayed anywhere near us when walking off-leash. Or that he is a nightmare to have on a leash. Or that the only command he follows with any degree of urgency involves getting on the bed for an evening cuddle.

[Augie struggles between his love for the couch and his fear of Dottie]

Peter, who usually talks me out of these spectacular wild hares, was not home this afternoon. The temperature was sitting right at zero, and since Augie's temperature cut-off for outside time (with boots and a coat) is ten below, we were in the clear. I strapped his bright yellow coat, forgoing the boots since he doesn't need them at zero, and loaded him in the car for a quick release when I had the team ready to go in the driveway.

Things went relatively well at first. I had Augie on a leash for the first few minutes, to get us safely down the road. He got a little too close to the sled at first and quickly figured out to keep his distance when it clipped him. He also got a good snap in his direction from the girls, who are now my wheel-dogs, and this kept him away from the front of the team. As soon as we were on the trail and off-leash, he trotted along behind us just as I'd imagined he would. But he is a fast dog, and he loves to run. He was soon inching up and trying to pass. Initially, a look from me was all it took for him to drop back behind us. This grudging obedience lasted until we got to the ponds.*

As soon as we broke out of the trees, he made a break for it. Passing the team in two leaps, he landed back on the trail ahead of the team and took off. He stayed just ahead of the boys initially, but soon got bored with their steady trotting pace and disappeared into the cattails. My idyllic little run was already falling apart and we were less than half a mile from the house. I called for him to come back, then coaxed, then yelled. The next problem presented itself immediately - the last part of "Augie" sounds exactly like "gee." Leo plunged off the trail twice before I figured out he thought I was yelling at him.

Thankfully, August responds to both variations of his name ... if by respond, you mean looks at you meaningfully before resuming whatever he was doing before you called. Realizing that getting anywhere near a road safely was out of the question, I guided the team deeper into the marshes and towards the back half of the O'Brian loop. Augie ran gamely ahead, staying in view for less and less time. Pico and Leo picked up the pace, chasing him hard, but there was no hope of keeping up. Between the chase and the relative heat, all the huskies were panting and getting hot, fast. Worried that he would disappear altogether or run into another dog team, but with no way to secure him on the narrow trail, I started plotting and continued the chase.

Once off the ice and back on solid trail, I set the snowhook and dug into my pack for an extra gang line. Curious, Augie returned to the team and I caught him and tied him to the sled. I added a second gang-line to extended the team out, leaving Pico and Leo up front and switching several harnesses around so Augie had one that sort of fit. I then moved a harnessless Dottie up to the middle spot, clipping her in with just a neck line. Then I clipped Augie in wheel next to Sawyer. He would pull, and she would teach him how to run. I stepped back and took a look. I had a five dog team!

This lasted for about ten feet.

Augie had already been clipped by the sled twice while running loose, and was not happy about being strapped down with unfamiliar harness inches from the runners. He is also terrified of Sawyer and was now being forced by the neck line to stay within inches of her glowering growl. The sled dogs took off at a run, and as soon as the tension hit his lines, Augie sat down on the trail with a shake and a yelp. He was dragged and pushed along for a few feet. I stopped. He stood up. I let the brake go again, and he was dragged a few feet more. He then started a desperate struggle to back out of the harness and his collar at the same time. He was shaking with terror. I stopped the sled and set the snow hook, trying to come up with plan B.

Mumbling reassurance to all of us, I freed him and re-harnessed Dottie. I moved him up to the single middle spot, so he would be further away from the sled and have two ferocious (small, cuddly, geriatric) sled dogs at his tail to encourage him to keep moving. I was hoping that without the unfamiliar harness and Pico's familiar form just ahead of him to chase, he would simply submit to the leash-like pull of the tug line and run along with the team for a few miles until we could safely turn around and head home.

After a few false starts and lots of reassurance, he got the hang of trotting along between the pairs of dogs. We ran a mile or so and made a loop around to the trail again. August seemed content enough, even happy to be out. His ears were up, and he was trotting along in almost a puppy prance, wrists high and tail up.

When we turned around, however, he didn't know what was going on and in the confusion both his front wrists got tangled badly in the lines. I stopped the sled, but when Pico and Leo dutifully pulled the line taut they inadvertently cinched the rope around a suddenly frightened Ridgeback's legs, bringing him down hard in a tight tangle.

The tone of the run, at least for August, changed at this point. The gang line had become just that for him, and he shuffled along with his head down and ears flat to his head, occasionally whimpering in misery as only an indignant Ridgeback can. This was a doggie death-march, and it was all he could do to endure.

Even in his abject state, he managed to keep trotting along with the team until we were about a mile from the house. Then it suddenly became to much for him. He sat down in the trail and refused to move. I walked up and gave him a big, reassuring hug. I ruffled his ears and told him what a good boy he was. He stood up. I ran back to the sled. When he realized he was still clipped in and I was gone, his ears and tail sank. He trotted along for another quarter mile, then sat down again. I repeated my bribery of affection and encouragement. We got about another quarter mile down the trail, just a half mile from the house. He stopped again, but this time decided he'd had enough. Instead of sitting down, he backed away from the gangline and fought his collar until it slipped over his ears. Free now, he sat down in the snow and stared at the ground. He gave a trilling whimper of misery and did not move.

With no more ideas - I was sure he wouldn't tolerate sitting unrestrained in the bouncing sled - I let the team run on down the trail, Augie's empty collar bouncing through the snow between the huskies. I looked back at my forlorn hound sitting alone in the middle of the big pond, getting smaller and smaller as we slid along towards home. When he realized he was slowly being left behind, he rose to his feet and shuffled down the trail in our wake, head down, tail tucked, ears low. He was the picture of put-upon misery.

He made it back to the house intact, bolted for the door, in fact and made a crazy racket until he was let in. He immediately curled up next to the heater to repair the trauma of an hour-long forced-march in the snow, and commenced to ignore me for the rest of the afternoon. Peter reports this evening (I am at the fire station tonight) that although subdued, he is none the worse for his debut as a sled dog.

Although my dreams of a tag-along dog - much less a five-dog team - are dashed for now, I know that August enjoyed at least a small part of his adventure this afternoon. Also, I have never regretted leaving the video camera at home as much as I did today.

[Pico & August sharing premium heater space at forty below.]

* I broke a new trail to the marshes, which bypasses the farm-trail and moose stomping grounds.

ice

This is what happens when I decide that I'm going to run regardless of the mercury:



The truth is that the -34F was only partially to blame for the ice. The largest contributing factor is that we ran the first half of the Eldarado trail and all my extra huffing and puffing up the hills added significantly to the ice shell. The best news from this run is that we did over fifteen miles, seven of which had some decent rolling hills. The bunny boots, as predicted, kept me toasty all the way out and all the way back. But just for the record, they are rather lacking in traction when crossing bare ice.

sunset moose

Determined to have a positive run, we set out to do an easy out-and-back on the main north-valley trail. Nearly two weeks had passed since our last moonlit moose encounter, and I was confidant that the mama moose and her baby had exhausted their resources at the big pond and moved on through the marshes. I bundled up extra against the -28 temperatures and we headed out.

The dogs were as ready for a good run as I was. Although many teams make a crazy racket to go when being hooked up, these four are usually a mellow bunch before we head out. Not this day. Leo, Dottie and Sawyer were screaming to go and Pico caught onto their excitement and added his high-pitched puppy bark to the cacophony. As soon as I pulled the hook and called Leo haw out of the driveway, they were silent and running hard for the trail at the end of the road.

As we ran down the field-trail to the marshes, I looked hard but didn't see any moose-shaped shadows against the snow. Although I couldn't see the big pond, I was hopeful that we had seen the last of the moose family. Just as we got to the trees where the trail drops onto the marsh, an SUV sized shadow blocked the trail in front of us, paused and leapt away. I could feel the vibration of heavy hoof-beats through the runners. The moose had not moved on, but were camped out in the woods right next to the trail. Baby moose followed seconds behind mama, crossing just in front of Leo and a screeching Pico as I slammed on the brake and braced myself for the ferocious impact of her maternal defense. None came, and seconds later we dropped down onto the pond. I looked back into the trees and saw the enormous animal snorting and stomping just twenty yards away as we flew down the trail and away into the marshes. That decided it. We are done with this out-trail for the season.

The rest of the run was thankfully uneventful, peaceful and beautiful. And a little cold. I may need to switch to bunny boots when we run colder than -25. The sun was setting behind us as we headed out, and the red-orange glow of twilight hovered over the trail all the way home. It is getting colder again, but I have decided that as long as the dogs are comfortable we are going to run. I can always scrounge up more layers.

bad trail

My apprehensions about the moose on the big pond and growing dissatisfaction (ok, boredom) with our two regular loops from the house had me chomping at the bit to try something new, and hopefully add more miles in the process.

My first attempt was on the nine mile O'Brian loop trail last week. Instead of turning down O'Brian Road as usual, we continued to follow the snowmachine tracks alongside the larger Sheep Creek Road, the main access road through the valley. Almost all roads outside of the city have snow machine track running next to them, and my intent was to follow it. Our regular trail cuts across the loop of Sheep Creek and comes within sight of it again before turning back towards our neighborhood through the woods. I figured if I followed Sheep Creek road for awhile, we'd find another cut-off and add several miles and some new trail to our loop. The road-side trail quickly went from flat to a 45 degree angle and I found myself struggling to keep the sled from sliding into the trees as we flew downhill. Once we reached the bottom of the valley, the snow machine trail became less packed and started running a little too close to the road for my comfort. I was sure that we'd find a trail before the railroad tracks, but no cut-off appeared. At the tracks, Leo couldn't see where the trail continued on the other side. My blood ran cold as he tried to take out onto the road just as a car flew around the corner at 50 mph.

Disaster avoided and sweating with effort and fear, we continued alongside the road looking in vain for a cut through. The trail continued to deteriorate, becoming rough and punchy with huge banks before each side-road crossing.

A good friend of mine hit a dogsled last year with her car in just such a scenario, where a road-side trail crossed her neighborhood street. I firmly believe that the accident was not her fault (and thankfully no one - dog or human - was hurt in the incident) and have always maintained that the musher was at fault for running a fast team down a trail with multiple road and driveway crossings and thick spruce cover blocking their approach from oncoming drivers. Before the accident last year, I had found myself on that particular trail with Pico and the trapper dogs (we spent a lot of time lost last year) and was so spooked by the potential for disaster that I never ran the team on that trail again.

Yet last week, I inadvertently put myself into a nearly identical situation. The way the trail ran so steeply up to each road crossing, I couldn't see road when Pico and Leo crested each bank. My anxiety continued to rise. Between these not infrequent crossings and the poor trail we were all working hard. The dogs were frustrated with having to drag the sled through choppy powder, even though I was running as much as I could along side their slower breaking-trail pace. It was with no small measure of relief that we came around the last corner and through a greenhouse parking lot to re-connect with our usual trail far from roads and driveways and train tracks and cars.

As we ran home in the dark, I comforted myself with the thought that we probably added three or four miles to our usual nine mile loop. Even if I would never run along that road again, we had at least gained some milage. I was crushed when we got home and I checked the GPS. All that extra time and work had only added three quarters of a mile.

A few days later, I tried again. This time, we headed north into the hills and the promise of trails that have been taunting me all winter. We were headed up a small side-road towards the cabin of some friends that we dog-yard sat for years ago. These were the trails where I first ran a team on my own, seven dogs and way more power than I was ready for then. I know these trails go on for miles, and although I was too busy hanging on for dear life on those first few runs with Paige & Cody's dogs to know the whole system, I knew how to get us there. Or so I thought.

The first and overarching problem is that I started the run in a funk. Life was piling up high around me, but I'd skipped running the day before for that reason and couldn't do it again. We all, I thought, needed to get some sunshine on our faces and some trail under our feet. My heart wasn't in it, though. I wanted to be in bed. The first issue we ran into was the same as on our previous run - the trail to connect to our goal ran along poorly packed snowmachine trail adjacent to a road. Leo would have none of it. Every time we got to a driveway after struggling through uneven, unpacked ghost trails Leo saw the inviting hard pack of the road and swung the team out onto it as I called for him to keep it straight. The snow was even worse than our previous run, so much that Dottie did a face plant early on and I barely managed to stop the sled before it hit her. Despite my intent to keep us off the road, Leo would hear nothing from me. Every hundred feet, at each driveway, he pulled the team into the hard pack and I yelled and coaxed and hollered, eventually gave up, dropped the snow hook and physically dragged the team back onto the barely existent trail. We'd run a hundred more feet and do the whole thing over again. And again. And again. As this continued, my patience disappeared and my frustration began to grow exponentially. As did Leo's. After the third driveway we were at an impasse, and my frustration was growing fast.

Then we ran into two ferocious sounding loose dogs. They stood out on the road, harassing the team from a distance but we had nowhere to go but towards them. As we approached, Pico fell into his fugue state, slamming into Leo and screeching to get to the loose dogs. Leo was so frazzled from our fight about the trail that he didn't snap or correct the screaming pup. When we came even with them, Pico created a huge tangle that had the girls panicked and me trying to fend off the dogs and get us moving again before a fight broke out. It took all the self control I had not to start screaming.

When we finally moved past the loose dogs, the road-side trail we'd been following disappeared completely. I thought I saw a trail following the powerlines on the other side of the road so we crossed. As we did, I realized just how fast the cars on this road were going as they tore past. And to my horror, as I tried to guide Leo onto the trail I'd seen, Pico - who has never chased a car in his life - made a lunge for a speeding vehicle as it passed, pulling the team that had just safely crossed out of danger right back out into the roadway.

Heart racing, I dragged everyone onto this new unpacked, punchy trail. Heading downhill for a minute or two, I could finally ride the runners and catch my breath despite the deep snow. At the bottom of the hill, the trail disappeared again. We punched through the woods and back onto the road. With no other alternative, I held my breath and let Leo take us over the next little hill where, to my great relief, we found the driveway I'd been looking for. Just as we were about to turn, a car careened over the hill towards us. Although we were well to the right, Pico made another lunge as I screamed at him, then twisted around in his harness to chase it down the road, dragging the whole team and sled out into the middle of the street. I came within an inch of killing him right there.

Paige & Cody have since moved their kennel to another valley further out of town (and away from all these roads and cars) Halfway to their old cabin - the driveway is half a mile long - we came to the trail cut off I'd been trying to get to. But there was nothing there. Without them around to maintain this particular section of trail it hadn't been run a single time this year. With no other alternative, I called Leo to turn anyway. He saw the gap in the trees and made for it, but again the snow was unpacked and the dogs were moving slow and frustrated, looking back at me every few steps wondering if I'd lost my mind. I ran beside the sled, exhausted and frustrated. We turned a corner, where I hoped this little side-trail would meet the larger system. Nothing. Not even old snowmachine track.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Peter, asking him to pick us up at the end of this cursed road. Then called the dogs to turn and head for it again. Although we had hardly come three miles, I was terrified of Pico's behavior around the speeding cars, the cars themselves, Leo's mutinous state and the loose dogs on the road between us and the trail home. Spooked enough, I didn't see how we could get back safely without a ride. But we still had to get back to the road, and about half a mile down it to a safe pull out to wait for Peter.

As I hung up the phone, I was crushed with an overwhelming sense of failure. Not because we had run into bad trail and loose dogs, not because Leo was ignoring me and Pico was trying his hardest to get us all killed, but because by calling Pete I was giving up instead of pushing through these things. I knew there was a good, packed trail system somewhere back in those woods. I knew if I just kept running through the drifts with the sled, eventually we'd stumble on it. But I was done. I cared a great deal that the dogs were going to end the run on a bad note, that my mood was sour, that I had thrown in the towel - but I didn't know what else to do. I was not comfortable running them home through the hazards we'd come through already and I was too emotionally strung out to continue running on rough trails without losing it myself. For the first time, I wondered if I really have what it takes to race dogs for days through mountains and rivers far from roads and cell phone reception and easy outs. We had only made it three miles. How the hell did I think I could make it three hundred, much less, some day, a thousand.

We ran through virgin snow towards the road, and just as it came into sight we hit the good trail. The trail system had been only fifty yards away when I cried uncle and pulled out the phone. But I had already made my decision. This trail would have to wait. We ran onto the road and sprinted to the dead-end while I listened with my heart in my throat for the sound of approaching cars. At the end of the road, Leo immediately saw the trail leading down to Sepp's cabin (another taunting access to the trail system I'd been looking for) and turned hard to take us down and start a real run. But today was not the day. I called him back around, parked the sled well away from the road and unhooked everyone's tug lines. While waiting for Peter, I cuddled every one of the dogs hoping especially to make peace with Leo and Pico, against whom my temper was still high, and to calm Dottie and Sawyer who were anxious about this whole hard, short & bizarre run.

Not running was almost as bad as running, and anxiety continued to rise as Pico tried again and again to make a break for a nearby dog yard and Leo dragged his line out, trying to straighten the team despite that he was only hooked in by his collar. Dottie and Sawyer, jerked around by the two boys, were eying me anxiously and cowering away from my hands and the lines. Even giving in, I couldn't win.

I thought I would feel relief when the Subaru clattered over the hill and pulled up beside our motley crew. I felt only the claws of failure deepening their grip. I know that a disappointing spate is part of any endeavor, and I'm trying to remember that pushing through this is not only part of running dogs but part of doing anything worth doing in life. I need to keep getting back on the runners and back on the trails, but with two bad runs to sit with over my next shift at work, the taste in my mouth was decidedly bitter.

starlight

The Copper Basin 300, "The toughest 300 miles in Alaska," is underway on the other side of the Alaska Range. I am kicking myself now for not rearranging my work schedule and going down there to follow it, but life in Goldstream is nothing to sniff at this weekend, either.

After a long day taking blood pressures and glucose readings at a health fair, I came home and took the dogs on our first night run of the year. Despite my declaration of intent, the presence of moose on the big pond has left me a little apprehensive. Tonight, with a 48 hour shift looming and temperatures sitting right at zero, I hooked the dogs up and hoped for the best. New snowfall had done some damage to the out-trail, and one tree had fallen and snagged just inches above the level of the handlebars - I held my breath squatting on the runners as we flew underneath, no time to brake. We made it through, and I'm glad I had my headlamp on or I would have ended up with bruised ribs and a loose dog team, or worse.

Running down the trail next to the farm field, I thought I saw a moose in the shadows under the trees at the end of the fence. As we got closer, I decided the shadow was the right shape, but too small and let another long-held breath out. Then we were through the trees, down the bank and onto the flat of the pond and in the sweep of my headlamp I saw the mama moose charging in our direction from halfway across the pond.

The shadow in the trees had been a moose. A baby moose. And now we were between him and his mama.

Even as this occurred to me, we swung to the left on the trail through the marshes, away from the path of the huge shadow bearing down on us. As soon as the team turned away, she slowed to a trot then stopped to watch. Just as quickly as we had entered the danger zone, we skidded out of it and left her snorting and stamping in our wake under the sliver of new moon.

The rest of the run was dark and deeply peaceful. We ran on flat, wide trails that the team knows well. With some cloud cover and only a tiny moon I chose a run that is mostly in the open marshes at the bottom of the valley. Once we were across the road, I turned my headlamp off and we slid across the fresh snow and black spruce in the special glow of dark nights in the north. I could hear each dogs' paws hit the pack as they loped along, and almost feel the soft creaking of the runners as I shifted my weight through corners. On the ride out, the little dipper was peaking over the northern horizon, Polaris still hidden behind the hills. As we came back, the clouds gathered, covering most of what night sky we started with but even with just a few stars peaking through there was no need for the headlamp.

We ran home on the road to avoid the moose. Once the dogs were watered & settled in for the evening Sawyer raised her nose to the invisible moon and began to sing. Her soft, wavering howl carries in it the peace and utter contentment I find on the runners on a perfect starlit night like tonight.

doggie sled ride

You can't get much better than kids and dogs and a little bit of speed, especially with temperatures sitting above zero and a beautiful cloudless winter day. And yesterday proved it. Much to my relief, the dogs were perfectly polite with a crowd of little kids who don't stand much taller than the huskies themselves. Pico's tail was wagging full speed, and the girls ate the attention up, vying for attention from every angle. Even Leo, who is just now starting to accept very occasional petting from me, walked right over to the ankle biters and let them pat him with their puffy little mittened hands all over his head and neck and shoulders. After spending hours outside in the cold with him, trying to gain his trust enough for flinch-free petting, I was flabbergasted at his bold solicitation of human contact.

Our meticulous trail plans were thwarted on the first spin around the trail when we ran into a polite but grumpy borough employee on a snow machine who announced (despite no signage anywhere to back him up) that this little trail was designated ski-only, no dogs or sleds or walking allowed. (He was laying ski-track with his machine, the awful noise of which spooked even usually unflappable Leo into the trees.) I had checked with the University the week before, who had assured me that this section of trail was fair game for our activity but the ski-track laying man seemed to think otherwise. And very strongly.

With no other suitable trail options and an aversion to conflict myself, we changed plans and I ended up running the dogs up and down the little rural road instead of down the wooded trails. The five-year-old set didn't seem to mind at all, especially when I told them that the road was faster. And with its slick of ice and lack of snowpack, I was not lying. There is a reason distance racers are penalized for running along a road when the trail is down in the trees. I still got a good workout running beside the sled on the uphills and was rewarded with the very happy squeals of kids, and a steaming mug of hot cocoa and a bowl of blackberries in the cozy house when we were done.

Two notes from this little side-adventure:

First, although Leo, Sawyer & Pico took all the chaos and strange road run patterns in stride, Dottie did not. I could tell she was stressed by her body language, and it became clear when she first lost her usual enthusiasm to start running again after a stop and then by refusing to pull altogether. She kept running with the team, but her tug line stayed slack for the rest of the afternoon. Although I would have been frustrated by this on a regular run (and have been, as the dogs have off days just like I do,) I understood her reaction. Despite her tour-giving history, the proximity of the (very little) people and the chaos of the staging area, and not having an easy, repetitive trail between crazy driveway time was too much for her. And in reality, she did deal with it. She didn't melt down entirely, she still ran with us and behaved well on the line despite her stress and refusal to pull. Given that she chewed through Pico's tug line and her neck line last week just from the anticipation of starting a run (she gets harnessed last now, so she won't have a chance to gnaw on lines so readily) I was impressed that she kept it as together as she did.

Second, after borrowing some drop-chains on our last away-run, I went to the hardware store and configured a string of drop-chains on a long line that I can deploy from the back of the station wagon. This way I can more easily harness & hook up the dogs, and snack and load them after a run. I used it for the first time at this playgroup event, and it worked perfectly. I'm looking forward to an easier launch next time we hit the White Mountain trails.

Photos Courtesy N. Schuldt.

dry run

Today I took the team to a new neighborhood and a new set of trails for a dry run. On Wednesday, we are meeting a friend of mine, her two kids and the rest of the mom-and-toddler group she belongs to for what I hope will be a not-too-disastrous sled-dog ride for the five-year-old set. I took the team out today and did a couple of loops on a little mile-and-a-half trail that runs past the home of one of the participants.

A very bundled up five-year-old was out playing in the snow with his grandfather as we came and went from the yard. After I was relatively confidant in the trail (not too steep, no sharp corners, no low branches) I took him for a test ride. He called it a "speed trial" and it was a rousing success. He loved the dogs and the speed of the downhill sections, was tolerant of the slower pace on the flat and uphill (more on the uphill in a moment,) but I could tell that his five-year-old mind had hit the boredom threshold with sitting as we turned down the driveway and he tried to stand up and surf on the sled basket. His test ride was also useful as I figure out the best way to 'secure' (to a degree) kids on a sled that was not designed for passengers.

The dogs did beautifully. I was worried they would be upset by having to stop for long periods between short runs, but I had forgotten that all three of them have spent their off season 'working' at a local summer dog-kennel tour in the past. Short runs and long waits on the line are par for the course for these veterans - something most racing dogs would never stand for.

With all the details sorted out, I am now very much looking forward to Wednesday. But given a taste of the hill I am going to have to run up over and over and over again, I am also dreading it just a little.

Peter dropped us off at the staging area, and my plan was that after our dry runs we would head back towards the Goldstream Valley trails. The house is on the crest of one of the big hills bordering the valley, and I figured there must be a trail, somewhere, that would take us home.

When we were done, I ran the dogs to the end of the road in the appropriate direction ... and met a dead end in somebody's yard. Over their roof, I could see all the familiar landmarks of our usual runs but no way to get there.

Leo figured it out. As I stood wallowing at the dead end, foot on the brake, he could tell that I had no idea where to go and took over. There was a faint set of footprints that led from the road, through the snow and into the trees. Somehow, Leo picked out that they met a trail that I hadn't noticed. Within thirty seconds we were careening down the backside of the hill on a beautiful and barley traveled trail. At the bottom of the hill we hit the nine-mile O'Brian loop trail at about the halfway mark and made it home just as the sun was setting. The dogs were clearly loving the new trails. Now that our mileage is back up, I think it is high time to start exploring again.

One last note: We saw a mama and baby moose munching cattails on the big marsh pond on the way home. Or rather, I saw them. Thankfully, the dogs (read: Pico) didn't notice and we were far enough away not to pose a threat. The huge mama moose watched us closely from the far bank, but never stopped grazing or called her baby - who had strayed quite a ways across the lake - back to her. I was delighted to see these huge beasts, and relieved we were far enough away that we were no cause for concern. I've heard far too many stories (some from just last week) of moose vs. dogteam. There are rarely happy endings, and I am thankful I didn't have a tale to add after today's brief and safely distant encounter.