1.29.2012

unfamiliar corners

With another cold snap threatening, I was eager to take the dogs back out on our seven mile loop across Rosie Creek with Billie and Norrin in lead. I wanted to take the lower Rosie Creek crossing, but with the dogs still refusing to turn off the road there, I needed some help. For the last few runs, I've had Peter hold Norrin out in lead while I got the other dogs hooked up, but now I also needed him to drive down to the trailhead and guide the dogs onto the trail. But I didn't want to leave Norrin up front by himself while I hooked up the rest of the team, both because I don't trust him to keep his teeth off his harness and because I don't want to let him get in the habit of walking away from his leadership duties to socialize while I run dogs to the line from the yard.

I decided to try Billie up front first (he is supposed to be a lead dog, after all) but without the distraction of intact (and probably going in to heat soon) Pepper right behind him. I would hook up the dogs from back to front once Billie was installed in lead and see what happened. He would only have to ignore Pepper while I got Norrin, a much smaller interval of temptation.

Billie surpassed my expectations! Once he was up front, he pulled his line tight and sat down, watching me over his shoulder and never budging from his post. Maybe I've underestimated this dog, as well. I hooked everyone up and sent Peter to the trail head in the truck.

Launch went well, except for Devilfish and Parka. I realized two runs ago, when Parka ended up on the right side as we left the yard, that Parka is a left-side dog. She only wants to run on the left side of the line, and will do whatever it takes to get there once we are moving. This time, I had made sure she was on the left when I hooked her up, but without necklines on my wheel dogs, it was easy for Devilfish to make a lane-change a few seconds before I pulled the snow hook. Parka backed away from him, running with the brushbow nearly clipping her hocks, trying hard to get enough space to jump over his tug line and the gang line. But on our narrow trail from the house, she was having a lot of trouble. I ended up stopping the sled completely about two hundred yards out, and without the momentum of the team she got herself over the lines and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way out.  But stopping the team so soon out of the yard is confusing and frustrating for everyone, and Parka's determination to never, ever run on the right side of the gangline puts her in a potentially dangerous situation so close to the sled. I'll have to remember to be sure she is in the right spot from the beginning, from now on.

Peter helped us get around the corner with no problem - once Billie and Norrin saw the trail, and with Peter giving them some momentum, they were full-speed-ahead down to Rosie Creek without a glance back. The trail across the creek was clear, and the overflow by the banks was frozen and crusted over with just enough snow that Norrin didn't notice it. (I learned on our few runs last spring and several walks on the banks of the Tanana this summer that he is terrified of water.)

At the intersection with the main trail system, the dogs again didn't want to turn right, away from the more straight-ahead looking left-fork. As soon as I realized my calls for a turn were getting us nowhere, I set the snow hook and hauled the leaders around in the direction I was determined to take. Too late, I saw I had stopped too far back down the creek trail and my sled was going to head straight for a birch tree when they got their momentum going around the corner. For a second, I thought I could guide the sled around it, but in that same second the sled lurched forward and my hand - or more specifically my pinky finger - took the brunt of the force of the team as the sled bounced off the slender tree with my hand in the way.

I stowed the snow hook and shoved my throbbing finger into my mitts - no use worrying about it at this point. We flew down the trail, and I watched for the slight left-hand turn the trail takes up into the hills for the loop. We ran on, and I saw that my snowshoes and the extra snow hook were starting to bounce loose. I don't have a real sled bag, at this point. They have to be custom made, and given our ever-shortening tenure in Alaska the expense hasn't seemed worth it. Instead, I have a duffel bag with extra layers, first aid supplies, rudimentary camping gear and a small hatchet lashed down in the sled basket. Now that the snow is deep enough to sink in to, I've added snow shoes but the lashing wasn't keeping them in place on the bumpy turns. I stopped several times to readjust, but nothing save a complete reworking of the load seemed to do the trick.

After several stops to adjust the snowshoes, I started realizing that the trail didn't look familiar at all. We should have been climbing the switchbacks through the birch by now. There were no switchbacks, and no birch. Just alders and spruce and unfamiliar corner after corner. I had no idea how I had missed a trail that had been the ONLY trail option a month ago, the last time we'd taken this route. But here we were, following a clearly packed snow machine trail and veering more and more east.

When I looked up again, I saw that Billie and Norrin were coming out into a clearing and then realized that the clearing was a road and they were in the middle of it. I yelped and hit the brake but they were already there. I occured to me in that instant that they might take my stopping them in the middle of the road to mean I wanted them to turn down the road, and if they did that there was no way I'd be able to stop the sled and get the team turned around again. I let off the brake nearly as quickly and yelled for them to go straight. They obliged and I was relieved to see that the road was both empty of cars and not the big 50 mph main road out of our neighborhood - just a little neighborhood side street in the more populated area closer to the highway.

I let the team go a few yards up the main trail, then stopped them and checked my GPS. We'd gone just shy of four miles, which would give us about the right distance I'd wanted for this run anyway. And I knew the next road this trail would cross was that big one - and soon. I turned the team around (and this time, the extra snow hook held!) we headed (more carefully) back across the road and home.

Once the dogs were settled in, the yard cleaned up and gear put away I came inside and took a look at my throbbing finger. Only the pinky had gotten caught between the sled and the tree, but it had taken a good hit. It wasn't bending all the way and was starting to show a nice colorful bruise. But it was just one finger - and not a very important typing finger at that. I could just as easily have smashed my whole hand.

The cold snap hit as predicted that night and settled in for the long haul. The local paper reported that we are on track to have the coldest overall January since the 1970s, and the fifth coldest in over a hundred years. In the days since our last run, we've seen some of the coldest temperatures since we moved here six years ago. We've been spending most of our time stoking the woodstove and cycling dogs into the house to defrost. Although their thick winter fur and houses full of fresh straw keep them warm even in these frigid temperatures, ice builds up on their coats as they exhale and eventually diminishes its insulating ability.

Although I'm not adverse (well, mostly not adverse) to taking the team out for a run in temperatures like these, I don't have enough cold-weather gear for all of them. Unlike larger, thick-coated northern freight dogs (Malamutes, MacKinzie River Huskies) Alaskan huskies are bred to race. If they had the crazy-thick coats of their northern counterparts (which would keep them warm outside their houses in these temperatures) they would easily overheat in the average temperatures they encounter on winter race trails. When the temperatures drop like this, mushers use coats and boots to keep racing dogs warm. When temperatures rise much higher than ten or fifteen above zero, extra breaks must be taken on the trail to keep the dogs from overheating.

At any rate, we won't be going anywhere except to the woodpile for a few more days, at least.

1.27.2012

hooking the snow

Wanting to capitalize on the success of our eighteen mile jaunt along the Tanana river valley and Norrin's so-far positive experience up front, I planned a repeat performance for our next run. After a day off, I fed the team early and got them harnessed and ready as soon as it was reasonably light. I had Peter stand out with Norrin up front from the start, so he wouldn't have the stress of holding the line out alone on his shoulders or be able to get his teeth on his harness. Billie is still more interested in hanging out with Pepper than keeping everyone lined out, so I hooked him up at the end to avoid those tangles. We ran along the same route as our last long run, following the big flat trail down the Tanana river valley.  Just after turning off of the road, we scared up a small moose browsing in the bushes along the trail. He saw us coming from a ways off and bolted across the trail and into the trees, and the dogs tore forward in a full sprint for half a minute after they saw him.

On the last of the big right-hand trails I'd seen, I impulsively asked Norrin and Billie to turn right at the junction. They figured out what I wanted without having to bring the team to a complete stop, and we were soon plowing down a broken but not recently run trail over a crust of new snow. This route wasn't nearly as straight or as wide as the big main trail, but it was much wider than many of the dog sled and ski-only trails we've run down. Snow-laden alders bent over the trail, making a tunnel that fit the dogs perfectly but left me ducking or throwing up an arm to protect my face from the thin, whipping branches and snow showers I created slamming into them. The trail wove north towards the hills, ducking down little gullies and up rises and weaving in and out of stands of white spruce. I noticed that whenever we hit a particularly twisting section of trail the team, Billie in particular, seemed to speed up and charge around the corners as if excited by the unseen possibilities offered around the bend.

I was hoping that this trail would shadow the flat path on the valley floor, taking us up to that new highway-like trail under the bare bluff about eight miles out, but I soon realized that even if it did, we weren't going to make it on this run. I had a limited amount of time to explore, since I had to be at work that afternoon. But more than that, this path was weaving around the hills almost haphazardly. One minute, we'd be moving along approximately parallel to the hills, the next, we'd be doubled back and going nearly east, then for a while we'd be heading straight towards their looming slopes before turning sharply west again.

After several miles, I decided to look for a likely place to get the team turned around and head back. The decision was made for me when I saw the trail disappear into a deep gorge ahead of Norrin and Billie. I didn't want to try to turn around on that, or scramble back up the slope on the way back. I hooked in and walked up the team, giving everyone a good ear scratch. Tails were wagging all around, and spirits on this new trail seemed high. I flipped the snow-hook around so it would be less likely to pop free when the team was pulling in the other direction, then hauled Billie and Norrin around. As soon as they saw what was going on, the rest of the team charged back towards the sled. Billie and Norrin, now being dragged backwards by their harnesses, both balked.

I still haven't figured out the best way to turn the team around. We still don't have the looping-trail options to prevent the need to back-track, but it seems stressful for the leaders and there are always be epic tangles to get sorted out when we're done. I've taken to unclipipng Pepper and Xtra's neck lines to help prevent some of them, but this only mitigates line disasters a little bit. I hope that my new-found calmness in all this chaos (perhaps born of having to sort out more tangles than I care to think about this year) is helping. I used to get super stressed and feel rushed to get everyone sorted out. Now I just work my way down the line and use the time to give the dogs a rub-down and ear-scratches as well. At the beginning of the season, when Norrin was faced with a 180 degree directional change, he would lay down and have to be hauled bodily back to the front of the line. Now, he will consent to being walked to where I need him with only a little hesitation, as long as I stay next to him.

Also, I am always a little unsure of what to do with the snow hook. It won't hold the team pulling on it backwards, but I can't always get enough of the tension off to flip it around when I need to. It is probably a little too small for an eight-dog team anyway, but now that there is enough snow on the ground to sink it in deep, and because this team is a relatively mellow group, it has worked out so far. It usually only pops loose during directional changes, but holds the team just fine while we're hooking up or stopped on the trail.

I remembered, as the hook popped out this time before I was ready and I had to catch the sled as it passed me, that there is another snow hook - an insanely huge and heavy-duty one - that came with the extra sled I borrowed. I decided to add it to the main sled for our next run, so I could set it backwards in anticipation of a turn-around to make the whole event even more stress-free.

On the run back to the house, I noticed Pepper glancing into the trees just before we reached the road. I followed her glances thinking our little moose might still be hanging around in the brush. I was startled to see that what I'd taken to be a small yearling moose was just a big calf, now tucked into the haunches of his barn-door sized mother who was looking right at me through the trees. I held my breath and watched her carefully, but she didn't so much as flick her ears at us as we passed. The moose out here seem much more mellow about sharing their space than the aggressive mommas I dealt with last year in Goldstream.

For the next run, we stayed on the straight valley trails all the way out and took a left at the big highway trail when we ran into it. I was intending to run an extra mile out, bumping our total mileage up to the magical number twenty. One of my goals for this season was to get the team running in the twenty to forty mile range, and until our successful eighteen mile run a few days before this was beginning to seem like a pipe-dream. I was excited that things were finally coming together towards this goal.

The trail headed directly south, towards the river. I expected to come out onto the ice at any moment, but I had no intention of running on the Tanana, no matter how well traveled the trails seem. I have heard stories about the variable ice conditions and currents on this huge glacial river and I am still not comfortable enough with ice travel to go it alone with the team. When we came out of a huge stand of spruce onto a vast open area, I thought for a moment we'd hit the river. By the time I got the team stopped, however, I realized we were just on a huge, curving pond - probably an oxbow lake left as the river floods and changes course over the years. But we were stopped, so I hooked in and set my new extra snow hook up under Devilfish & Parka's feet and made my rounds of the team while Pepper borrowed gleefully in the deep snow to the side of the trail.

When we got turned around and untangled, with what I think was less hesitation on the part of Norrin and Billie, I was disheartened to see the sled flying towards me with both snow hooks bumping upside down along the trail. I caught the sled, pulled up the snow hooks and wondered how the monster hook - designed for full teams of fourteen or sixteen dogs -  had managed to get pulled loose by my little crew. Apparently there is more to setting snow hooks than stomping on them.

On the way back, I was further disheartened with Norrin and Billie didn't take the direction to turn back onto our trail home off the highway trail. It seems that either their hearing or their understanding is selective when it comes to turns. So far, we have good success when we come to clear forks where a left or right directional decision is about a forty five degree angle from our approach, but any time a turn means hauling over ninety degrees off of the straight trail or road under their feet, they stand with their noses pointed forward and look back at me blankly, no matter how obvious the other trail is.

Eventually we got the directions sorted out and headed down the trail towards home. We had a beautiful run back under the setting sun, and clocked in just 0.2 miles under my twenty mile goal. We pulled into the yard just at dusk, perfect timing, but I'm glad I had a headlamp in my pocket ready to go. We haven't done any night-runs yet this year, but I miss them and now that our forays into the woods are relatively trouble-free I can't imagine we'll go much longer before heading out under the stars.

1.19.2012

chilled


The cold snap that settled in after our Goldstream run didn't lift for a week. The temperature sank down to around forty below zero and flirted with fifty below at night. I had taken the weekend off, with plans to drive down to Glennallen to follow the Copper Basin 300. This fall, when I was picking up Pepper from Aliy Zirkle, I asked her which of the mid-distance races she felt was the best to test of a musher looking to run a thousand miler. She didn't even hesitate to point to this race, which she said offers some of the most challenging, technical trail of any mid-distance race and the psychological challenge of having your dog truck at every stop, offering mushers an tempting way out of the cold and snow and miles. If you can finish that race after walking past your dog truck and every checkpoint to keep on racing, she said, you're a long way towards proving you've got what it takes for the big time. I'd been looking forward to hanging out at the checkpoints (all on the road system, a rarity) and seeing what this race was all about.

But I was thwarted by our car, and the weather. For one thing, I didn't want to leave Peter stranded at the house with no way to get to town for three days. Besides, he had just come back from ten (extra) days down in the states and I wasn't too keen on ditching him so quickly, anyway. Also, getting excited about sleeping in the truck when temperatures are dipping towards thirty below is a tall order. So instead of packing up every sleeping bag we own and driving five hours to the Copper River Valley, I hung out at home with Pete, kept the woodstove stoked and started cycling dogs into the house to defrost and warm up.
Pico is very skeptical of Parka & Devilfish's occupation of the couch ... and Pete's lap.
Pepper's manners aren't perfect, but her love is pure. The kisses are pretty wet, though.
I was also looking forward to having a chat with Jodi Bailey. She had offered, before our trip, to talk with me about Norrin's phobia of bridges and general PTSD issues. Now that we were back and running again, it was clear that Reese was the dog I needed some help thinking through. We were going to talk on Thursday, but DewClaw kennel was slammed getting Dan off to the race so we postponed until Sunday when things might have settled down a bit.

Saturday, as folks started posting pictures of the Copper Basin start, I began regretting my decision to stay home. Saturday night, I was seriously considering heading down anyway, even if I would just catch the tail end of the race. But Sunday morning, the news was all over facebook and the mushing blogs: the Copper Basin 300 had been canceled. The trail after the second checkpoint (nearly a hundred miles in) was impassable despite the best efforts of trailbreakers on snowmachines, and in the end even the race billed as the toughest 300 miles in Alaska had to acquiesce to her.

I called Jodi that afternoon and had a great, rollicking chat about everything from the social-media blow-up about the race cancellation to the frustration of workplace politics. She had a lot of insight into Reese's recent behavior, and had suggestions that ran the gammut from demoting him from lead for a while (it was a relief that my instinct on that had been right) to revising the way I call turns and enforce commands to changing the way my tuglines are set up. I came away from that conversation with some great tools to try with Reese - when I let him back up front - and the growing certainty that his obsession with turning the team around is entirely my fault.

The day of our conversation, I happened to pick up a mushing book on training that I hadn't read before, Lead, Follow or Get Out Of The Way by Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey. The book itself is awful to wade through - the attitude he takes with his reader is at turns dismissively presumptuous  and aggressively defensive - but the trove of training insights are worth the slog, even though I don't swallow them whole. In the end, my take-away from this book (as if it hadn't sunk in enough already) was that my handling of Reese early in the season laid solid ground work for the trouble we are having now. If I'm going to run him up front at this point, I need to be prepared to do some water tight remediation.

After another stint at work, I came home to a break in the temperature. Twenty below at the house felt tropical. I hooked up the dogs in the yard, and planned on using Billie and Xtra as my interim leaders. But our launch out of the yard left me floundering. Fifty yards down the trail, I saw that Xtra was running as far behind Billie as the neckline would allow. Her tug was dragging in the snow under Pepper's feet. I slowed the sled to make sure she wasn't tangled and but after another few yards, she stopped completely, letting Pepper and Devilfish plow right over her. Billie didn't seem to interested in running up front alone, either. I stopped and walked up to untangle everyone. I put Pepper up front with Billie, since she has come through once we're down the trail a few times in the past. But she was much more interested in following me back to the sled and diving into the snow on the side of the trail next to Devilfish than running up front - or even standing up front - with Billie.

I stood there, barely out of the starting gate, holding on to Pepper with one hand and fending off Devilfish's desperate attempts to jump into my arms with the other, and looked down my line of dogs. Xtra and Pepper had made their intentions clear. I thought Billie would run if I put him with someone else who wanted to stay up front, but who? Parka and Devilfish are both untested in lead, at least by me. And Reese, now howling like a maniac and slamming his harness in wheel, is on probation. No more exceptions. I looked at Norrin, alone in his team spot, huge bushy tail flagging. I had promised myself I wouldn't run him up front until he'd had a chance to build some more confidence. But then again, the run I was planning was mellow and flat and straight, just the sort of run I'd determined he and Billie would do best at. I switched him with Pepper and walked back to the sled.

Norrin and Billie charged down the out-trail to the road without a step of hesitation. I called the haw earlier than usual, still trying to figure out the best timing, and they took it - and stuck it. At the trail to the lower Rosie Creek crossing, against my better judgement, I slowed the sled and called them to gee onto the trail. I had, after all, spent a chunk of my morning down there with a snow shovel hacking away at the now iced-in berm to make the trail and turn more obvious. Apparently the work was in vain. Norrin and Billie looked left and right blankly, then tried to charge ahead against my brake. With nowhere to hook in and keeping Norrin's stress level low as a the highest priority for this run, I didn't linger. We stuck to the road and headed down to the trail past the Quist Farm.

We ran out the flat trail below the bluffs, along the valley carved by the out-of-sight Tanana river. We passed the furthest point we'd reached so far this season, and kept on trucking west. There were a few enticing right-hand trails that seemed well traveled, but I decided to keep left and see where that would take us. If the flagging along this route is from trappers, they are probably having a good season. I've never seen as many ermine and snowshoe hare tracks as I did today, crisscrossing the trail like lace. The further out we went, the more moose tracks I saw (and fresh!) giving me good reason to keep my eyes on the trees around us. After eight and some change miles, we came to a huge, perfectly groomed highway of a trail. I stopped the team, hooked into the deep snow and gave everyone a good ear rub while eying this spectacular new possibility. It came from the direction of the river and continued west, but where exactly it came from or who maintained it was a grand mystery. At any rate, we were at the end of our rope for the day. I hauled the team around, noting that Billie and Norrin were as reluctant to turn as Reese was eager, which caused nearly as bad a tangle in the end. But tangles are fixable, and with a well set hook I wasn't in a sweat about working out some knots.
 We headed home with the sun setting behind us, and the first solid long (for us) run of the season finally under the runners.


Despite the fact that it had warmed to twenty below zero and I was bundled to the gills, I found myself struggling with bone-chilling cold on the run home. After three years, I felt like I had a good handle on exactly how many layers I needed to stay warm at different temperatures, but I'm realizing now that those parameters need to be revised. For the last two winters, I've been running small teams. With less power available even for the mildest of hills, those runs required a lot more work from me to keep the sled moving. And this season with a bigger team, those same layering strategies have worked because of intermittent crises that involve getting off the sled and hauling dogs and lines around and floundering in the snow. But now that I've had a taste of a couple straight hours on the runners, encouraging and steering but mostly just riding for the first time ... well ... ever, my cold-mitigation strategy is going to have to change. You're not going to catch me complaining about it, though. Despite shivering hard though the last three miles of the run, I was riding a cloud of elation all the way home.

1.14.2012

bridge work

Pete arrived back just in time to take care of the dogs & house while I went to work for a couple of days. I was with him for about four hours between picking him up from the airport and heading out, and most of those four hours I was trying hard to get some sleep. While at work, the temperatures rose to a balmy zero degrees but my heart sank when I saw the forecast: the warm spell would last about as long as my two-day shift.

When I arrived home, however, it was still only ten below zero although the bottom was slowly dropping out. I fed the dogs and Pete and I bundled up and ran our busted up little Ford station wagon in to a mechanic in town. We bought the thing for $900 five years ago from a girl I met at yoga, and it has run - with a few major tune-ups here and there - like a well oiled machine ever since, come gravel roads and snow and ice and brutal cold and many long, long Alaskan road miles. This time, however, the usual noises and rattles seemed a little more ominous. Gripping the clunking and shaking steering wheel, I limped the wagon into town and pulled in to the oddly deserted mechanic shop with Pete in the truck right behind me. On the window glass of the office, written hastily with a sharpie, were the words: Moved to Van Horn Road, across from Northern Power Sports. Not even an address. I guess we hadn't been here in a while. I consulted with Peter, then started to back the station wagon out of the parking lot. No dice. The engine revved, but the gears clunked and cracked one last time and didn't engage. The deserted mechanic shop was as far as it was going to go. At least we'd made it into town, and into an out-of-the-way parking lot. Fearing the worst, we pulled out all the extra oil & anti-freeze bottles, jumper cables, sleeping bags, gloves and blankets and called a tow truck to take it the rest of the way.

Back home, we quickly loaded dogs and the sled in the truck and headed for the Goldstream trails. With the roads plowed back to ice and trails not yet opened up over the berms, I didn't want to run from home. Now that I had Peter to help, I figured we'd have a nice long run in the valley and I'd be able to continue my Reese re-training with a bigger team and some company. We set out at a good clip with Reese and Billie up front and Pete in the basket. It wasn't a quarter mile before Reese was slacking his tug and looking back at me. I yelled NO and peddled behind the sled a bit. I yipped encouragement for all the dogs to speed up. He never quit looking back at me, every few steps. It wasn't long before he made his move, and before Pete could jump out or I could run forward he had enacted the most incredible tangle of lines I have yet seen. Lead dogs were tangled with wheel dogs and the team was so wrapped up that I had to completely release every single dog in turn, sometimes holding two dogs' harnesses in one hand while fumbling with impossible knots with the other, to get everyone sorted out. Despite the constraints on her lines and all around chaos, Pepper managed to dive off the trail into a snowdrift and completely disappear in the powder for a moment before returning with a gleeful, explosive shake. No matter what I did with him, Reese continued to dive back towards the sled, threading through as many lines as possible, every time I got him sorted out.  Finally, I let him go and had Pete hold him away from the team. All of this, and we were two thirds of a mile from the truck.

Not sure exactly what to do, but sure this was the last straw for me letting Reese run up front, I considered my options. I still wanted Norrin alone in team, but I didn't want Reese in swing where he could still influence the leaders and cause more disastrous tangles. In the end, I decided to move Xtra up to run with Billie in lead, and brought Devilfish up from wheel to run with Pepper in swing. Although Parka is a better fit for size and stride with Pepper, she sometimes has issues with other female dogs and I didn't want to add an altercation to today's list of run difficulties. Reese, for his part, was demoted to wheel. Finally sorted out and lined up, we got moving again. We've done this out-and-back several times now, and I was confidant that Billie and Xtra could hold their own around the familiar turns and cross trails.

The next big obstacle we faced was the dog-eating bridge troll under the Goldstream Creek bridge. I was hoping that a week's worth of positive, solid runs in his new tangle-free solo-team position had instilled some confidence in Norrin. But it was just a wild hope, and the one-on-one bridge-therapy I was thinking about doing had never happened. So our strategy was this: we would run up to the bridge as usual. If Norrin balked before we reached it, I would quickly stop the sled, unclip Norrin and let Pete take the team across without us. Then I would firmly and calmly walk Norrin across alone (hoping that having the team safely on the other side would motivate him to keep moving) clip him back in and we would keep running as if nothing had happened. I wanted to strike a balance between avoiding positive reinforcement (positive attention, praise or a break from running) for fear-behavior and yet not make facing his fears traumatic, solidifying the problem. Ultimately, I need Norrin to trust me when I ask him to do something, and do it even if he is afraid.

To our astonishment, Norrin ran right over the bridge as if crossing bridges was his singular specialty. His tug was tight the whole way across and his steady, ground-eating trot never faltered. Although I had hope that my theory about instilling confidence through other, all-positive runs would prove out, I was still holding out final judgement for our return. Norrin's bridge freak-outs have always started earlier and been much worse on the gentler, longer approach from the far side.

We ran around the valley under the power lines for a little over five miles, then turned the team around. Pete drove on the way back, and I settled into the basket. It was the longest either of us has ridden as a passenger, and by the time Pete took over driving he was quite chilled. He warmed up quickly once he was on the runners, but I found that as as comfortable as I was nestled in the basket with my giant boots and hood ruff tightly around my face, my hands - which had sweat through two layers of liner gloves dealing with the giant tangle, but had stayed plenty warm while I was driving - were getting colder and colder. On a long straightaway a few miles into my ride, I realized they weren't getting warm on their own and I needed to do something about it. And pretty quickly. I didn't have an extra pair of liner gloves with me, but I did have a pair of heavier over gloves that were still perfectly dry. I pulled the liners off my right hand first, and as I did so I realized they weren't just damp. They were soaking wet. I winced when my hand hit the cold air and quickly fumbled to shove the stiff fingers into the dry over-glove. At that moment, the sled plunged off the trail into powder on the side of the trail and flipped on its side. The gloves went flying and my now bare-and-wet hands dove deep into the snow.

There is a moment when the cold in extremities goes from being painful to critical. Circulation truly starts to shut down, and the body sends an emergency burst of adrenaline that can help get you past whatever pain or numbness is present to fix the issue, but also carries an edge of panic. My hands were, of course, in no danger. We were just a few miles from the truck on a windless day, and I had dry gloves in my pocket and giant over-mitts available in the sled. Peter, with perfectly warm and dry hands, was right next to me. However after my gloveless spill into the snow, my wet hands briefly reached that point of cold where there is only weird numb pain, a general loss of fine motor movement and an undercurrent of panic. We righted the sled and I quickly shook the snow out of my sleeves and shoved the big gloves over my stiff fingers. Pete held the team while I hopped around, swinging my arms to restore circulation and warmth. After a minute, I slid back into the basket and we were off.

My fingers were perfectly warm in a minute or two, but the quick transition from a little cold to unusable reminded me once again that I have to be aggressive about keeping my hands dry. The liners get wet quickly when I'm working with the dogs - either hooking up or sorting out tangles - and I need to be on top of changing out wet gloves for dry ones before my hands have a chance to get cold at all.

We watched Norrin carefully on the approach to the bridge. From this side, the bridge is visible for about fifty yards before you reach it, with a gentle approach that allows Norrin to get worried and then totally freak out and sit down in the middle of the trail well ahead of the structure itself. Again, we watched closely, looking for any sign of panic. And marveled as Norrin ran across the bridge like he did so every day of his life.

Just past the bridge, we passed two skijorers being pulled two dogs each. It was the first time Pete had made a pass while driving, and because of the angle of the bridge and our focus on Norrin, we didn't see the skiers until we were on top of them. They'd had a chance to move to the side a bit, but not pull their dogs all the way off the trail. Normally, I'd have stopped the team to let them clear well off the trail before attempting to get past. Our team passed perfectly despite their lunging huskies, though I know it was a bit close for comfort.

Over the last three winters, I've been impressed with the excellent trail etiquette around here. The general rule is that machines yield to muscle powered transportation, and that smaller teams or individuals yield to bigger/faster teams or travelers. On straight stretches with lots of time to see an approach (from ahead or behind) and plenty of snow to stop and yield, this works great. However on narrow, curving trail passes can start happening before either musher is aware that there is another team in their midst. Back when Pico was running in the team, I lived in terror of running into other trail users, knowing that his frantic screeching attentions and eagerness to interact and follow and chase would both freak out whoever we encountered and probably cause a tangle or worse, even with our then-little team. Now, having a team that acts as if there isn't a thing on the trail worthy of their time as they fly by, that feeling of dread is long gone. I no longer have to run on weekday mornings or late at night to avoid other trail users. Despite all the other troubles the team has had this winter, this confidence and the freedom it brings is wonderful feeling to carry down the trail.

1.09.2012

an uphill climb

What hours of the next twenty or so I wasn't sleeping, I was thinking about that run. What was I doing wrong? What could I do to fix it? Was there anything I could do to fix it? We seemed to be progressing so well, and then suddenly we weren't going anywhere. Should I have let the dogs run on down the road like Billie wanted, down to the Quist Farm trails? Or should I have continued to struggle with the right hand turn onto the lower Rosie Creek crossing, ignoring all the people waiting for me to clear the trail? Should I have tried Norrin in lead at some point, or was it better to preserve the fragile confidence he's built up over the last couple of runs. Should I have stopped them on the headlong rush up the trail home and turned them around? Should I have never taken Reese out of lead in the first place? Did I get us into the mess by letting him occasionally have his head - mostly when I didn't feel like I had a way to stop him - over the last three months?

My biggest concern was my loss of control. Even with all the snow on the road, I was struggling to set the hook and swing the big team around, then taking time to untangle whatever dogs stepped over or around lines or ended up with twisted harnesses. By the time I got back to the sled, the lead dogs were restless and taking things into their own hands - this had been as much true of Billie and Xtra as it was of Reese, although his u-turns certainly took the chaos to another level. I needed more control. Somehow.

I also needed to mentally prepare myself for whatever might happen, be it constant u-turns, a lack of progress, tangles, melt-downs or unplanned trails.  I needed to steel myself for infinite patience, or as much as I could muster, being human. I needed to be calm and methodical and gentle and fair. I needed to be in the moment with the dogs on the trail and not let my plans or hopes or expectations weigh on what was happening in front of me.

On Monday morning, I took all but one of the gang line lengths out of my string. I unstrapped my heavy duffel bag of extra winter gear and - for lack of another bolt - strapped the broken bar down with a few zip ties and hoped for the best. I harnessed Parka, Devilfish, Billie and Reese, leaving the rest of the dogs howling after us in the yard. I took a deep breath as we headed down the out trail. There was some powder, but our abortive run the day before had packed it down well and the four dogs didn't have any trouble flying over it, even with the drag mat down.

My stomach sank when the road came into view. The plows had been through that morning and fresh dirt and rocks - and a double-high snow berm - greeted us at the end of the trail. With no other option, I called the dogs to haw early and Reese and Billie scrambled over the berm to the left. I didn't even have time to be relieved or excited, though because as soon as they hit the road they swung around to the right. Parka and Devilfish had made the scramble over now, and I slammed the bar brake into the snow berm, sled with its nose in the air, calling for a left, knowing as soon as the runners hit the ice and dirt on the road all the control I hoped to gain with having only four dogs on the line was going to be long, long gone.

After an eternal few seconds, Reese looked back at me and then pushed Billie over to the left. I scrambled over the snow berm after the dogs and we were careening down the icy road. I cringed as my runners scraped over gravel and rocks. But here we were.

A quarter mile down, as we neared the trail head, my stomach sank again. The plows had ignored the trail and little parking spot completely. There was nothing but berm all the way down the road. I could hardly see the trail myself, and knew there was no way the dogs would be able to see where I wanted them to go when I stopped them. Deep breath. And we were there.

I managed to slow and then stop the sled on the ice, but it was tenuous. Within ten seconds, Reese had the team turned around and was yipping in frustration that I was standing hard on the drag mat and the brake. I tried to scoot the sled over to the icy berm and set the hook sideways, but the berm was powdery and hadn't set yet. The second I let slack off the brake, the dogs popped the hook out and tried to take off back down the road. We screeched to a halt on the ice a few feet further from the trail.

I stood there, Billie and Reese yipping with frustration, Parka and Devilfish looking back at me, tails wagging, intermittently slamming their harnesses to get going, already. What to do? I scooched the sled over a little closer to the berm and tried to set the hook deeper, smashing it into the powder and dirt and ice with my new giant boot. It sank out of sight. I tentatively let off the brake. The hook moved, but seemed to hold. If I could just get my hands on the lead dogs ...

I scrambled forward carefully on the ice, and grabbed the neck line between Reese and Billie. As I suspected, the snow hook was already halfway dislodged. But I've caught a flying sled before. Especially one with just four dogs powering it. I walked Billie and Reese around, back down the road to the trail and carefully over the berm. Parka and Devilfish scrambled over behind us, pulling the main weight of the empty sled and useless snow hook behind them. As I looked back, I realized the mixed blessing of the damned berm: The dogs could no longer see the road! I pointed Reese down the trail and let go. All four dogs took off, and I made a grab for the sled and snowhook as they slid by. And we were moving.

The powder here was deeper than on our out-trail - just a few people on foot had come this way since the main dump of snow over the weekend. I flipped up the drag mat, but still found myself peddling behind the sled to keep our momentum going. Every time the sled slowed in the powder, Reese looked back at me with the gleam of a uturn in his eye. By the time we reached Rosie Creek, I was starting to sweat. We crossed the creek - its ice bulging strangely in the middle - without a hitch and plowed on up the trail. And it felt like plowing. I was kicking and peddling and running behind the dogs. Halfway to the main trail, Reese stopped dead and tried to bring the team around. I let go of the sled and ran up to meet him.

This was my plan. I would not let Reese turn around. Period. With only two dogs between me and the Reese Brain, if I was quick on my feet, I could catch him before he got turned all the way around. With only four dogs on the line and deep powder, I wouldn't even need to set the snow hook. I would stop the sled periodically for no reason and make Reese stay lined out, straight ahead. He needed to learn that stopping or slowing was not, ever, a signal for him to turn around. If we reached a turn, we would not go the way Reese decided to go, no matter now many times I had to hook in and walk up and align the team in the direction I wanted us to travel. I was going to be in charge. And with four dogs, I had a fighting chance.

But I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. The powder was deeper than I'd anticipated, and the trails were all uphill. I continued peddling and occasionally running behind the team to keep momentum going. Whenever I tried to ride the runners to catch my breath, the team slowed and stopped and I ended up sprinting forward anyway to thwart a Reese turn. But Reese didn't manage to get past me, or even much past half-way turned. We continued on up, and up, and up, stopping every quarter mile or so and getting praise for staying lined our or diving to catch Reese when he decided to turn. I had decided, given how winded I was and how hard the dogs were working in the powder, to turn around at the lightning tree. But when we got to it, Reese made the command decision to turn left. I couldn't let him. I set the hook and ran forward, panting as hard as the dogs, pulling he and Billie back to the straightaway. We would have to go a bit further.

It took three tries before Reese gave up and went straight. I was running hard behind the sled, pushing it through the even deeper powder here as much as the dogs were pulling. We were now running on an extremely narrow trail that was terra incognita for me. I had an idea that this trail would eventually connect to the wider logging road we had encountered from the trails closer to the upper Rosie Creek crossing, but had no idea where or when. I figured we must be getting close to the top, though, as we'd been plowing uphill for what seemed like years. I was soaking wet under my shell (which made me nervous, even this close to home) and sucking air at this point, wondering if the warm comfort of my new heavy boots was worth the weight. After two more stop-and-catch-breath-and-hold-Reese-out, we reached a sharp right-hand turn that seemed to be on a wider - if still narrow - road, instead of a trail. I was elated! We'd be coming around the corner to familiar trails and downhill slopes soon.

We continued forward, still in the powder, as the terrain's steepness waned a bit. Then we came around a slight left corner and I realized we had just been on a wide part of a regular trail. This was no logging road. But the corner slowed Reese, and he started to turn, so I ran forward, caught him, caught my breath and determined to keep going ... just a little further. Just to drive the lesson home. The trail widened a bit, and we trudged around another, sharper, left hand corner. Somehow, despite the fact that I had no idea where were, I was sure this turn would open up to a familiarity. Instead, there was the wall of a steep hill towering in front of us with the trail headed straight up. Reese stopped and started to turn. I ran forward and caught him, but I was done. Instead of letting him gleefully bring the team around, I held him out until he stayed there, then slowly, deliberately guided him on a wide around-haw, caught the sled on the way down and rode the runners downhill trying to catch my breath and trying to hope we had accomplished something.

I was soaked through from running uphill in powder. To stay warm on the (much shorter) return trip, I dropped the drag mat to slow the dogs down and ran beside the sled when I started to feel the creeping chill. Following our backtrail, there wasn't a single hitch. We never stopped. Reese never hesitated. There were no wrong turns. We flew down the hills, all of us running.

The sun was setting, and I shaking and still not sure if I'd done anything right. Reese and Billie took us over the first berm after Rosie Creek like they did it every day, but they couldn't see our little home-trail from the road. I struggled to stop them on the icy gravel (still cringing as the runners scraped over rocks) and told Reese to take a blind right over the broad, unmarked berm. Not sure what to expect and with no way to hook in or correct him if he decided to keep going ... or turn around again ... I wasn't sure what to think when he turned right with no hesitation and dove over the berm onto our trail. Had he recognized that we were close? I doubted he was actually following my directions so blindly. Even after all our stopping and starting on the trail, he was trying to pull a u-turn every single time we slowed, all the way out. But at least we had run. The four dogs had worked hard and we had gotten somewhere. I had stayed calm and followed through (with the exception of that last, looming hill) with keeping Reese from making trail decisions. I'll have to live with that much until the next time I can take them out on the trails at the end of the week.

But I have no idea what we're going to do when we try again.

1.08.2012

three ring circus

Sunday, I was going to run the dogs to the lower Rosie Creek crossing - now that I knew the banks were passable - and then finally (finally!) figure out the bigger loop from the lightning tree. That was the plan.

This is what happened. I hooked Reese up front at first, because he is a rockstar at holding out the line while I get everyone else hooked up. He just lays down with his tug tight and howls, ignoring everyone and everything else, until we are ready to go. Once I had everyone clipped in, I put Pepper up front with Billie and put Reese back next to Xtra in swing. 

I went back to the sled and pulled the hook. Devilfish, Parka, Norrin, Xtra and Reese tore forward. Billie and Pepper sat down and looked back as the train of dogs slammed into them. I stopped, set the snow hook, walked them forward, untangling Reese and Xtra as I went, then tried again. Rewind. Repeat. We were now ten yards down the trail, and Pepper, who had led so well yesterday for a long run with lots of turns and little challenges, was sitting in the middle of the trail looking freaked out and in no mood to budge. I switched her with Xtra, gave everyone pets down the line and went back to pull the hook.

Xtra tugged Billie, who was now hesitating himself, down the trail and in spite of a small bunch up we managed to get everyone strung out and pulling. I was relieved and also very nervous. This was not a good start to what I had hoped would be a nice long, exploratory run.

I made sure to call the left turn early at the bottom of the out-trail, and Billie and Xtra hopped over the berm onto the still very snowy road and headed left immediately. I relaxed. It was going to be just fine. We headed down the road at a good clip. There was tons of snow still, and I didn't have trouble slowing the team down to a reasonable pace as we approached this newish trailhead. I slowed more just before the trail and called Billie and Xtra to turn right. They plowed on. I slowed harder, then stopped. Everyone started barking, pointed straight ahead slamming harnesses, with a huge, wide, broken trail just next to them on the right. Reese looked at me, and then looked right. He saw the trail, a lightbulb went off and he plunged towards it. But he was thwarted by Pepper next to him and Billie and Xtra ahead. They weren't budging.

No problem. I fumbled for the snowhook and set it deep on the road snow, then got off the sled to walk forward and get everyone lined down the trail. We'd done this before. But while I was setting the hook, Reese changed direction and somehow, in swing, bowled Pepper over and then dragged Billie and Xtra back into the middle of the road for a classic u-turn. They were convinced by his confidence and I found myself jumping over lines to avoid losing my footing and diving for the team as they swung around. I got Billie and Xtra, swung them back in the correct direction and then on to the right down the trail.

From where I had set the snow hook, all but the wheel dogs were on the trail, pointed down away from the road. I made sure everyone was untangled and jogged back to the sled. Before I'd reached the handle bars, Billie had hauled the whole team back up to the road and was slamming his harness and barking for some forward give. I sighed, stamped the hook for good measure, and walked back up. By the time I'd arrived, Reese had bowled everyone over trying to u-turn the team from swing and there were tangles all around. I unclipped and sorted out and reclipped and decided that maybe Reese was my best bet after all ... as we were lined out ON A TRAIL and we were less than a mile from the house. I switched him for Xtra. I gave Billie some reassurance and make sure everyone was tight on the line, then headed back to she sled. No. Before I reached the sled, Reese was sprinting up the trail behind me, turning the whole team around and popping the snowhook with their momentum. I barely snatched the sled as it spun around. I stood on the brake and set the snowhook again.

Walked forward. Grabbed Reese and Billie. Walked them in a wide circle back down the road, then back down the trail. I stood with them for a minute, sorted out a couple more little tangles and lines, then walked slowly backward with my eyes on Reese. He stayed put. I reached the sled, stood on the brake, reached down and pulled the snowhook. The second my eyes left him, he lunged to the left, pushing Billie ahead of him, back to the road, all the way around,  back the we had come. I held on tight to the sled as it spun, then set the snowhook again.

Less than a mile from the house. I was breathing hard and struggling with growing frustration and an overarching disappointment. We were going to explore! And get some good hills and mileage! The road was snowy, the ice on Rosie Creek was high! It was a beautiful blue-sky day with no wind! And it had been nearly twenty minutes now, and we were less than a mile from the house.

I looked up and saw a person patiently holding his dog at the corner of the road. Waiting for us to move on. But we were doing doughnuts, instead. I had no idea how long they'd been standing there, watching us flounder. Looking the other way, I saw another person struggling to pull their two dogs off the road to give us room to pass (since it now looked like we were headed in their direction.) I started to hook in again, but now the team was frantic to go SOMEWHERE and were slamming hard. Even with all the new snow, I could only dig in so far with the brake bar. We started inching forward. I swallowed and gave up and let them go. As we flew back down the road, I thought we could hit the upper Rosie Creek crossing and do our exploring from there. All was not lost. There was plenty of snow on the road, it would be easy to get there, the team knows those turns and trail heads by now.

We passed the two black dogs and turned to greet their owner and call out thanks for giving us space to pass. I didn't even notice that we had reached the little trail to the house, or that Reese and Billie were making the turn at full speed. By the time I did, the whole team was off the road and I was holding on to the sled for dear life as it launched over the berm. My yells of NO, and ON-BY falling on deaf ears. No. We were headed home. Half and hour after our stumbling, halting launch out of the yard, less than a mile and a half traveled, round trip, I unhooked and unharnessed dogs and sorted out lines and got the sled turned around. I realized, then, then I had totally forgotten about the sheared bolt and bar which had come loose last run and had been dragging for who knows how much of our short misadventure today.

Back in the house, stripping off layers, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. We were back to square one. Perhaps even further back than that. Even on our worst runs so far, we'd made five or six miles at least. I had a whole day off on Monday. I had been planning all week to truck the dogs to a new trail head, one I've been looking forward to trying with this team since I first realized I'd have dogs to run this winter. I've been itching for it - for the time to make the drive, and for team to come together enough to try it. And now we couldn't get out of the yard or much down the trail without headlong u-turns and tangles and panics and no forward progress and the certainty that I was absolutely not in control of my team. Despite our peaceful, heartening runs earlier this week that left me giddy with pride and anticipation, we apparently weren't ready for bigger, better, longer trails at all. We apparently couldn't get a mile from the house. 

It didn't happen until two hours later, driving to town for work, but it did happen. I pulled over and had a good long cry behind the fogged up windows of my truck.

1.07.2012

demotion

My plan was to run out the same flat westward trail we'd taken on the last run, but try to get a bit further before turning around. I was ready for Norrin to join the team again. I added an extra length of gang-line for him, and didn't harness him until everyone else was on the line and ready to go. Once clipped in, he was focused on the trail and never even tried to reach around and chew his harness.

At the end of our little out-trail to the road, Reese and Billie decided to turn right despite my directions to turn left. They kept trying to pull us the wrong way, but Pepper, in swing, figured it out and pulled left, hauling the two leaders backwards by their harnesses. When this registered, they both turned and pulled the team to the left and we were off. There were no u-turn issues on the road, but we had an identical stall-out at the trail head with Billie wanting to continue down the road, Reese initially trying for the trail then deciding a u-turn was in order. This took some sorting and untangling and hauling-around, but once pointed the right way they took off down the trail with no further problems.

As we loped west down the wide, flat trail I realized that we'd had two near-tangles already, including a significant hauling-the-team-around directional change and Norrin hadn't had a melt-down once. I had him running alone in team, mostly because I figured his power and size would be better served further back in the line and without a much smaller running partner. It seemed that this had inadvertently made him less panic-prone, as he had more room to maneuver when we turned, and nobody else's lines to get fouled up in. Accidental Success!

I had the team take left (and they did) past a big beaver pond, but soon realized this was a bad idea. The trail was broken but not packed, and we were soon floundering in powder and weaving through some pretty thick lowland willow. We went about a quarter mile, where there was a nice wide spot over a pond, and Reese obligingly turned the team around without a problem. I watched Norrin carefully here and saw him take the turn-around with narry a hesitation. Yes!

Back on the main trail, we passed a team of six Siberian-looking huskies and I was super proud of my team as they few by (especially since the other team balled up) - only Devilfish tried to stop for a meet-and-greet, but when I asked him to move on he obliged quickly. We continued west, but as we neared the six-mile point we started passing suspicious looking flagging and several little foot-paths into the woods. I started to think we were mushing past someone's trap line. My suspicions increased when Reese slowed the team down (so may cross trails! we must try one!) doing his classic unauthorized-u-turn hop-and-glance routine, and almost every single dog's nose went into the air in the direction of some of the flagging.  And then again towards some other flagging. I managed to get Reese another half mile before he stopped listening to me and hauled the team around. I didn't catch him in time, and when the sled whipped around I saw the team was perfectly lined out with no tangles and Norrin wagging his tail with his tug line tight, nose straight ahead, I let it go and we headed home.


The only other significant thing from the run was that Norrin, who pulled hard the whole way, flopped down like wet noodle when we returned home. He wasn't breathing hard or distressed in any way - just exhausted. I realized he's only run about two thirds of the miles the other dogs have (they weren't even tired) and I really need to scale back, let his endurance catch up to everyone else, and then keep him in the team from here on out no matter what.

That afternoon, with temperatures finally warmed up to twenty below zero, I went through the yard and clipped everyone's nails. I'm getting better and better at this - and the sled dogs are wonderful, obliging creatures, unlike many house dogs I've had in the past. I managed to clip 132 nails in just a few minutes. Success!

At this point in the season, Pico has essentially been benched from the team. We have never gotten past his (new) unwillingness to pull for more than a couple of miles and the chronic front foot issue that won't go away. More than that, however, is the fact that his awful trail manners make him a liability in harness. With just four dogs to manage, his bad behavior could be worked around but in a bigger team he can cause much more harm trying to take off sideways after an animal, loose dog or another team.  I was glad to have him pull on my little starter-teams of three and four dogs for the last two winters, but this year he isn't going to be running with us regularly, if at all. He has been relegated back to the realm of pet, although it breaks his heart when we leave him in the yard I know this is better - and safer - for all of us.

He is only three and still full of energy, though. That night, as he did laps around the house, I decided to walk down to the creek with him and let him burn off some of his restlessness. He was so happy to be tearing around in the woods, sniffing marked trees and following squirrel tracks around spruce. When we got to Rosie Creek, I was in for a pleasant surprise: the creek ice had risen to the level of the banks. The terrifying drop-offs on either side of the creek were essentially gone! We could run this way now, giving us much quicker & safer access to the trail network. I was elated. 
Pico isn't sure he likes sharing his couch.
Two days later (giving Norrin a break to recover, and all the dogs indoor time in the continuing cold snap) we headed out again. I figured we'd do a repeat run down the flat westward trail but add a few more miles and see how everyone looked. At the intersection of our out-trail with the road, Billie and Reese turned right again. I called them left, but for some reason this time, even though Pepper figured it out first, we ended up with several tangled dogs. I hauled the sled to the side of the road and hooked in, then went forward to sort everyone out. As I did so, Reese started turning everyone around. I pulled him back forward, untangled as I went back ... and as soon as I pulled the hook he gleefully tried to swing everyone around again. We were less than a quarter mile from the house. Stop. Hook in. Pull team back around. On the second try, we started making forward progress again.

But now there was a weird, metallic noise coming from the sled. It took a minute or two to realize that one of the metal stabilizer bars had come loose (for the second time this season - the bolts continue to shear in cold weather and I can't seem to find ones that won't) and the bar was dragging on the road, digging into the snow. As soon as I saw what was wrong, I stepped on the drag mat to slow the team and fix the problem. But as soon as he felt the brake, Reese pushed Billie over to the left for a nice wide u-turn. I pulled the bar up so it wouldn't be damaged, hooked in and walked forward, again, to pull the team around. I got everyone straightened out and walked back to to sled. Before I got there, the team nearly knocked me over, following Reese back the way we'd come. I grabbed the leaders and walked them forward again. As soon as I got the team around and let Reese go, he started to turn again at a dead run. I hadn't even started walking back to the sled!

I was done. I pulled him out of lead and replaced him with Pepper - who had appeared, at least, to take my directions in swing the last two runs. She looked back a few times at first, but gamely ran next to Billie for the remainder of the run.

We passed a truck on a narrow part of the road, just before the trail head. The driver politely came to a stop to let us pass since there wasn't much room, but Billie was afraid to get as close as we needed to and balked. I had to stop and hook in, then go up and hold them out while the truck moved on, calmly reassuring Billie as it passed. Twice on this run we encountered snow machines headed for us on the trail. Billie didn't like these either, but they both gave us a wide berth and he managed to overcome his fear enough (with more success the second time) to get us past the loud monsters without and all-out stop or further tangles. We made it home with Billie and Pepper in lead, a few more miles traversed and in plenty of time for me to shower and get to work.

A couple of other notes from this run: I realized that the snow is finally deep enough - everywhere - for me to secure the snow hook. This has made all the balking and u-turning and mid-run positional switches virtually stress free. It also means stepping off the trail means stepping into knee deep snow, so I need to start carrying snowshoes with us. Also, my Neos overboots came in the mail and I broke them out with my Steger Mukluks on this last run (as well as the hike to the creek.) I ADORE these boots!! My feet were toasty and dry, I felt like I was mushing in (very secure) house slippers, and the traction was superb on loose and packed snow, icy roads and on the runners.
My new Neos!! My work boots don't seem very big anymore.
I'm still not sure what to do about Reese. He is certainly my most responsive leader, but the tangles & u-turns - especially just a few hundred yards from the house - are both frustrating for me and stressful for the team. Pepper seemed to do alright up front on this last long run, but I've had trouble with her starting out from the yard in the past. I feel like we've taken a step back, but am hopeful that we're far enough along as a team to keep moving forward.

1.05.2012

liquid propane

The thermometer on my truck read forty below zero when I walked out to the parking lot after work on Tuesday morning. The cab never really warmed up on the nearly hour drive home since I ended up alternating between blowing hot air into the cab at full tilt until the windows fogged over and then aggressively defrosting the windows until I started shivering again. I spent the morning keeping the wood stove roaring and checking the thermometer. But it wasn't budging.

I also spent the day thinking about hot water. When the temperature drops down close to forty below zero, propane starts to think about turning into a liquid, and liquid propane sinks down to the bottom of the tank and doesn't flow. When one depends on propane for one's hot water, this becomes a problem. And because our propane has to travel down an outside line for a while, the functional temperature of our hot water heater stops just under twenty five below zero.  Over Thanksgiving, when we had our last good cold snap, we didn't have running water at all and the propane problem was shelved. This week the water is running just fine but it is all ice cold. 

I consulted with a few friends and long-time residents of the interior, and decided to build a propane-tank-sized frame, box it in with styrofoam insulation and hang a light bulb inside to get the temperature up just enough to get things moving. I brought scrap wood & tools inside to thaw, ran (shivering, fogging, shivering, fogging) to Lowes for some styrofoam board and spent the evening on my little luxury project.

The next morning, I set up the DIY propane shed and hung the light bulb. Now it was time to wait.

In the mean time, the temperature had inched up to about thirty below. I was itching for a run, but had pretty limited time as I needed to leave for work around one in the afternoon. Even though I had fixed Norrin's harness, I didn't want to risk a mid-run melt down that might delay us and put me in a rush once we got back. Instead, I left Pico and Norrin howling miserably in the yard and took off for a short run with the other six dogs.

We turned left down the road this time, and my intention was to run down to the trail head just past the Quist farm. There is a straight-away trail there that heads west along the valley. I figured a nice fast, flat run would be perfect for the time we had. And regardless of my own time constraints, the temperature was still sitting around thirty below. I didn't want to be out long in my old Baffins.

I wasn't sure how Reese would do on the road past the Quist farm. This was the first time we'd run this way since his frustrating and constant obsession with turning the team around on the road. I watched him carefully as we approached his trouble spots, but he never slacked his lead. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then we got to the trail-head. The road keeps going here, and the trail veers off to the right. It is very wide, and looks almost like a driveway. In fact, for most of the fall I thought it was a driveway to someone's cabin. The last several runs this way, Reese had taken this right turn at full tilt, never hesitating. When I called for the right turn, Billie pulled to the left. Reese tried to turn right for a stride or two, then followed Billie, then quickly bowled Billie over in his eagerness to get us all turned all the way around and headed back down the road. Apparently the Reese Brain was back in full force. I hooked in the sled and walked everyone back to the trail. Once in place, Reese and Billie stayed lined out in the right direction and when I called for them to stay left at the initial trail intersection Reese - who had taken the right on the fly the last five or so times we'd come this way - never even glanced at our usual trail. A perfect stay haw thirty seconds after a u-turn tangle. I was at a loss.

We ran down the flat, fast trail, passing lots of right-turn intersections that looked like they headed back towards the Rosie Creek trails. On one straight-away, Reese started slacking his tug and hopping up and down, looking back at me. I have no idea what triggered this hesitation. We were on a long straightaway with no wide spots for a turn and no intersections in sight. I tried to get him to give up and keep running, but instead he stopped, turned INTO the team and started trying to thread the needle, pulling Billie back between Xtra and Pepper and then around the sled. I quickly hooked in and got them sorted out straight, and once pointed ahead again, Reese continued on at full tilt as if nothing had happened.

We continued west for about four miles, then turned around and headed home. This u-turn was a repeat performance of the needle-threading earlier, and it took a couple of minutes to get everyone sorted out. In the chaos, the sled ran over the snowhook and dislodged it. I saw it while I still had a hold of the gang line, but had just gotten the tangles sorted out enough that forward momentum was possible again. It was a nerve-wracking few seconds as I carefully made my way back to the sled, one hand on the lines, gently saying "whoa" to the dogs, hoping they wouldn't lurch forward and pull everything out of my hands.

But I made it back to the sled and snagged the now-upside down snow hook as the dogs took off for home. The return trip was beautiful and cold and happily uneventful. I had a new neck gaiter that my parents got me for Christmas that was keeping my face both warm and dry - a novelty! And I managed to get a nice shot of us running into the yard from our little trail. Apparently my iphone does much better in the cold than the flip, but the narrow video images leave something to be desired ... at least for me. Also, I have to take my gloves all the way off to use it which is brutal thing for hands at thirty below. At any rate, we made in home with just enough time to get the dogs snacked and loved on, get the yard shoveled and get myself a hot shower (the lightbulb worked!) before heading out to earn my paycheck.

1.01.2012

the weather outside

The day we left for Texas, I spent a lot of time outside working on getting the dog yard ready for the house sitter. I did all my chores in a t-shirt and jeans. It was about 25 degrees that afternoon - which felt dangerously close to the melting point of snow, to me - and after the early cold snap, I was totally comfortable as long as I was working and moving. I have found that temperature really is a relative thing. I've felt colder in Texas on a humid, 50 degree day with a stiff breeze than many below-zero but dry and windless days here.

In Texas this year the temperature ranged from nearly 80 to 40, and although one morning my dad swore it was below freezing outside I spent the entire holiday encountering ice only in tall glasses of southern iced tea. While we were gone, snow continued to accumulate back in Fairbanks. And just before I boarded the plane for the return trip, the temperature at home started to drop. And drop.

It didn't take long to remember that hadn't packed gloves or a coat, waltzing out of Fairbanks in tennis shoes and a light fleece. By the time my flight landed after midnight on Thursday, thermometers around town were registering somewhere in the negative thirty to thirty five range. The friend who picked me up from the airport generously brought an extra parka of hers, but it only took the quick run from the doors of the terminal to her truck for my hands to go numb. Time for some very intentional re-acclimatization.
 
The dogs were happy to get some love and attention that night, but Pico seemed oddly unenthusiastic. He wasn't interested in a good ear scratch or belly rub, and lay down on the couch the minute he was let in instead of getting constantly underfoot in our tiny house as I unpacked and got reoriented. I was so tired after twelve hours of travel, however, that I just let him be and went to bed. I woke from a dead sleep an hour later to that rhythmic, almost hollow mechanical sound that all dog owners know and dread - the sound of a dog getting ready to vomit. And Pico did so, about every half hour, in every conceivable spot both upstairs and down, until nine the next morning. Ah, welcome home.

I waited till a reasonable hour before calling the house sitter, but she assured me that he'd eaten a full meal the night I arrived, played with her for a while after dinner and had shown no signs of odd behavior or illness when she last saw him. All the other dogs looked great - happy, healthy and ready for some trail time. But Pico refused to eat breakfast or any of the people-food treats I tried to tempt him with and would hardly get up unless forced. I checked him for signs of shock and listened to his belly hoping for a hint, but to no avail. Cleaning up after his night of gastric over-activity, I noticed that more than one pile contained a little too much pink froth for my tastes. My paranoia for dog disaster was running pretty high to begin with, since a good friend lost her otherwise young, healthy lab quite suddenly to an bowel obstruction this fall. And we were heading into a long weekend. My pup didn't look too sick yet, but he has never in his three years with us refused food. I took a deep breath and called our vet.

They got me in within the hour, but after his exam the vet felt we should wait the weekend out. I felt a little silly - I normally would have sat on a vomiting dog for much longer, but circumstances being what they were I didn't feel like I could make that call. He sent us home with an anti-emetic, some doggie-nexium and his cell phone number.

While we were in town, the temperature had peeked up above thirty below. I decided it was plenty warm enough - and a beautiful day - to take the dogs for a little shake-out run. I made Pico a chickeny rice mush which he wouldn't even sniff, then kenneled him inside, made a nice warm slop snack for the team to enjoy when we returned, bundled up and started digging the sled out from under two weeks of intermittent snow. I decided to take all seven dogs, since as far as I know none of Norrin's PTSD triggers are on this particular trail from the house and our last run had been relatively tangle free. I added an extra length of gang-line, tug and neck line for him just in front of the wheel dogs and got everyone harnessed and ready to go.

The dogs were yelping and yipping with excitement, Norrin performing his classic half-gainer spins on the end of his chain. He was so enthusiastic that I decided to go ahead and put his harness on at the same time as everyone else. Earlier this fall, I'd bought him a brand new harness at Cold Spot. I harnessed him for a bikejor outing as soon as we got home, and he had chewed through the X-strap before I even knew he could reach it with his teeth. After I had a chance to calm down, I fixed it with some heavy duty fishing line, a tapestry needle and some hockey tape and subsequently never put his harness on until I was ready to walk him to the line and hook him in.

Today, however, I was sure his focus on hook-up would prevent a repeat performance. After all, his previous harness destruction had been way back in October. But apparently old habits die hard, even in sled dogs. I hooked Reese up front, and was halfway to the line with Pepper when I saw Norrin out of the corner of my eye, bent in the middle and working out his excitement on the webbing. I yelled and let Pepper go, sprinting for Norrin's circle. It wasn't until I was on top of him that he let go, and the damage was quite thoroughly already done. I took off the harness, trying hard to stay calm and not let my frustration and anger (as much at myself for letting down my guard against a known issue) come out on Norrin. As calm as I tried to be, however, he knew I was upset and lay down on his belly as if trying to sink into the snow.  I threw his harness back towards he house, put Pepper and Reese back and took the extra gang line back off the sled. Norrin wasn't going anywhere until I fixed his harness. He had chewed himself out of a run.

That minor disaster over with, hook up went quickly and the dogs tore out of the yard with all the pent up energy of the last two weeks. They didn't tear for long, though, because two weeks of snow was blocking their previously well packed trail out from the house. The plowed onward, however, and we were out to the road and then onto the trail system without a hitch.

Just before the Rosie Creek crossing, I saw a couple of loose black dogs through the trees. I yelled "TRAIL" as loud as I could to warn their people (if there were any) that someone was coming. Apparently, they didn't hear me because when we came flying around the corner a woman threw up her hands and screamed. Her two kids both jumped off the trail and I slammed on the brake. She made a dive for one of the two loose dogs, and the other ran straight for Billie and Reese, stopping between them for a good butt-sniff. There was nothing I could do but stand there, holding the team back while one of the kids came and retrieved their dog. As soon as the dog was out of the way, I called my dogs to onby and without a sideways glance they headed on down the trail as if nothing had happened. I was beaming.

Unfortunately, I was a little too focused on being proud of them and didn't notice that they were pulling me onto very slick refrozen overflow that had crept up the trail in our absence. We weren't ten feet past the little family before I was sprawled out on the ice, elbow throbbing, trying to scramble and right the sled. Always make a memorable first impression, I guess. Now my face was burning with embarrassment instead of pride, but it was cold enough that my blush didn't last long either.

Just past Rosie Creek, Reese started doing his little turn-around dance. I tried telling him NO, and then encouraging and peddling hard, which seemed to stop him in Goldstream earlier in the month. But for some reason he really, really wanted to turn around. Right there, right then. This was, incidentally, the same spot we'd had issues in on a previous run this way where I ended up switching him out with Norrin when he absolutely refused to move forward. On our run just before the trip, though, he had lead through the section of trail without any significant hesitation. I was mystified as what was triggering this urgency, and his hopping, pausing and half-turning lasted for nearly a quarter mile. He even stopped dead in the trail at one point, nearly causing a tangle and confusing the heck out of Billie who was still trying his best to keep his tug tight. But at some point with no help from me (that I could tell) whatever itch got into his brain passed, and suddenly we were running full tilt again with tight tugs and noses ahead.

The rest of the run was without further incident. Now that we'd been around this loop once and I know where the intersections are, I made an extra effort to anticipate and call turns a little earlier. In doing so, we totally avoided wrapping around the lone little birch at the T-intersection towards the end. Nobody even glanced to the right as we made the turn. The winding section of overflowed trail was just as slick heading back, but this time I was prepared for it and managed to keep my feet on the runners. Barely.

Back home, I saw that the temperature was sitting at about twenty eight below for our run. I was toasty, but I knew my toes would have gotten cold if we'd been out much longer. My coveted Neos Overboots had come in before we left, but I'd somehow misjudged the sizing and had to send them to be exchanged. The new ones haven't yet arrived, so I was stuck with my less-and-less-effective Baffins for this run.

The lesson that keeps being driven home for me this winter is that the weatherman will break your heart, every time. The last day of 2011 was supposed to be the coldest of the snap. It was reasonably cold - about thirty five below - and with so much to deal with after travel (wood needs chopping, straw needs distributing, dog snacks need making, bags need unpacking) and Pico still only eating a bite of food here and there with not a tail wag to be coaxed out of him (and, I discovered, no hot water to be had after we hit thirty below) I decided not to run the dogs on New Year's Eve. New Year's Day was supposed to be warmer - similar temperatures to Friday's run - and I figured we'd do a nice long romp exploring some of the westward trails to celebrate the new year.  I brought Xtra inside, and she spent the day snoring with startling volume and soaking up heat from the woodstove.

Instead, the new year dawned with the thermometer pointed down below the negative forty mark. I went to the window every half hour all morning, but it never budged. Sunrise was beautiful, pink-and-blue light fracturing in the crystalline air, flakes of moisture suspended, dancing in the stillness, refracting light and giving an ethereal quality to everything through the windows. But the air itself was searing cold. I fired up the woodstove, fed dogs and started instead on endless projects that always need doing while constantly checking the thermometer. But the day dawned and stayed clear, and the temperature didn't start rising until long after nightfall.

Pico's status did shift, however. New Year's morning he scarfed every kibble he could find like the starving dog he pretends to be and brought me his ball, tail wagging, as soon as I came in from the yard. His sudden and thorough recovery was a complete relief. 

I'm off to work in the morning and hoping hard for temperatures closer to twenty below when I get back. But after the last two days, I won't resting any plans on the predictions the weatherman sends my way.