twenty five

I wasn't sure what our run would look like, but I knew I wanted to do a long one. I was hoping to get a little bit further on the highway trail out towards the Tanana river. It was warmer, sitting at around ten below zero. I hooked up the dogs and we flew out of the yard. After all the cold, they were full of energy to burn and I had to work to keep them running at a reasonable pace on the slick road. We rode out under a beautiful winter sun, Norrin and Billie pulling strong up front. The air was still and the trees were still covered in frost from the cold snap.

We reached the highway trail and turned left, quickly traversing the long lake we'd turned around on last time we'd come this way. In new territory, the thrill of whipping down trails and around corners with no idea what was ahead had the dogs sprinting in bursts and left me straining to see around each new bend. This trail seemed to dip across long frozen oxbow lakes, then up through stands of trees, then onto more frozen lakes. We hit a T-intersection before I realized it was coming, and Billie and Norrin took a left on the fly. I let them, but cringed when I saw a sign tacked to a tree just past the turn pointing in the other direction: "To The River." We were now heading away from the Tanana, which had been my half-hearted exploratory goal. Oh, well. Instead, we came to another T-intersection, took another (uncalled) left and headed out over a huge lake - the broadest and longest so far. It was so big, and the surface so buckled and uneven under the deep snow, that for a while I thought we had somehow come out onto a channel of the big river herself. I noticed the dogs occasionally stepping off the snow machine trail here, and sinking nearly to their bellies before launching back out on to the packed trail in a shower of powder. The snow was certainly drifted high over the lake, and I started to wonder how we would get turned around. But on we went.

We passed a rudimentary frozen-in dock on the edge of the water, and deep in the trees I thought I saw the outlines of a log cabin but it was so well blended in with the snow and wood I might have imagined it. Although we were following a well packed trail, there were no tracks heading towards the ghost of a building I thought I'd seen in the deep shadows on shore. The dogs followed the path up over another berm of woods, and onto another deeply drifted lake. I looked up at the sun, and the bend of the hills. We were headed back in the general direction we'd come from, east and north towards the trail we'd taken from the house. But I had no way of knowing if or when this particular snow machine track would connect. There were a few tracks from that old trail that headed generally this way, but there were a dozen more off-shoots of the one we followed now and none had yet proved straight. There was no way to know. I wished I had a snowmachine myself, to figure out these trails and loops. But at the same time that would take away the thrill of these minor explorations. I looked at the GPS and saw that we'd come over twelve miles already. I stopped the sled.

We were in the middle of a lake, and when I stepped off the runners to the side of the trail I sank to my hips. Devilfish wandered over and gave me a big kiss on the forehead while I struggled to pull myself back onto the trail, and Parka stepped on my arms and knocked me back into the drift trying to get in for a cuddle. Pepper, in a reverie of bliss, had completely disappeared into the powder while Xtra, still attached to Pepper's lines, stood holding her ground nervously on the edge of the packed stuff. Reese was shrieking in protest at the stop behind the two of them, slamming his harness. Norrin had flopped down on the trail and set to chewing ice balls out of his giant fuzzy feet, and Billie watched me over his shoulder, sitting snugged up against Norrin's sprawl on the narrow path.

Back on solid ground, I carefully stepped over the dogs and considered my options. I doubted the dogs would take off on me if I unclipped them completely, especially given the deep snow, but I didn't want to risk too much. I set the extra snow hook under the wheel dogs and pushed the whole sled off the trail to give us more room. Reese immediately caught on and started pulling everyone around, with Parka and Devilfish not far behind. I unclipped Pepper (who had emerged from her snow cave) and Xtra's necklines quickly as they were dragged along to give them more room to maneuver, and unclipped Billie and Norrin completely from their lines and each other. With one hand on Billie, I walked up past the now back-facing and slightly tangled team to the front, where I clipped him back in and left him to hold down the fort. Norrin, still chewing on his feet, was much more reluctant to come forward, and I slipped off the trail twice more before managing to navigate his hesitant bulk back up to his place next to Billie in lead. In the end, for all my anxiety about turning around on the drifted lake it hadn't gone too badly. I was sweating and sucking air in the end, but the dogs all ended up pointed straight ahead, tails wagging and barking to go without a hint of stress or anxiety about the ordeal. I wrestled the sled back onto the trail, retrieved the snow hooks and we headed home.

Despite the warmer temperatures, the wind kicked up and it turned into a cold run back. We pulled in at dusk, and to Peter's growing concern at our long absence. We'd been out for over three hours altogether, the longest run we've done this year, and we started later in the day to begin with. It was the first run this year where I've felt comfortable enough to listen with one ear to RadioLab podcasts, and it was a nice feeling to finally have enough confidance in what we are doing to start catching up on this season's shows.

The reality was, however, that the dogs were running on a familiar trail and every turn we came to I let them do what they wanted - I often didn't see the turns coming anyway and didn't know where the trails went. But the next day's run made this continued lack of responsive leadership crystal clear.

We started out earlier, with plans to try the birch forest loop across Rosie Creek. I wasn't sure the dogs would take the turn onto the lower Rosie Creek crossing without Peter their to guide them, but since we'd had his help on the last turn I figured it was worth a try. To my astonishment, Billie and Norrin took the turn! There was a good layer of fresh snow on the trails, so the dogs were taking it slower than usual. I was intending for this to be a short recovery run I didn't push them to pick up the pace. Everyone had inhaled their post-run snack yesterday, then curled up for a nice long nap, but by dinner they were pacing and frolicking again, eying the ravens in the yard and stretching out in the starlight. I figured a short, technical run would be perfect.

And it did turn out to be a short run. After that first, encouraging turn on to the Lower Rosie Creek crossing, my lead dogs never turned the way I asked again. At each crossing, I had to hook in and walk forward and get the team turned myself. Twice, I tried to hook in and make turns but the dogs dragged us all well past the point of no return. In the end, we barely went four miles. I was frustrated, but also felt resigned to our new focus. We had worked up to nice, long, mellow, decision free runs. Now we needed to work on being able to navigate the maze of trails closer to the house.

But for the rest of the week, the team was getting a break. I was headed out to follow the Yukon Quest.

anticipation

Every day, the temperatures are supposed to be warmer tomorrow. And every tomorrow dawns just as cold, with the same false hope on the horizon. What is true is that it's been entirely too cold to run the team, and that forty below zero has started to seem warm, and that Xtra now thinks her dog house consists of the couch and the woodstove, and that I am getting more restless with each passing day.

The Yukon Quest starts Saturday. This summer I turned in a volunteer application for the third time, but didn't expect to hear anything back since that has been the case for several years running. As the race start approached, I considered calling the office to see if my information had gotten lost but in the end figured that they were probably just swamped with folks wanting to help out and since I wasn't there in person clamoring for a spot I was out of luck. I told myself that it was better this way. I have several friends from work coming out to the start line on Saturday, and I'd much rather hang out with them in the chute than be running around at the staging area or attempting crowd control along the river.  And this way I'd be free to follow the race from checkpoint to checkpoint. At least, this is what I was telling myself.

But on Friday, I got a phone message from the Quest staff asking if I'd give them a call. Apparently, a load of volunteer applications hadn't been processed and I hadn't be receiving the e-mail updates requesting volunteers. In fact, they still needed people for vet checks and for a few of the checkpoints on the Alaska side of the race. The vet checks were the next morning. I called them right back.

And so I found myself driving down the highway at six thirty am on a Saturday, warily pushing thirty miles an hour in the thickest haze of ice fog I've ever seen. I arrived at a warehouse in the industrial district south of town to temperatures dipping under fifty below zero.

Inside the chilly building, tables were set up for officials to check paperwork and vets to check dogs and volunteers were wandering aimlessly between them, waiting for something to start happening. A hastily scribbled list on a white board outlined a schedule, with three mushers at a time slated to arrive in hour and a half blocks. I ended up with a group which included two other random volunteers - a girl with a husky she hoped to teach to skijor and a smoke jumper - and two veterinarians - one Quest vet-team veteran with purple hair and a newcomer Army veterinarian who had been transfered to Ft. Wainwright less than two months ago. We stood around our bare table, clipboard, thermometers and microchip scanners in hand, stomping our feet on the cold concrete floor and waiting. Eventually, the giant warehouse doors opened and frosty dog trucks began rolling inside along with waves of frigid air. To one side, I noticed a Quest staff person taking phone call after phone call from mushers whose dog trucks weren't starting, or who were stuck on the road somewhere far from town. Once of those was Lance Mackey, who'd been scheduled to arrive in the first wave of trucks.

We started with Kristy Berington's team. I learned later she is running out of the Gebhardt's kennel in Kasilof, and finished in the top thirty in last year's Iditarod. Her dogs looked spectacular, strong and bright-eyed. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Mike Ellis and his beautiful Siberian team cycled through the scales.When Kristy rolled out, Hugh Neff rolled in. While we waited for his paperwork to be processed, he told us how they had stopped for diesel in Delta Junction in the early hours of the morning, and the hose line had snapped in half in the cold. It was interesting to see the different conformations in his dogs - particularly those he'd aquired from John Baker, last year's Iditarod champion. Next was Abbie West, a local musher from Two Rivers, and her tough team of trapline dogs from the Fort Yukon area. The fifty or so dogs I saw that morning ran the gammut, from petite, sprint-type racers to classic Alaskan huskies, from thick-coated, dense 'village type' dogs to classically beautiful and remarkably fuzzy Siberians. Lance Mackey even had one that could pass for a police dog, it so resembled a shepherd.

Lance Mackey weighs one of his classic Alaskan Huskies.

I had to cut it short after Abbie's team came through, as I had to be at work later that afternoon, but I was brimming with proximity jitters from being around so many mushers I've admired from a distance for so long. It was surreal to see them all, joking around with one another, swapping dog food and stories, and interacting with their teams. Mackey and Neff sidled up behind Neff's truck for a few minutes, and Mackey absentmindedly gave one of Neff's dogs the ear-scratching of his life without ever looking at him. The dog was so mellow and blissed out under his hand, and he'll be competing neck-in-neck Mackey's dogs in less than a week. And to see all the different trucks, from Mackey's mac-truck custom rig to fancy walk-in trailers to DIY dog trucks designed and pieced together in someone's garage, was an education in itself.

I also saw the two people who kick-started me down this path in the first place; Paige Drobny and Cody Strathe of Squid Acres Kennel and Dog Paddle Designs. Peter and I house-sat for them, back when they were living in an off-grid cabin with fifteen dogs on the backside of Goldstream Valley. In exchange for watching their dogs over the holidays that year, Paige let me on the runners behind one of their teams and set the stage for everything that's followed for me.  They've been developing their kennel and racing mid-distances for the past couple of winters, and Paige is running her first thousand mile race in this year's Quest. The team included two dogs I'd known as puppies back then, and it was cool to see them all grown up, happy and strong and ready to race.

Cody and Stout, who I met as a puppy.

After all the fuss and my admittedly fan-boy admiration of everything going on around me,  I was even more elated to receive confirmation that I'll be able to work at the Circle checkpoint, at about the 370 mile point of the race. I'll watch the race start on Saturday, drive to Two Rivers and watch the mushers go through there that afternoon, then leave early Sunday morning to follow the Steese Highway as far as it will take me. I spent several weeks in Circle two summers ago, working as a medic on the Crazy Mountain Complex wildfire and I'm eager to see it again in this new context.  I'm also looking forward to sleeping indoors this time - granted on the floor with a sleeping bag and ear plugs - instead of in a tent or in my truck.

This will be the last race I'll have a chance to follow from Alaska for a while, and I'm glad I get to do it in high style. Now, I just have to pack the truck. And spend every spare minute running my little team between now and Sunday morning. Because, against all odds, the temperatures seem to be rising.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.