I loaded the dogs and drove out to a nice little trail-head I had discovered on my very first run with my proto-dog-team two winters ago. There is a little pull-out at the end of a road with plenty of room to get dogs situated and a sled lined out. From there, the trail drops gently into the marshes without any 90 degree turns or steep drops to navigate with a fresh team. I decided to leave Xtra at home this trip, so my team was Billie and Reese up front, Pepper and Norrin in swing and Parka and Devilfish in wheel. I'm not sure, looking back, why I thought it was a good idea to put Reese up with Billie right away. I think I had an idea that Billie would be a steady forward force, even if his command leadership wasn't perfect and that somehow on new trails - trails I was familiar with and confidant navigating myself - the Mysterious Reese Brain would miraculously overcome his directional challenges and u-turn obsessions.
Unloading and hooking up went well. I had spent a great deal of time Friday, before picking up Billie, working on getting the truck as organized as possible for the efficient off-loading & harnessing of dogs. It seemed like only a few minutes before we were flying down the trail towards the frozen marsh. The first part of the run went perfectly. Billie and Reese took my directions to loop around a big pond and then hit the main trail towards Ballaine Road and our old powerline trail. At the road, they took the gee turn at a four-way trail intersection as if they did it every day. We crossed the footbridge over Goldstream creek without a hitch and turned - a perfect gee onto a smaller trail, on command - onto the connecting trail to a long zigzagging powerline trail.
Trail conditions were as perfect as they could get this early in the season. There were some tussoks, but things were generally smooth - even in places where I knew bad ATV ruts were the rule. Once we got under the power lines, however the trail conditions changed dramatically. It almost seemed that the snow had skipped over the trail entirely. Certainly the ruts were much worse. I went from riding mindlessly along enjoying trail and reminiscing about the myriad times I'd run this route to desperately working the sled over the rough trail to keep it upright and moving behind the team. They were still running strong, though, not seeming to notice the sudden change in my work load behind them.
Suddenly the sled slowed, and the runners sank into powder. I looked up and saw that Billie and Reese had plunged off of the trail to the right, following a mostly unbroken ATV track instead of the packed down path. The were floundering in the snow and slipping a bit on the ice underneath. I called them to haw over back to the pack. Reese, on the left, did exactly that ... and when we reached the trail kept heading left despite my yelps of GEE. I tried to hit the brake to stop them, but this wide spot was over a forty foot long marsh-puddle on top of the trail and all my efforts just bounced off the ice as everyone followed an enthusiastic and confidant Reese back the way we had come.
What followed was several minutes of chaos as I tried desperately to hook the sled in, or wedge it against a tussock and get the team turned back around. As always, very effort was thwarted by the Reese Brain which had decided that we were heading east and any other direction was no longer acceptable. The ice under the snow was sabotaging my efforts at control, and even the packed trail - with its suddenly deteriorated condition under the power lines - was not giving me any purchase with the snow hook. At various points over the next minutes-that-seemed-like-hours, between trying to bring Reese around and get him to stay put, I was prone on the ground behind the sled being dragged with one hand on the brake bar, or snowplowing next to the flipped sled with one hand desperately gripping the handle bow, or sliding along face-first inches from the runners with both hands gripping the main gang line at the shock ring, with the brush bow rhythmically slamming into my head. Grace is not my middle name.
At this point, I had kicked the sled over and was trying to ease my grip back from the gang line to the handle bow. My leg had somehow gotten wedged precariously near the stanchion, and when the team lurched forward I had an awful instant of thinking the force was going to snap the bones. I flinched, and when I flinched I lost my grip, and before I had blinked the sled and the team were gone - down the trail without me.
I screamed for them to whoa, launching myself forward only to instantly fall flat on my face on the ice. I scrambled up again, crabbing sideways to the packed trail and sprinting after them. I was already breathless from wrangling the sled and team on the ice, and now, tearing after a team I knew I could never catch, every breath felt like a breath sucked in space - ice cold needles stinging my lungs and no oxygen to be had and hopeless visions of doom with each gasp.
The snowhook saved me. For all the futility of trying to get it to hook in over ice and shallow snow and frozen dirt, it spun, bounced and lodged itself into a giant grassy tussock fifty yards down the trail. When I reached the sled, it took some a great effort to get it dislodged. When it did, the entire miraculous giant tussok came with the hook and landed in a shower of frozen dirt in the sled basket. I leaned over the handles, relieved and exausted and shaking, trying not to throw up or lose my tremulous grip as the team dove forward forward, slamming the sled over endless ruts back towards the main trail.
I hardly needed to give them direction to get back to the truck. Dogs are good at back-trail, after all. At the trail head, they got some moose snack and a rub down, I loaded everything up and we headed home. I was horribly frustrated, exhausted and disappointed for much of the ride back. But on further reflection, despite a few minutes of high drama right in the middle, the run had gone incredibly well. The dogs were taking commands on the fly, and we did traverse six solid miles at a good clip. Maybe it hadn't been so bad, after all. But my bruised arms and sore muscles and the remembered terror of the lost team flying down the trail without me was a convincing voice to the contrary.
:: A few seconds of the run back to the truck through the Goldstream Marshes on Saturday ::
Sunday, we tried again. This time, I put Norrin up front with Billie and left Reese in swing with Pepper. We flew down Saturday's path, and made it all the way around to the trails behind Ivory Jack's without a hitch before turning around. Without Reese up front, however, the turnaround did not go very smoothly. We ended up halfway down someone's driveway, and then wrapped around the only spruce tree in sight, before finally managing it.
On the run out, we had crossed two big constructed bridges and three little foot-path bridges, all covered in a nice layer of snow. I hadn't even noticed the last couple. On the way back, however, Norrin - still up front - decided that bridges were the homes of dog-eating trolls and sat down in the middle of the trail whenever we got close to one, letting the team slam into him without seeming to mind as long as he didn't have to cross. I managed to coax him over the three little foot bridges without too much trouble, but when we reached the first big span bridge, he stopped and wouldn't budge despite the whole team yipping and trying to push and pull him forward. With nothing to hook into due to snow machines grinding the snow down to dirt at sharp turn to the bridge all I could do was stand there and wait for him to gather his wits and start running again. Eventually he did, giving a shake and proceeding over the span at full speed as if there had never been a problem. The next five miles to the Goldstream Creek bridge were smooth and problem-free, but when Norrin saw the bridge from fifty yards out he sat down and proceeded to try and back out of his harness. I hooked in and switched him for Reese, thinking that being in team would cure his anxiety. I was wrong on that count, but we did make it across after several balking stops and two more tangles, and Billie and Reese led us back to the truck without further incident.
Looking back, I'm beginning to see that my leadership this year is going to have to consist of more intentional management. Billie is a solid workhorse up front, but will cave to whatever stronger-willed Reese decides to do if they are running together. Norrin is calm and capable enough up front with Billie as long as the run is progressing smoothly, but meltdowns are still an ever-present possibility. Their strength as a pair is mostly when presented with clear left-or-right intersections with long, straightforward runs between. They certainly will not turn the team around. For any anticipated directional changes or multi-choice intersections, I need to put Reese up front. For all my complaints about the Reese Brain, he is the most responsive of the leaders, actively looking for trail when I stop the sled. But I need to keep him in swing until we are at that point, or headed down our back-trail to avoid a command decision by the Reese Brain to shorten our runs on a whim or take us down some random ghost trail he thinks saw as we flew by. I also need more snow to hook in and safely make all these changes with a strong team slamming their lines to keep moving forward, but snow is one factor I can't control at all.
Two days, two good - if drama-filled - runs. For the two weeks after Thanksgiving, I'll be on a very unaccustomed nine-to-five schedule, teaching a state certification class for the EMTs at work. It will be weird to be sleeping at home and working every day, and I'm not looking forward to only having the weekend to run dogs for a little while, and then a longer break as we head out to visit family over Christmas. Meanwhile, the adventure continues ...
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