transition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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