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.