Luke also went for a vet visit today. The vet wasn’t sure if he has a torn muscle or if it could be having back problems. Instead of doing ex-rays right away, the vet prescribed Methocarbanol (500mg every 8 hours). Methocarbanol is a muscle relaxant. Luke’s back thighs are very muscular and super tight.

Higgs and Luke added incredible strength to our “A” team. They are both big dogs (70lbs), who usually run in wheel and carry the team. With Rocket & Decker (a great leader) on bed rest due to a shoulder or wrist injuries, and Asa off the “A” team because he doesn’t like to run without his brother and he doesn’t like to run with Greg, we are left with Nikki, Chevy, Ahab, Capella, Zeus, Spike (who has harness rub on her chest), and Roo (who can’t run more than 100 miles). Soooo, my secret plan to run the Chatanika 200 and possibly the Quest 300 isn’t looking good this year.

Scott and I did recon the day before on the snow machine, to confirm the trail was in, and check out snow conditions. We were doing a 20-mile trip, from a parking area at Mile 42 on the Steese Highway. The trail was in, and had been used a few times within the past week. Snow was sufficient, and the cabin was nice and had plenty of tie-out room for dogs. (The Bureau of Land Management web site hadn’t been updated since December 16, when the trail had not yet been assessed by BLM staff.)

Scott contributed two of his dogs, Nike and Panda (short for Pandemonium) so that we could either have one team of 10, or two teams of 5. Ilana wanted to take Chester, so decided to ski in with Chester as a ski-jor dog. We got to the trailhead around 10:45 Monday morning (as the sun was rising), and Ilana started skiing a few minutes afterward. I left about an hour later, and Scott and Maureen left an hour after that (it takes awhile to get dogs bootied and harnessed, and the snow machine’s sled packed, but we had guessed I would be the slower team). This trail is uphill for about 7 miles — not often steep, and sometimes flat or slightly down, but mostly uphill. Ilana made excellent progress, and had gone almost 10 miles by the time I caught up with her, an hour after I started.

Trail conditions were good. Ilana needed to keep Chester close, so that he didn’t get caught in a trap. Trapping is legal on this federal land, as long as there is signage indicating there is trapping going on (there was). It’s legal on state land, which was the first 7 miles of the trail, without any signage. We saw, and smelled, multiple traps which were often just a few bandwidths off the trail. Yech.

Skiing was challenging for Ilana, and she got blisters early on. I passed Ilana, then Scott passed me. A little while later, Maureen passed me, too. I arrived in camp around 3:00 pm, a little more than 3 hours after starting. Scott and Maureen were there for about 1/2 hour before me, and, surprise! Ilana arrived within another hour. We bedded the dogs in straw, snacked then fed them, and gave them a little rubdown.

The cabin, like others in the White Mountains, requires a free advance reservation. It was snug, with sleeping room for 6 (or more, including a loft). It came with a dual-fuel Coleman lantern, a propane stove, and a wood-burning barrel stove. We stoked the stove and got comfy for the evening. As often happens with winter camping, we were all starting to fall asleep over our dinners by 6:30 pm, but rallied and had a game of Cribbage and some conversation. Still, we settled down by 9:30 or so. Scott had some barkers, so it was tough to snooze soundly all the night through.

I fed the stove before bed, so the cabin stayed reasonably warm all night. Probably close to 50F at dinnertime, then barely below freezing overnight (we left some water out, and it did not ice over). People started getting up by 9:00 am, and after a leisurely morning we were on the trail by 11:30 am. I was the lead team again, and was not passed. I made it back to the parking area by 2:00 pm, about 1/2 hour faster than the trip in. There were fewer Asa shenanigans on the way out (though there were some).

One of the nicest parts, in both directions, was watching the incredibly long sunset, with the moon rising. The sun was setting to the SSW, and the moon was rising almost directly opposite, to the NNE. The moon is nearly full, which means (by definition) that it’s opposite the sun. But from the hilltops, with really long twilight and dawn, we got an unparalleled view of this celestial display. The weather was perfect: clear, with lows around -12F and highs on the hilltops of maybe +15F. We encountered just a couple of people on the trail, who appeared to be workers doing some trail maintenance. The cabin logbook, though, showed that the cabin had been in constant use for the past few weeks.

For the trip home, I took Chester with me. He free-ran for the first 4-5 miles, where we hadn’t seen signs of trapping. After that, I put him on an extensible leash, and kept him close to the sled. Ilana rode in the snow machine with Maureen. They arrived just a few minutes after me, and Scott got there 1/2 hour later. We packed up, and drove home. All the dogs seem to be happy, healthy, tired, hungry and uninjured. Tracey, our dog sitter, had taken care of the home gang. Tomorrow, we’ll be back on the trails of Two Rivers.

Last night Greg headed out for a run with 9 dogs (Chevy, Nikki, Roo, Ahab, Higgs, Asa, Spike, Zeus, Capella). His plan was to either run a 17 or 23 mile run– a typical run for us. We’re down to nine dogs because Decker has a front leg injury (I’m speculating elbow), and Rocket has a front leg injury (I’m speculating wrist).

I took the ZZZ team (Red, Monkey, Punky, Bruno, Phanty, Rattles, Simba, Peetie, Sam) for a 7 mile run. When I came home from the run, I let all of the remaining dogs off for a party while I scooped the poop and tried to massage Decker and Rocket. I wasn’t expecting Greg home for another hour or so, but all of a sudden I saw Chester’s red blinky light at the gate. I ran up to open the gate and Chester escorted Greg and the team into the yard. Asa and Higgs were both in the sled bag!

Greg told me they were okay, and gave me details on what happened. Soon after leaving the yard, Asa decided he didn’t want to pull and began backing out of his harness. Greg put him in the sled bag– where he was content. Greg wasn’t too surprised, considering his past relationship with Asa. Soon after putting Asa in the sled bag, his brother Higgs started backing out of his harness. This was extremely unusual behavior. Higgs is a super-champ. He’s just run 33 miles two days ago. He’s a hard working guy. He began dipping snow, and then collapsed. Greg stopped the team, and ran over to Higgs, ready to give him mouth-to-snout resuscitation. Higgs was alive, and Greg carried him to the sled. Higgs fought Greg as Greg put him into the sled bag. Higgs apparently thought he was fine and ready to go. Greg shortened his run and came home. Both Asa and Higgs were happy and seemed healthy when we unclipped them from the bag. Higgs was panting a bit, but this is normal for him.

The temperature was 6 degrees above, so I don’t think he overheated– he never has before. It could be sled dog myopathy. We’ll need to get his blood tested to see.

But Decker has a sprained wrist, and has been off training for over two weeks. We’ll ease her in again next week. She’s a champion lead dog, and seems rather depressed to not be running.

Simba got pulled off the “A” team last season, due to a persistent shoulder injury. So, we eased him in this year, and included lots of stretching and massage. But no luck: the injury is still there.

Roo is good for training, but only pulls for 20 miles or so. After that, she can keep up, but doesn’t work. Definitely more of a sprint dog.

I was worried about Asa (he’s getting older, and had a persistent resistance to running with me, last year), but he and brother Higgs are still pulling strong and true.

The most recent loss is Luke. We are not sure what’s going on, but he did poorly on Saturday, then on Sunday simply wouldn’t pull (he was getting tugged by his neckline). He is sort of limpy, and sort of looks constipated, and we are not sure what’s up. We’ll let him keep resting for a few more days before visiting the vet (we have not had a week without at least two vet trips in 5 or 6 weeks!).

So the current “A” team (in the typical pairs we run them in):

Chevy, Nicki
Ahab, Rocket (who I’m not that sure about…he seems to overheat)
Capella, Zeus
Higgs, Asa
Roo (good spunkiness, but limited miles)
Spike (used to run with Luke)

We might get Phanty trained up. He’s only a yearling, and really doesn’t have much of a clue about anything, but seems to have potential. Also, I hope Decker will get back into training again. Bottom line is that today, we have 10 “A” team dogs, and maybe three others (Decker, Phanty, Luke) who might get back onto the “A” team.

The next day (March 21) we got up late, and eventually left camp at around 1pm. We were following the trail that had  started at the park headquarters. Since this year was such a big snow year, the bad section of overflow and glare ice (around 1 mile after park headquarters), wasn’t bad at all. Soon the trail petered out and we were following a ski trail. The snow was very deep, so I put on my snow shoes and broke trail, then ran back and mushed with my snow shoes still on. Repeat process.

Unfortunately, the ski trail we were following let us to the park road and the road had just been plowed. It snowed a little bit the night before, so the road had some snow cover on it. We cruised down the road to the Savage River camp site. We stopped to set up camp (around 4:00pm), and it took us a long time to melt snow and take care of dogs– but at least this time we were able to do chores in the daylight. We kept Sam and Bruno, with the rest of the dogs, on tie-outs and let Chester and Storm free. Storm was very needy.

After a night of endless whining from Bruno, we woke up at around 9am and began morning chores. After chores, we scouted a possible route back to headquarters that would have led us through Jenny Creek. There was a lot of open water on the creek, as well as no-snow spots, and we didn’t see a definitive trail, so we decided to head back the same way we came out. We saw HUGE wolf tracks and tons of fresh wolf scat; HUGE bunny tracks; and a big fat bird that was waiting for us to leave camp.

We probably left camp around 2pm and were quite bummed to see that the road had been plowed again– and this time it was plowed to the asphalt. We mushed for around 1/4 mile on the road (Yuk) and eventually got back to sections of the road that had some snow. We found the turn off for the ski trail, and with a little maneuvering got the teams to make the turn. The rest of the mush home was uneventful.

Dogs

We brought 21 pulling dogs and one fun dog (Chester).

Days 1 & 2

Ilana

1. Nikki / Chevy (no one wants to run next to Chevy because he nips at his running mate)
2. Ahab / Decker
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Asa / Higgs
5. Peetie / Red

Greg

1. Frankie / Storm
2. Dutchess / Rocket
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Roo
5. Monkey / Pumpkin
6. Luke /Spike

Day 3

Ilana

1. Nikki/ Chevy
2. Frankie / Dutchess
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Monkey / Pumpkin
5. Asa / Higgs

Greg

1. Decker/ Storm
2. Ahab/ Rocket
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Roo
5. Peetie / Red
6. Luke /Spike

Trip Planning
Since I was traumatized by Spot being killed, Greg was in charge of packing and trip planning. I don’t know the exact amounts of what he brought– but it was a lot of food. For dog food he brought two 40lb bags of kibble, a block of turkey skins, Champagne race meat, energy pack, 42 pieces of big fish, some left over snacks from the Serum run (which Peetie, Sam, Bruno, and Chester stole from my sled) and some fat. We came back with most of the turkey, race meat, energy back, and 30lbs of kibble).

Gear

• Our Mountain Hardware winter tent is great, however our 20+F sleeping bags really aren’t appropriate for -20F.
• Once again we had stove problems. Greg purchased a pump for our MSR stove, but there are two separate pumps for the Whisper Lite and the DragonFly, so the pump he bought didn’t work with the stove we brought. We also had issues with our Colman stove.  Note to self: bring fire starter paste!

I visited Ilana and the crew in Manley, which was a nice trip to the end of the Elliott Highway. More news is on the Serum Run site, including a blog, message board (where you can send messages to your favorite musher: Ilana!), and GPS trackers to follow the expedition every day.

Storm and Simba stayed home, due to shoulder injuries limiting their multi-day endurance. That makes for a team of 10 dogs, plus Ilana and Heather. The dogs are all eating well and doing fine. They are: Decker, Chevy, Nicki, Roo, Higgs, Asa, Rocket, Ahab, Luke and Storm. Weather is fine, and the trail has been good so far.

Heather’s snow machine is ready, and will haul a huge sled with lots of gear. Ilana’s dog sled will also have days of booties, first aid (for dogs, people, and the sled), food, dog jackets, and more. It’s a major expedition, and both challenging and fun.

We made it just out of the driveway when Decker decided she didn’t want to run and got tangled behind Roo. It’s almost impossible to stop the team after I’ve just taken off. I was wishing that I had that extra 40 pounds of dog food in the sled to slow us down a little bit. I still had two fifty pounds bags of sand and one 40 pound bag of food in the sled, but these guys are crazy when then are just getting going.

I had no choice. I had to stop the team. As soon as we got onto the trail I slammed on the break and pounded my snow hook into the snow. It didn’t work. The dogs pulled the snowhook out and were running down the hill. I tried again. Success (?). It was a bad place to stop because we were on the downward side of a hill. I ran up to untangle Decker and saw bright red blood all over the snow. I started examining Decker, thinking that there was something wrong with her and the reason that she didn’t want to lead. It turned out it was Rocket’s blood. He was bleeding from his mouth– no biggie. Either he bit his tongue or Spike bit his tongue. I switched Decker and Roo– put Roo in lead with Chevy and Decker with Nicky. I ran back to the sled and just as I got to the back of it they pulled the hook and I jumped on.

Two seconds later, I see Roo running down the trail with Chester. The leader line had broke. Chevy was attached to the gang line, but Roo was free and having a grand ‘ol time. Since I have such a difficult time stopping the team, and since Roo was having such a good time, I ran for around a mile until I stopped the dogs. Dang. I didn’t have another double leader line. I attached single tug line to the gang line and added a neckline for an extender. I put Chevy on the longer line and Roo on the shorter one. I ran back to the sled.

We ran for another couple of minutes and Rocket was all tangled with Spike and Spike was about to beat him up. I stopped the sled, switched Rocket with Ahab. Ran back, started again and noticed that Spike’s harness had unclipped. ARRRGGGGG. This was supposed to be a short and fast run. I pounded in the snow hook and fixed Spikes harness. When I ran back to the sled they had pulled the snow hook and I jumped on the moving sled, but the hook was caught under the runner. I tried to stop, but the dogs would have nothing to do with stopping. Somehow the snowhook hooked itself into the snow and stopped them for a second. Just as I was about to lift it up, the rope that the snow hook is tied to broke and the dogs took off with the hook embedded in the snow. Now I was really screwed because there was NO WAY that I would be able to stop to fix a tangle. When ever a dog, (especially Roo), straddled their tug line I stood on the break and told them they needed to get untangled themselves because I wasn’t able to get off of the sled. At one time I asked Chester to jump in the sled to see if his extra 80 pounds of weight would hold the team when I stepped off the sled, but it didn’t work.

Instead of going home, I took them in a loop and retrieved the snow hook.

We made it home. I took the second team out, (the B team) for a slow and uneventful run.

Today was the first run with 12 dogs (versus 10) and on the RatStack/Mullen’s Slough route. We’ve been doing a 12 mile loop for two weeks. Sunday afternoon is a popular time to mush in our area, with lots of folks who don’t get out regularly during the week. It’s great to see the neighborhood, though not everyone knows some of the basic trail rules.

A case in point was that I came upon two people with an ATV and 6 or so dogs. They had driven their truck to the winter trail intersection from an access trail. It’s not my access trail, so I don’t know how far it is or over what conditions, but it was a surprising sight to see a truck there. I’ve never seen anything motorized on the winter trail except for snowmachines and ATVs.

My team was going fairly quickly (this is nearly 3 miles from our house, so they still had plenty of ya-yas at that point), and I needed to slow down to avoid overrunning the ATV team. They must have seen me when they started (when I was 50 yards from their truck), but went ahead. I called for trail, to pass them, but they didn’t hear or ignored me.

Neighbor and uber-musher Mike King pulled up behind me with his team. We were all waiting to pass. It was about 20 minutes — really — before they finally got a clue and pulled over. I asked them to hold their leaders, but instead they drove for another few minutes and tried again. This time, holding their leaders.

Trail passing etiquette for passing from behind is, essentially, that the team in front should pull over at first opportunity, set a brake, and hold their lead dogs to the side of the trail so the trailing team can pass. Then, to not pass again immediately, since being passed tends to energize dogs. Those folks didn’t seem to know about such things, and clearly weren’t keeping much of an eye on the trail behind them.

Anyway, I called out my thanks, and a warning that another team was behind me, and continued on. Another few miles and after crossing Pheasant Farm Road, my mush was going well. The team knows that section of trail, but hadn’t been there all season. After a steep downhill, we dropped onto the slough. This is a cross between a marsh and a river and a pond. Not a good place to try to get through in the summer, but during the winter there is a trail that drops on and off the ice, and crosses through some woods. Some TRDMA races go through there. Maybe the Yukon Quest does, too.

The trail was in, though not very well used. I followed it, and in an open field area Chester (my trusty loose leader) spun off and headed towards a cow & adolescent moose. Moose! No, it wasn’t too perilous. The team saw the moose, but they saw us and wandered off into the woods before we got there. We were within 200 feet or so, and Chester got close enough to say “hi,” but then we were past.

Another mile or so along the slough, towards the end where we get back onto Pheasant Farm Road (which at that point is more of a logging road), there was a tight right turn up a hill, and a small fallen tree across the trail. Suddenly, after following a trail all that way, there wasn’t any more trail. Maybe the main trail veered off without me noticing.

More importantly, the dogs went under the branch, down the other side, and immediately fell through the ice over the slough. Yep, the stinkypups got another bath!! It was surprising to me to find this thin ice, since everything so far had been solid. (For those who remember my bath from 2006: I’ve crossed that section many times, and the ice is totally solid and well used.)

I was wrestling with the branch, the dogs were swimming and trying to get through. It was an opening about the size of a kitchen table, or a bit bigger. I was thinking of trying to drag everyone up and back the way we came, but as I wrestled with the branch they kept pulling me forward, and eventually I got free of the branch, they leapt forward out of the water, and I was pulled in. My sled got a little sideways, and I was up to my waist in very cold, muddy, stinky water. I got the dogs to keep going, although they fell through the ice again, in a smaller hole, 15 yards ahead.

I told them “lets go” and held onto the sled, getting it right side up, to let them drag me through. Rather than trying to stand on the thin ice, or get up on my runners, I let them drag me along the ice (spreading out my weight). This worked, and we made it through the other side. I needed to untangle a few dogs once we were on a small bit of land (just a 15 foot section between parts of the slough), but otherwise nobody seemed any worse for wear.

Ahead, I could see a much wider part of the slough with a trail on it, which we joined. The rest of the mush was without incident. I’m sure there are some locals who can tell me about a current, or hot spring, or something similar that keeps that small section from freezing as early as the rest, but it was a surprise to me and the stinkypups. I’ve been through there this time of year before, without any problem. It might be that we would have made it through, if we didn’t have the additional downward momentum created by stopping on the tree branch. Or maybe my sled would have broken through, but not the dogs.

We passed Mike again on the way home (he had taken a different route). While the dogs do OK after getting wet, especially in the balmy 10 degrees Fahrenheit, when this all happened, I was soaked completely in both boots/socks, all of my right side to my waist, and most of my left side. Also both hands/arms.

The cool part is that once I was out of the cold water, I did not get cold for quite some time. My Apocalypse Design snow suit, heavy weight Apocalypse fleece pants, Patagonia expedition weight mountaineering socks, Baffin Design boots all did a great job.

Special thanks to my mittens, made by our neighbor Maureen. These are fleece outside and in, and either fleece or foam interior. These were totally soaked. I squeezed them out, and put them on. And they kept me warm, the whole way home! Amazing stuff…completely wet, and literally freezing solid on the outside, and my fingers were reasonably toasty for 45 minutes or so.

Back home, my pants and boots had started to freeze solid, and were quite heavy. My frozen mitts, coupled with the frozen clips and harnesses on the dogs, meant I needed to use my bare hands to unclip the dogs. (A technique for a frozen brass clip is to hold them in your bare hand for a few seconds, to thaw them.) Since it was 10 degrees above zero, this wasn’t as bad as it might seem….below-zero temps would have made this whole exercise much more perilous.

Ilana came out and finished up the dog care, and I squeegeed myself and my gear off, to get ready for another day.

For the record, my team was: Chester as loose leader, leaders were Chevy & Decker, Nicki & Roo, Storm & Rocket, Luke & Spike, Ahab & Higgs, with Simba and Rattles in wheel.

We’ve moved Sugar into the house because she got beat up by Nutok. She’s been doing pretty well, although I haven’t moved her from the blog “sled-dog” category to the “pet dog” category because I’m not sure if the move is permanent.

We’ve been bringing Frankie into the house more and more as “dog of the day.”  Frank is a really good lead dog, but he runs like a duck and just doesn’t have the build of a sled dog. He gets very cold in the winter, and my plan is for him to stay inside on cold winter nights. When we adopted him, he was an inside dog– but his owners gave him up because he was high energy and was destructive. He’s been very well behaved inside, although like Chester, we don’t leave him home alone. He’s quite comfy on the couch– but Neptune doesn’t like this since the couch really belongs to him (Nep.).

Since I’m probably going to participate in the 2009 Serum Run, I needed to get some more dogs. Of the 25 dogs that we have, only 4-7ish can run 750 miles (30-60 miles per day). These dogs are:

• Nicky (Can run in lead, but doesn’t know commands).
• Decker (A great lead dog, but doesn’t know how to poop and run so she holds it in and has bloody diarrhea at the end of the day. She’s not a good eater on the trail).
• Storm (Can run in lead, but is petrified of snow machines because she got hit by one.)
• Simba (A good team dog, but has extremely BAD feet. I need to take diligent care of his feet, otherwise they’ll crack and bleed.)
• Higgs (A possible candidate. He tends to overheat and get tired).
• Asa (Higgs’ brother– a possible candidate, but has had some wrist injuries).
• Roo (A possible candidate, but Roo tends to not eat at all on long trips. She also crabs a lot (runs to the side) in Manmat harnesses and does better in a traditional x-back. She can run in lead, but gets tired after 20 miles).

Sooo, we got some new dogs from a neighbor who was getting out of mushing. This puts us back up to 31 dogs (ack!!!) The new guys are:

• Dutchess (A 10 year old female that we’ll use for gee/haw training)
• Luke (A 3 year old male)
• Spike (A 3 year old spayed female)
• Rocket (A 5 year old male)
• Ahab (A 5 year old male)
• Chevy (A 4 year old male)

I’ll post pics and bios soon.