Storm ran off to chase the moose, as did Frankie and Nutok.  The dogs attached to me decided to run after them too, and got all tangled in a tree. They’re very strong when they want to be, so the started pulling very hard and slamming me into a tree. Soon the leashes were totally tangled. I saw that Chester was attempting to eat his leash to get free (he’s very talented) and pulled him toward me. As I got one dog toward me, another would lunge forward. Chester eventually ate his leash and ran free. After he was gone, I slammed into the tree couple of more times and then managed to untangle everyone.

After I got home, I unleashed Stubby, Bruno, and Chez, and corralled Neptune, Duchess, Magic and Decker into the yard. I went back to look for the missing dogs. I found Storm where the commotion happened. She was barking at a Momma moose and her baby. They were so big and cute and hairy! Storm came to me and I leashed her. Frankie, Chester, and Nutok soon came running along and I ran with them to our house.

When I opened the gate to let the delinquents in, Stubby decided to attack Storm and as I was breaking up the fight Bruno ran out. He ran up and down the street and I pounced him and caught him.

Once everyone was inside, I counted everyone.  They were all there and all safe.

Ah, spring time in AK is moose season! I should have known a moose was hanging around because Chester jumped the fence this morning.

Nikki: Right before the KC epidemic Nikki cut her foot on something. It was sliced open badly– not something that I could fix. She went to the vet and received several stitches in her paw pad. Healing time was estimated at 10 days and she was to wear a bootie and take cephalexin for an antibiotic.  Nikki appeared to be depressed that she couldn’t run with the team– at least this is what we thought because she wasn’t eating much and moped about. Then the KC came and she plummeted further into the doggie dumples. It’s been around four weeks of picking at food or not eating. I brought her to the vet today and she’s lost around 6 pounds since her visit to the vet four weeks ago. Doc felt a loopy intestine, so she’s scheduled for a barium test tomorrow. Possible obstructed bowel.

Chez: Last week I noticed a hole in Chez’s neck when I got home from work. There were drops of blood on the floor and his wound was actively bleeding. It was a regular puncture wound, but in a unique location. After speaking with a vet, I cleaned the wound and attempted to staple it closed. Stapling a dog by yourself is doable, but stapling a dog’s neck is tough. I placed one in a good spot and the other wasn’t very good– one end of the staple was in the skin and the other in the hole of the wound. I left it because he didn’t want me fussing with it. He too was put on cephalexin.

Magic: Around the time I noticed Chez’s wound, I also noticed a small puncture wound in Magic’s tush. I shaved part of it and cleaned it out. I put him on cephalexin because he tends to get infections.

Roo: Yesterday while we were saddling up the gang to go for a run, I noticed Roo’s back foot was bleeding.  We brought her inside to defrost the frozen iceberg of blood and saw her toenail was torn and instead of pointing vertical (like a normal toenail should) it was horizontal (pretty cool looking actually!). She must have caught it on the fence. She went to the vet today to have the toenail removed. The doc called me at work to check and see if she could cut her other toenails. I said “Yes!” Her toenails were pretty long and she was on the list for clipping– but I hadn’t gotten to it yet. It’s kinda embarrassing when your vet notes that your dog’s toenails are gnarly.

King Neptune: Neppy went to the vet today because of his on/off eating. His bloodwork was mostly normal, except for his pancreatic levels. We’re sending his medical files from one vet to the other, so the vet can examine his previous blood levels. Stay tuned.

Storm: This one isn’t vet related, but spring related. Now that it’s getting lighter out and late in the winter season, the moose are out and about. Storm decided to chase one this morning.

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!

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.

The route is 50 miles one way, then a 4-hour layover at Angel Creek (mile 57 Chena Hot Springs Road), then the same route in reverse. From the starting point at the Pleasant Valley store (mile 22 CHSR), we headed west to trails that Ilana and I use quite a lot, for a loop around the Jenny M. hill, then back east through the extensive (and confusing!) Two Rivers trail system. From there, a road crossing at mile 27 puts us on the winter trail (the Yukon Quest trail), paralleling CHSR all the way to Angel Creek. So, about 30 miles from the road crossing to Angel Creek, and about 20 miles in the Two Rivers trail system.

Temperatures were as high as 10 degrees or so above zero during midday, but mostly were -5 to zero until the return trip, when temps dropped to -15 or so. Very nice weather for mushing. I saw some northern lights on the return trip, though they were faint. This was the shortest day of the year, and in fact I had great views of the sun barely climbing above the horizon (around 11am) and then setting (before 3:00 pm). There was one incredible photo moment when I was heading directly south, with another musher ahead of me, into the midday sun — with the sun barely above the horizon. Too bad I didn’t have a camera.

Overall, I finished #25 out of 27 mushers who completed the race (two mushers scratched during the race, and there was another field of 5 mushers who did a one-way 50 mile race instead). I was quite pleased with my team, and happy with my times: about 5h 25m for the first leg, then about 6h for the second leg. This is a steady pace of 8-10 mph, which is the speed we’ve been training the dogs to run. It was a field of mushing luminaries, including Jodi Bailey, Lance Mackey, Ally Zirkle, and many other competitive mushers. Also some less competitive ones like the StinkyPups. A good time was had by all.

The snow was great — we had some fresh snow that was packed, but not too hard. There was literally zero overflow (open/flowing liquid water), which was a first for my use of the trail to Angel Creek. There was a little open water in the slough (where I took my bath earlier in the year), but the trail bypassed it.

My mush was free of incidents, but I did get to help another musher who lost his team (his main line broke, so his team ran off without him and his sled). The trail was exceptionally well marked.

The team lineup on the way to Angel Creek: Dekker & Chevy in lead, Ahab & Storm, Higgs & Rattles, Rocket, Luke & Spike, and Nikki & Roo.
On the way back: Dekker & Chevy in lead, Nikki & Roo, Rattles & Ahab, Rocket, Luke & Spike, Higgs & Storm.

Dekker & Chevy are very steady leaders. The only dogs who had trouble on the way back were Spike (who seems to be the new Pumpkin: she likes to lollygag, and doesn’t really pull much after she’s tired), and Rattles, whose missing toe seems to be bothering him. Rattles is probably not going to be continuing with hard training for the SerumRun. Back home, Storm was limping a bit, but this isn’t unusual and she did well during the run. We’ll try to find out what’s bothering her over future days.

My last note on this is the incredible amount of time we take to put on booties. Before the race, Ilana and I started to put booties on dogs 40 minutes before my targeted start time, and didn’t finish all 11 dogs before I needed to start. Mid-race in Angel Creek, I allotted 30 minutes for the job, and ended up leaving 10 minutes after my earliest start time, to finish the job. This is for booties on 5 or 6 of our 11 dogs, not all 11. Back home, we only have a few dogs who always get booties (because they have sensitive feet, or get ice balls), while most don’t regularly get booties. So when we try to give booties to more dogs, it’s slow: they don’t cooperate as well, and it’s just a lot of work. This is something we’ll get better/faster with, over time.

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.

This morning Greg woke up and found Wild laying in pee and she couldn’t stand up. Even with the help of a towel, she couldn’t stand. She was like this once before around a year ago, after she got beat up by the sled dogs, she couldn’t stand for three days. Her temp this morning was 103.

Bosco is bones and fur. He isn’t interested in eating anything. Magic is sick. He has diarrhea and a temp of 103.5. He isn’t eating. Roo isn’t eating. Storm isn’t finishing her food.

On Monday, we came home and there was diarrhea all over the house. Greg thinks it was Buckwheat, but I’m thinking it was Scully, because she didn’t eat dinner and was looking sickly.

Today on my mush there was a poop extravaganza. I never saw such poop, in my years of mushing experience. The route I did was our Chena River route. This is about 33 miles in a big loop that takes us along the winter trail towards Fairbanks until around mile 10 CHSR, then south to a slough and eventually onto the Chena River. At that point, we were on the Yukon Quest trail (there were still markers up, and the trail was nicely packed). We followed the river for a little over 10 miles, very windey, then emerge at the Chena Lakes State Recreation site. A few miles following the dikes and drainage system there, then into the woods and back along the Quest trail to our access trail and home. It’s a great training route, though the river can be draining because it’s long, relatively dull, and can be cold. Unlike typical trail mushing, mushing along the river doesn’t involve much body movement (since it’s so flat: those many micro movements made with muscles along a bumpier route don’t need to happen). Deep knee bends are a good way to keep warm & moving.

Anyway, what I wanted to write about is poop. Lots of it! With 10 dogs, 3-4 hours after their breakfast, there is bound to be some pooping no matter what. But today, there was poop all along the 33 miles, with most dogs pooping more than 5 times each. This is, you would think, highly unlikely. Where did it all come from? Couldn’t they finish all at once or in at most two tries?

It was a warm day, making the dogs run slower than usual (our pace was around 10 MPH). Maybe that’s why. We didn’t feed them a big breakfast, and the dogs aren’t sick.

The lineup and performance:

• Dekker (5 poops, required stopping the team) & Nikki (5 poops)
• Higgs (4 poops) & Storm (over 20 stops to poop, pee, & think about it. I eventually moved Storm to wheel position)
• Pumpkin (1 poop. Today’s winner!) & Monkey (8 or 9 poops, a few pees, and multiple tangles in other dogs’ lines)
• Rattles (4 poops) & Simba (8 or 9 poops. Simba is usually a champion pooper, but this was extraordinary)
• Roo (4 poops, eventually I swapped her with storm) & Red (3 poops)

Holy cow! It was incredible, and exceeded all prior experiences with poop. It’s typical for dogs to get their poops out when they first start running, especially just a few hours after eating. But it’s unheard of for dogs to be pooping for 30+ miles (Simba, Roo, Monkey and Storm were all early poopers, and were still pooping at Chena Lakes).

Sled dogs can poop and run, and learn to do this by being dragged along by their fellow dogs while trying to squat. Really talented leaders (like Darla) can poop and run at speed, but most leaders need you to slow down a bit. Dekker is a truly outstanding leader in all ways but one: she stops cold to poop, with no warning, and gets run over by the team while squatting. Nikki can poop and run, but if I slow down she appreciates it.

Storm, another of our leaders, needs to pee a lot and cannot pee or poop while running. She is also a dog that likes to fling herself to the ground, splayed out, to cool off whenever we stop. So imagine her in pole position, squatting to do some business. Higgs, Nikki and Dekker try to pull her along, but it’s hard to do and everyone slows down. If I stop the team, Storm stops her business and flings herself to the ground… if I encourage everyone to keep going, she seems to think I’m telling her to stop and so starts running again. Imagine repeating this over a dozen times, and you understand why I moved her to wheel. One challenge is, once the dogs have begun to get tired, they’re perfectly willing to slow or stop for another dog. But Storm evidently only takes care of her business while getting yanked along by the rest of the team.

Disclaimer: all poop counts are estimates, but I’m so not exaggerating!

1. Lead: Frankie & Decker
2. Point: Red & Storm
3. Team: Monkey & Higgs
4. Swing: Simba & Rattles
5. Wheel: Nicky & Roo

Ending Team was:

1. Lead: Nicky & Decker
2. Point: Simba & Rattles
3. Team: Monkey & Higgs
4. Swing: Storm & Red
5. Wheel: Frankie & Roo

The trail conditions were soft packed snow, no overflow (although before the race we were told there was 50ft of wet overflow/water that was 1.5 feet deep– good thing Greg didn’t encounter this!).