Seven Stinkers and I had a great run today trying to find Elmer’s Camp. The temps are cold enough for Wayne, and he’s really enjoying these sub zero days, me too!
I decided to only take 7 dogs because I had no idea where I was going, and I wasn’t sure of the trail conditions. This was a good choice. The main trails have deteriorated since I was last out (1 day ago). I’m not sure if it’s because of overgrooming or snowmachiners who are out and about when they shouldn’t be (due to poor trail conditions). There were a lot of rocks on the trails as well as dirt.
Phanty was a champion leader and listened to my commands. What a good boy!
We traveled from our house to Hastings Heritage trail, turned right onto Bessemer, turned right onto Bowers, turned right onto Swordfingle– which is where I though we’d find Elmer’s camp, but we didn’t. We turned right onto V lake trail and then I was getting concerned because I didn’t want to hit a major road (Upper Turriff). When I saw the stop sign near Upper Turriff I said “Fuck,” but I saw a single snowmachine trail to my left, so took that. I had no idea where I was going. The dogs were having a great time, but since there weren’t any other signs of dog sleds or sled dogs, I thought I was on the wrong trail, so I found a tree to hook onto and turned the team around. We had gone 9.73 miles.
It was fairly easy turning them around, and off we went, headed back in the direction where we came from when I turned around and there was a dog team behind me! I stopped my team and asked where Elmer’s camp was and sure enough it was the way I was originally going. At that point Stella (who was in lead) decided to turn everyone around and my dogs were tangled and saying hello to Brady’s dogs. Brady helped me untangle and off we went. As soon as we got onto the road, Brady and his fast team passed me.
I kept asking the Stinkers if they wanted to stop because our longest mush this year has been 7.11 miles, but they did NOT want to stop, so we mushed home– at total of 19.43 miles. When we got home, I souped them on the line and learned that Jack doesn’t like fish!
Jack and Ted are new to this mushing thing, and so far they are doing well. Ted’s a little slow, but he’s a Siberian, and that’s okay.
The line up was:
- Phanty & Stella (Lead)
- Siren & Wayne (Point)
- Jack (Team)
- Medusa & Ted (Wheel)
