The Journey Continues
October 31, 2006

It was a dark and stormy night at sea… Opps! Wrong story. I found quills in Lycos for a week after the porcupine, but he is fine now. Keiko had a pulled groin muscle and is slowly recovering and working her way back into full training. Throttle was off just a little and has dings in her pads, just like Dijon and Thyme. Throttle and Dijon are both back running, wearing two booties on each rear foot to protect them. Thyme is immature and isn’t putting weight on her sore foot yet. She is sleeping in a crate in the bedroom to help her heal faster and won’t resume training until she uses that foot at home.

The weather has changed. We have snow on the ground and the nights are not as dark. This has to be seen to be believed. With our normal cloud cover at night and the new snow the lights from the city reflect from heaven to ground and back again. There is enough light to walk at night, but not enough to read by. During a good snowstorm I’ve almost been able to read in the reflected light.

While we have snow, it is not that cold and the ground is just starting to freeze. On Sunday we had an inch of ice on top of the big mud puddles on Fort Richardson. It was enough to support the dogs, but the 4-wheeler broke through. I borrowed Bonnie’s big Bombardier (it sure rides nice) and drove it through the water and into the snow. After the run it looked like a moving igloo. It was cold enough to freeze all the snaps and lines. After the run I stood my lines against the side of the truck and broke the ice to coil them.

Bonnie caught the Anchorage Crud (either that or a computer virus) and has been too sick to run or enjoy much of the Fairbanks mushing symposium. Last Wednesday Leslie and I took the dogs on the first camping trip. We used the Bombardier and hooked all 18 healthy dogs in a single team. Once the dogs settle into travel mode there is no problem running a large team, but that first surge out of the staging area is impressive. It was nice to have Leslie there just in case we had a problem. In mushing, as long as it’s all right, it’s all right. But if you have a problem you have to be able to stop and control the team to fix it. Imagine a fight with a loose dog or having a moose come into a large team like that. Ouch! To put this in perspective, before 1995 the standard Iditarod team was 20 dogs, and they took the entire team down 4th avenue to Eagle River. Martin commented how he liked to be on the edge of control – I never asked him which side of that edge he was on. ;-)

The run went well. We came back to the truck, fed the dogs, unclipped tug lines and went behind the trucks for our dinner (If you don’t leave the dogs they won’t sleep.) Leslie and I both had self heating meals and I brought cookies. Then it started to snow. Large heavy wet flakes. We bedded down on tarps between the trucks – I pulled a second tarp over me to protect the sleeping bag and Leslie rolled up in hers. The condensation from our bodies coated the inside of the upper tarps and both sleeping bags were wet on top, but better than exposed to the wet snow.

Last year when Lexi and I did this it was pretty quiet, but several people came by to run their teams while we were trying to sleep. I wonder what they thought of two homeless mushers camped in the parking lot? It is a good way to test your gear. If something doesn’t work you just go home. My idea behind winter camping is not to tough it out, but to learn what it takes to be comfortable, and how to do it with the least amount of gear to carry.

Dijon and Mocha surprised me by not lying down the entire 6 hour rest. This is the same Mocha who last year refused to sleep in her dog house. This fall she made a bed of leaves in the roots of a tree in her area and slept there until it snowed. Silly girl.

At 2 AM our 6 hour rest was almost complete, and just we would in a like a race, we were up and moving. Leslie never even questioned my sanity; she knew there was nothing left. :-) Rather than turn the large team around I led them through the tie off posts around the back of the parking lot and back through the posts. With a larger lot or smaller team it would have worked, but we tangled the front 6 dogs. While I was undoing the tangle Dijon got loose. He was already in run mode and had seen the outgoing trail. Before I could do more than call his name he was gone.

Dogs are creatures of habit and I figured he would run the trail just like we had been – down to Beach Lake, then back up and onto Ft. Richardson. We got everyone squared away and with a hearty “Hi-Oh Lycos” (I do what I can…) we were after him. At Beach Lake there is a large teardrop to turn the team and we had always run right to left. This time I figured we would catch him there and we ran left to right. Half way down Leslie saw Dijon running towards us. I stopped the team and ran up to the leaders to see a very confused Dijon trying to figure out what to do now. Remember last year he tried to run past me and I had to tackle him. He started to run back the other direction and then he recognized me and came over. Whew! With him back in the team we finished the 15 mile run and went home to a well deserved nap.


Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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