Sled

Yippeeeeee! I got my sled out for the first time since the West Yellowstone race almost exactly a year ago. I was surprised to see new runner plastic on it, but I had forgotten that I was unable to use it all last winter (I was on the ATV instead), and it had only been out for that one race.

This morning dawned unexpectedly sunny as the forecast was calling for a few more inches of snow today. It was horrible windy, though, and everything was badly drifted. The kennel gates drifted shut in a matter of minutes as I worked my way through the dogyard doing chores. Luckily, the snow was fairly easy to kick aside or forcefully open the gate through, but it got increasingly difficult as the day went on.

A trip to the compost pile with the day's gathering of organic waste material finally convinced me to get out the snowshoes. I spent some time tromping back and forth to the poop pile. Of course, it was drifted over as soon as I turned around, but I was at least packing a bit of a firm base underneath. Then I snowshoed out of the yard to pack a trail for the dogs to run on. I thought I might have to do the full mile across the fields, but I was able to find a route over to a packed trail in less than half that distance. I went over it several times to make sure I had a surface that the dogs would want to travel on. My legs are very sore tonight.

Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I was done packing a trail, along comes Mike on his snowmobile. Well, at least I had a trail to point him to. He went off to investigate a route that we would like to use but had not seen yet. When he came back, his snowmobile was reading 16 miles. Snowmobiles always read a little far because the track slips a bit depending on terrain and snow conditions and the throttle habits of the driver, so the actual distance may be 14 or 15 miles. We will try to get a second reading with his other snowmobile tomorrow.

While Mike was snowmobiling, I was hooking up dogs for my first sled run of the year. I put reliable old Fresca and Luna in lead since I had skijored with each of them, so they knew the way to the trail. Behind them I hooked up Blueberry, just because she has been so eager and disappointed not to go every day, and Charge, who is my biggest dog. I thought I might need his power since I was only taking four dogs. That's right, just four. Although the snow conditions are excellent, I did not want to tempt fate in case they got some notion to follow our old ATV route instead of the new trail across the field. I knew I could stop and hold four dogs okay.

The run went smoothly with nary a problem. The snow was soft and deep, but there was just enough of a packed base for the dogs to make steady forward progress and even lope in spots. We only went about four miles. It sure feels great to be back on a sled, and I know the dogs feel the same.