Time and work got away from me and I missed posting about our last two runs...I believe our first run was on Wednesday... that was the tangle run from hell when the team constantly wanted to ball up for one reason or another. First Thani was getting into the team at the start, then Griffin, then Gaea (who is getting faster every day).
When we past by one of our turns and were meant to go straight the leaders took the turn instead and I couldn't break them until they were well into it. That required the team to come around, get into another tangle and force me to get off the sled again... this is usually not a major issue, tangles can happen a lot whether its with one dog or an entire team but this all happened about a 1/4 mile after leaving the 'post'.
The dogs are super charged at take off and its only through training that they are able to behave. My hook is holding somewhat out there but it certainly wouldn't have held with all the excitement they had in their anxiousness to get on the trail. I also dropped about 50lbs worth of dog food to lighten the load so that didn't help keep them stopped. And since I had to plug Thani in the team early, to keep him from being a pest and causing another tangle, we had even more power to contend with. But all the guys did very well, even Salmon was good, who is a bit of a cheerleader and likes to encourage the dogs to go most of the time.
We had one more major tangle out there when the team negotiated another turn but other than that the run was okay. I was a bit off and out of it when we handled some of the tighter turns. The sled took its usual payment of tree bark and spruce needles but no damage.And since it was Gaea's first run after injuring her shoulder she got to run in the sled bag for a little while but didn't need the rest for too long. Its a very good sign for her and without a limp on our return she was scheduled to hit the trail again on Saturday.
The team seemed to be back on their game and back to full power so on our next run we did a bit more exploration and broke out more trail for another training loop. Having the new snow is making the act of putting in trails much harder but the dogs are all doing very well with it. Its just taking us a bit longer.
Hermes is shinning bright as a main leader. He leads beautifully by himself or with help. On Saturday he even took a turn command without help from a partner. I'm really impressed to see him blossom in this way and quite shocked. I never would have thought he would be comfortable in charge since he is so soft mentally. Id worry about him if we had to have interactions with another handler, at races and such, but since that isn't in our plan its not a major concern.
I put Hermes up in lead early when Reba was showing signs of stress. He was leading beautifully with Juno when we came up to another team head on... Kathy had left before me taking another route but I didn't expect to run into her out there at all. Both teams were very nice and very well behaved but I could see my team starting to unravel when Hermes started to turn back towards me instead of trying to pass when I asked.It wasn't a big deal but it was hard to communicate to Kathy what we should do over the barking dogs. I let my team go, they got into a tangle, I dumped my sled on its side, lined the dogs back out, Kathy passed by and stopped her sled next to mine while I finished up fixing the lines and walked back to sit on my sled to make sure they stayed stopped. We sat there for a little while talking about what we could have done better and both teams were extremely well behaved.
Juno got into a slight tangle just before we were ready to part, I fixed it real quick, came back to the sled and waved Kathy bye as she completed her run and we were just setting off on our own...
The trail was wonderful but the breaking trail was hard work as usual. I took off my snowsuit at the first sign of overheating but couldn't do anything about my boots. I had noticed the temps hovering just below zero before we left but didn't want to wear my lighter boots in case it got colder while we were out there.I sweat out my socks pretty bad but my Sorrels did a great job of keeping my feet warm despite the extra moisture. My hands were another story... I had to stop the team a mile or so from the truck just to warm them up. Nothing seemed to be working and my chemical hand warmers were very slow to get started. I was starting to worry that I may be on the verge of frost nip but despite the pain when the hand warmers finally did kick in and warm up my hands the next day there was no apparent damage.
It looks like this new path will be fun once its in but right now its really rough. I had to remind myself that our first slough path was also extremely rough when we started and now its packed and beautiful. I beam with pride that the team and I broke that one out all by ourselves. I honestly don't know what I would do with a snowmachine. I'm sure it would help cut our work in half or more but we have so much experience doing it the 'hard way' that I would be terribly lost with anything other than my dogs.
Total Miles: 12.9 (1 mile breaking trail)
Max Speed: 17.2
Moving Average: 5.9
Time Moving: 2.11.52
Time Stopped: 1.06.11
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