Took the dogs out for another run yesterday. Brought all my weight in the sled thinking we wouldn't do much trail breaking and this time I was actually right!All the trails we have had to break out this season are nicely packed and ironically a few of them have only been packed by us. Its nice to see that. Most mushers crave solitude, I'm no different.
The run was a bit uneventful except for a new trail we found that led to someones old shack. The trail was a real sled buster but we came out alright with everything in one piece. Its nice to know its there so we wont waste our time on it again.
We headed down trying to find a break through for a longer loop but had to turn back cause I wasn't too sure about our direction. After I got back to the house and had another look at the map it helped me see that we were pointed right. Next time I will do a bit more work and push that new trail in a bit more.
The main problem right now is our lack of daylight. After my last exploration trip where I tried to find my way in the dark Ive made a rule that I wont do any more exploring, no matter how tempting, if the light is fading. We have only a few weeks until our winter solstice... after that our options will greatly open up for exploration.
The one exciting thing on our run is that I'm trying to get the pups up in lead for more experience. Reba is great up there but if she feels the least bit stressed she wants to quit. A musher could greatly damage a leaders potential if the pressure is not taken off so I watch Reba for any sign of stress and move her back in the main team right away.
Hermes has had a bit of leader experience on our last few runs and has done great. The only problem with that is that he runs really well with Ichabod, who keeps him straight, but with Ichabod up in lead I cant trust the team stopping on their own.
My other idea was to focus on the other pups and put Thani up front closer to the end of our run. He isn't intimidated by much, loves to run up front and wont let Juno push him around so it was a good match. I would like to have Thani in wheel for him to use his bulk closer to the sled load but seeing how beautifully he worked up front I'm thinking leadership might work very well with him. Hes quite the natural!
Ideally it would be great to have both he and Hermes up there leading but one of them has got to know a few commands before we do this. I used to run with leaders who didn't know their gee and haw but since Juno has come shes gotten me quite spoiled.
Miles: 21.8
Max Speed: 21.3
Moving Average: 7.5
Time Moving: 2.53.49
Time Stopped: 00.40.35
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