Back on the 20th, even though it was close to zero, I had one of the most fun times in a long time, I went mushing! It was an absolute blast. It was amazing to see the size of dogs (lots smaller than I'd expected) and how strong they are, they must be all muscle!
The fun began even before we got on the
sleds, you see, as the dogs were added one by one, the dog's excitement grew. By the time that both teams were on their appropriate lines all the dogs were barking & howling. Even more amazing was the fact that both teams (6-7 dogs each team) were temporarily tied to a large truck (somthinge like a F150, no rinky dink Nissan or Honda truck) and these seemingly little skinny dogs were about to take off with the truck in tow! I regret not taking any movies of the truck rocking forward as both teams tried to go before we were ready to go!
During the ride, Kathy (the musher) explained the directions she was giving the dogs.....if I remember right, "haw" means left & "gee" means right.
Once we were out on a meadow, our musher's let Martina & I trade places with them! They gave us a VERY quick run down as to what was what (the most important one, the break!), after that we actually got to "drive" the team.....well, not actually, it was more like hanging on for dear life when you don't know what to expect! Kathy actually called out to the dogs and directed them while I was standing on the runners. The picture you see of me, Kathy actually turned around in the sled and took it while we were moving, she even leaned out to get a picture of Martina driving her sled. At one point she asked me if I was still there, she said
that in the past, she has had people fall off and not hollered at her that they had fallen off (I guess out of embarrassment). Come to think of it, I bet it made things a tad bit difficult for her being in the sled with no access to the break to get the dogs to stop....I've read that getting the team going is the easy part, the hard part is getting them to stop! Kathy even told me that there has been several times where her dogs have broke loose of the sled and had drug her several miles (she said "I was being drug on my side and cussed the whole way").
At the end of the ride, the only thing on me that was cold was my toes...I should have worn thicker socks! They had nice warm Yurt for us to warm up in. It was amazing how warm this "round tent" was, even with a 1-1.5 inch gap under the door!
If anyone is in an environment where they can go mushing, I highly recommend it!
Well, last week, Martina and I headed out to Chena Hot Springs to do some shoeing, when we were about 30 miles out, the wind started to pick up....have you ever seen a snow devil? We saw plenty on the way there & when we arrived. It wasn't a hard decision to make when we got out of the truck that we weren't going to be doing any shoeing that day. The temp was already -20, factor in what I'm guessing was at least 20-30 mile an hour winds.....don't want to think about the wind chill factor...BBBrrr.
area.
