Almost, but not quite
The past week has been good. As we turned the calendar to a new month we found we were very close to our target mileage for the season. We always set a goal of 1,000 miles by December 1 and while we have never actually reached 1,000 miles by this time, we are always within 100 miles of it, and the same was true again this year. That is the purpose of a goal. It gives you something to work toward, but that doesn’t mean you have to blindly drive toward the goal without adapting to the situation in front of you. Training a dog team is a dynamic process and you must be able to asses the needs – of each individual dog as well as the team as a cohesive unit — with each passing run. If we have set out to do a 30 mile run and the dogs look good, we may keep them going and put in 40 or even 50 miles. The same holds true if they don’t look good, and there have been many times we have set out to put in a 50 or 60 mile run, but called it quits after 30 miles due to low morale, or someone’s gait looking a little off, or countless other reasons.
Regardless of falling slightly short of our goal, training is going very well. Last year at this time we only had a fraction of the snow we have now, and there will hopefully be more on the way soon. Down low the trails remain hard and fast. Clam Gulch Trail and Centennial Trail are still a little to skinny on snow to attempt with large teams without risking wrist injuries, so we have continued to utilize Falls Creek, which we are getting very sick of since it is the only game in town. We do have trails out of the yard, and have run them with the B team a few times, but have continued to run the A team into the hills via Fall Creek, at least until after our first race, the Sheep Mountain 150 in two weeks. This is a hilly course so we have opted to continue to train on similar trails, even if it means driving a little bit (but still less than up Oil Well Road) and mushing on some of the most boring and least technical trails in the area (it’s mostly just logging roads).
We got in another camping trip this past week, which makes the fourth for the year (sorry no photos this week, but Joseph is on vacation and we can’t upload images from our home computer). Camping as much as possible this year was another goal of ours. We thought it would be good practice leading up to the Yukon Quest and with each campout we do seem to get a little better at performing our chores. Campouts are also supremely enjoyable outings, especially the last trip on which we had a remarkably clear night. Describing the starry sky as a celestial canopy would be an understatement.
We have also seen signs of other mushers camping out, although some of their campsites almost defy logic. Two weeks ago we came down a fast downhill on the Grand Prix Trail and found several snowmachiners camped out, literally in the middle of the trail, with a campfire and all. When we asked them about their choice of a location they said they didn’t think anybody was using the trails yet. This is pretty understandable for snowmachiners, since these early-birds were out weeks ahead of their other motorhead buddies. However, this past weekend it appears some mushers camped in the exact same spot. It’s hard to comprehend anyone we know being so stupid as to not only camp in the middle of the trail (as evident by the straw they left), but also to do so in a location at the bottom of two down hills. There are easily a half dozens teams going through this area some days, so why they would stop there is just bizarre. Especially when one thinks about all the fantastic places to camp in the hills, where teams could easily pull off the trail and enjoy some real solitude and beauty. But ignorance reigns supreme sometimes, as we have noticed more and more recently. We have seen signs of mushers stopping to snack their teams on narrow uphill trails, not even a quarter mile past a wide open spot that would have been a far better option. We have also had head-on passes with some mushers that seem to lack the knowledge or ability to actually step off their sleds and muscle or maneuver them to make a cleaner pass. Instead these doofuses will just ride the runners straight on in as if on autopilot, with reckless abandon for the dogs in our team they nearly run over. Oh well, I guess a bad pass with another musher is still better than a bad pass with a snowmachiner.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Last week was good for Trucker too. We put on another 6 miles, bringing his season total to close to 50. Ok, so it’s not exactly 1,000, but I’m pretty sure if it was up to him, he’d never leave the couch!