Quite a bit has happened since my last post - when it was still freezing cold! I saw the Yukon Quest Start (I'll get into that in the next post), we finished Iditarod food drops and, thankfully, it has warmed up to the thirties and forties (above zero!). That, combined with the sunshine makes it feel like spring. Leila and I agree that we wouldn't mind if it stayed this warm until the end of March...
The one disadvantage of having this warm weather is that the Iditarod food drops for Aaron were thawing (in Alaska, the dog meat and everything is just left out to stay frozen - which works pretty well for pallets of meat but not for the smaller bags for food drops). So this morning, Mandy and I loaded all the drop bags into the back of the truck and hauled them into Fairbanks to an air cargo place where they have a big freezer. On Monday we'll have to go into town again and take the drop bags from the air cargo place to the Iditarod food drop pick up.
Scott and Aaron are headed towards Nome in the Norton Sound 450, at the moment they are at the checkpoint of Koyuk, following the Iditarod trail. The warm temperatures made the first two legs of the race punchy and slow, but now they are picking up speed. This is the final race before the Iditarod and I think it will be hard for Aaron to choose sixteen of the twenty four dogs they are racing for the Iditarod!
We've had our own adventures since they left. Yesterday, on the way to the post office, Mandy got her truck stuck in a snow drift on the driveway and, although we shoveled and shoveled, we couldn't get it un-stuck. Scott's truck is here, so we brought it out, but couldn't do anything because we couldn't find a chain or tow strap. Fortunately, the neightbor Jason (a californian to the rescue!), came by to help and after a little more shoveling we pulled the truck free.
With this nice weather, I've been able to do some jogging myself, taking along Rocky (who follows without needing a leash!) and Scott's golden retriever, Ozzie. I'm watching Ozzie while he's gone at for the Norton sound race and, boy, does this dog have a LOT of energy! Fortunately, he's well-mannered, obedient and stays out of trouble...except when he *almost* got into my jerky supply! I think he would've been banished outside if he had eaten any...
Of course, I've also been running my team. I now have Tyler back and have been working him in lead again. I was very impressed by Urchin yesterday - he ran several miles in single lead! If we weren't going so far and it wasn't so warm, I'd have left him up alone for the whole run. It was nice to get a second opinion on my team from Leila, who double-sledded with me on our second 40 mile run (our first forty-miler was over a month ago). Even with the warm weather, its still been hard to get mileage because of the wind, blowing in the trails. A huge thank you to Al, another neighboring musher, who put in the beautiful 40 mile trail because on Wednesday I did a 30 mile run and I had to go out and come back to the kennel, give a quick snack, and then go out again. Very boring, but to my surprise the dogs averaged 10mph - pretty fast for a distance team in warm weather!
Here's some pictures from the last couple runs:
No comments:
Post a Comment