A Rookies Journey
October 30, 2005

Did you ever have “one of those weeks”? I don’t mean one where everything goes wrong, or even one really major thing goes wrong (like being hit by Katrina), but one where you have enough adventures that you are really glad you don’t have to go back and relive that particular week.
Our week started Sunday night as Marti was locking up after Sunday school and tripped over some construction materials. When I got the phone call to meet her at the emergency room she was unable to move her left arm. After x-rays and a through exam it turned out that she had fractured a small chip off her humerus (arm) bone near the shoulder and might have fractured the ball of the humeral head, but there was no nerve damage. The bottom line is that she will wear a sling and wrap to impede motion of the arm religiously for the next two weeks and most of the 4 weeks following that. Luckily it was the left arm and she is right handed, but try to do simple things like getting dressed using only one arm. As we got home very early Monday morning I told her she still knew how to show a guy a good time on a Sunday night ;-)

You know how one adventure leads to another? This was supposed to be a week where I stretched the dogs out some in mileage (I wanted to run about 20 miles / 3 hours). Of course after Sunday night Marti and I both slept in Monday. When I called Ft. Richardson the area I had been training in wasn’t open. I didn’t feel like running the Beach Lake 5 mile loop 4 times and started looking for alternatives. I really like the Eklutna Lake trail. As I said in the October 6th story, it is an old road that climbs up and down the hills at the side of the reservoir until it flattens out at the end of the lake about 8 miles back and then proceeds for another 4.5 miles to where the Eklutna Glacier used to terminate (now you have to walk around the hill and back in to get to the glacier). I know vandalism has been an issue at all the Chugach State Park trailheads, but Eklutna is about 15 miles up a dead end road, tourist and hunting season are both over, it is Monday not a weekend, and there won’t be very many people up there. Sure enough about 2 PM I arrive at the parking lot / trailhead and there are less than 12 cars present.
The first 10 dog team has an easy daylight run and I take the second 10 dog team out at 7 PM just as the sun is setting. I really like night runs. The dogs enjoy it and are always more eager to go and there is a special magic to the night. Running under the stars and, if you are lucky, the moon (they call the full moon a musher’s moon because the dogs run about 1 mph faster). If you are really lucky the northern lights come out. Put some snow on the ground to reflect the light and you can run under the full moon with your headlamp off.

In October without the snow it can be pretty dark and I always feel a little peculiar the first few runs. I remember well my first run at Eklutna. It was at night (it’s an old road so you cannot get lost) skijoring with my Chesapeake Bay Retriever. We were about 1 ½ miles into the run when Kiana, my big bold Chessie, looked over her left shoulder into the night and veered as far as she could to the right side of the trail. I checked, but with my puny human senses had no idea what she heard, saw, or smelled. Kiana kept looking over her shoulder, stayed as far to the right as she could get and moved right out of there. This is bear country and there are wolf packs in the area and you can well imagine the funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as we move down the trail that night.

This night I am remembering that adventure as the sun sets and I have a funny feeling about the run. I have Bass and Mocha in lead and have been teaching the dogs to run on the right side of the trail because we have been training on Ft Richardson’s roads. Many dogs like to have a visual reference, like the road edge, beside them as they run and Mocha is no exception. She is running on Bass’ left and pulls the team to the left. I tell Bass to gee over (the command to move to the right of the road) and he tries, but Mocha is in one of her determined moods and will have no part of it. Soft, sweet little Mocha is definitely in command and 8 yr old Bass, my main guy, can only go along for the ride. I stop the team, go up to the leaders and guide them to the right side of the trail. I quickly run back to the 4-wheeler, “hike” and off we go. Mocha digs in and pulls the team over to the left side within the first minute. I stop the team and guide them back to the right. Off we go and Mocha takes us back to the left.

After we repeat this 4 times I’m looking for another solution. I know Mocha isn’t really left handed (Lycos is, but not Mocha). This is Mocha’s first night run and she just wants a visual reference beside her. If I put Mocha on Bass’ right she will probably hug the right side of the road and everyone will be happy. Silly me!

I move Mocha to Bass’ right and before I turn around she jumps over Bass (from a standing start no less) to get back on his left. Now that I’ve started I can’t just let it go and I move her back to the right. She ducks behind Bass and goes left. After half-a-dozen attempts she gets the idea and stays right, but only until I get back to the 4-wheeler. Then she jumps back to the left again. “But Dad, I stayed there until you left….” Back to the front and move Mocha back to the right… Finally after about 15 minutes of this I get back to the 4-wheeler before she moves, holler “hike”, and by golly I was right – I beat Mocha to the punch and she is hugging the right side of the trail just like I figured!

Of course that isn’t the end of the story. Every time I stop, even for a couple of seconds, Mocha jumps to Bass’ left side and we repeat the process. It does get easier each time, but I don’t want to traumatize Mocha so after we turn around at 10 miles and I stop to snack and water the team I move 7 of 9 up with Bass (they particularly like each other and this has been mentally hard on Bass too) and we head back to the truck. 7 of 9 was running swing so that’s where I put Mocha and believe it or not Mocha pulls the whole team to the left side of the trail from swing! That is one very determined young lady. Now if I can just channel that determination so that it’s working for me instead of contrary, I’ll have a great partner. However at this point I figured discretion is the better part of valor and moved Mocha back to wheel where she performed flawlessly the rest of the evening.
We are 7 miles out from the parking lot at about 9:30 at night, pitch black, and I see two loose dogs coming down the trail at us. I wonder where in the world they came from and will they cause us any problems, but they look a little dazed and move, one to each side of the trail. Bass and 7 of 9 split right between them and the loose dogs don’t even turn to look as we go by (nobody in my team gives them a glance either). One of the dogs was small and grey and the other kind of yellow, but things happen fairly fast at night, all you see is the brief headlamp coverage from the 4-wheeler and they are gone. After they passed I keep thinking about them and start getting worried. That looked a little like Dash and Dijon, my dogs, but it couldn’t be. I left them resting safely in their boxes with the doors latched and the safety board across the bottom. Never the less I worry about my dogs in the truck for the next hour as we work our way back to the truck.
I’ve just about convinced myself that I being paranoid, but as we pull into the parking lot at about 10:30 there are several loose dogs that come to greet us and as I stop the 4-wheeler my worst fears are confirmed. Someone has opened every door on the dog box and turned all 10 of my dogs from the first team loose. I quickly round up the dogs dancing around me and box them – 6 dogs total. As I check the dog boxes, Worf and Dukat stick their heads out and tell me just how glad they are to see me. They are shy dogs and in the top level of the box and just stayed there with the open doors. I tell then just how grateful I am before I close the doors. That is 8 dogs out of 10. Dash and Dijon are missing and must have been the dogs I saw 7 miles back in and moving away from the parking lot. By now I’m starting to panic and not think very clearly. I’ve had some very bad experiences with dogs getting loose and never being seen again.
Seven years ago I lost a 7 dog team at night on Ft Richardson. I called for help and 5 people searched until 3 am without luck. The next day there were a dozen people looking for the dogs. That weekend it was between 30 and 40 people. We searched every weekend for a month. The local TV station, newspaper, and radio all covered the story and ask people to watch for the dogs. We even had the Ft Richardson Blackhawk helicopters watching their infra-red detectors while on maneuvers. To this day, after 7 years, nobody has seen any sign of those dogs – not a harness, or a line – nothing. I can’t help but remember that and I’m worried sick about Dash and Dijon.

I bring the 10 dogs on the second team back to the trailer and take them off the lines to the 4-wheeler and drop them on chains on the trailer. Then I take the 4-wheeler once around the parking lot – I’m the only person there. So I run off to the ranger station, but don’t see anyone. There is no cell phone coverage that far back up Eklutna canyon, but there is a pay phone at the entrance to the park. I call 911, but they don’t deal with those situations, so I call Marti and wake her up (it’s 11:00 pm), just like 7 years ago. Just like before Marti calls our friends to help me look for the dogs. I want to rush off after Dash and Dijon, but what if the people who turned them loose come back and do it again?

I’m back at the trailer watering the second team when the winter caretaker drives up. He had gone to bed early, but heard me on the 4-wheeler and wanted to know what was happening. I explained the situation and while we were talking about what to do next I saw a loose dog wonder behind his truck. It was Dijon – I called him but he just stood there in a daze. I walked up to him and caught his collar, but he was so traumatized that he gave no reaction. I led him to the trailer and walked back to the trailhead looking for Dash, hoping they were still together. I saw a pair of eyes in the headlamp and called Dash and she came running into my arms. Man did that make me feel good! Now I asked the winter caretaker to watch the dogs and raced back to the pay phone to call Marti and tell her I had the dogs back and she could call everyone and tell them it was ok. I stayed around feeding the second team and telling all the dogs how much I loved them incase someone didn’t get the message. Sure enough Ed Wood pulled up ready to help in anyway I needed. Ed is a good friend and one of those who was there that night 7 years ago.

All I can figure is that bad people turned the dogs loose about 8:30 Monday night. Most of my dogs are a little reserved, but Dijon is almost aggressively friendly and will jump up on strangers. The bad people must have chased him off, kicked him or something to drive him from the area. I think he didn’t know where else to go and so he and Dash ran the 20 mile trail we had done a second time. He was totally exhausted and the pads on all 4 of his feet were badly worn, two of them wore clear through the pad. Dash is Dijon’s sister and had badly worn pads on two feet. Those poor dogs! But at least they came home.

Just for chuckles, on the long downhill drive from Lake Eklutna the headlights on the truck began to flicker on and off. We made it home safe, but it was 3:00 am when I finally got to bed and I was pretty shaken up (In fact I’m still shaken up). From my obedience days I remember that you can do more harm that good if you train in a bad mood, so took Tuesday as a mental health day. Wednesday is our regular day off, so Thursday was our next run. Ft Richardson is still closed to recreational use. I don’t really want to go back to Eklutna before I put some padlocks on the dog box, but there is a trail called Jim Creek that starts along the Knik River just upstream of the Knik Bridge on the Old Glenn Highway (back road to Palmer) and runs along the river to the Knik Glacier. Jim Creek is a tributary of the Knik River that you have to cross. Cheryl Eldridge, who helped me at the markets all summer, told me that a 5 yr old made that run on a 90 cc kid’s 4-wheeler and she would be glad to show me the trail. Bonnie Foster brought her machine so we could run both teams together and Cheryl brought her little Siberian “Taiga” who was the star of the markets this summer.

Dijon isn’t running until his attitude improves (he’s still pretty traumatized) and his feet heal. Bass turned up lame Wednesday so he is off also. I’m sure I’ll miss both these big steady dogs at the creek crossing. I put Lycos and Keiko in lead in my team and Balu and Platinum in lead for Bonnie.
About a mile into the run we get to Jim Creek and Cheryl stops to look for the best place to cross. In Colorado Jim Creek would be called a river, but in Southern Alaska the criteria are a little higher. It must be about 40 or 50 feet across (of course you pick the wide spots to reduce the depth and current. Sometimes it even works! As Cheryl drives across first I notice the water doesn’t quite get to the seat level on her 4-wheeler, and then gets shallower as she crosses. I try to drive my team across to follow her, but I’ve made at least one mistake. When we got to the creek I followed Cheryl right up to the waters edge before I realized that that wasn’t the crossing place. While Cheryl scoped things out the dogs stood and stared at the water. Lycos tends to think too much sometimes and when we backup them up to come straight at the water about 20 feet downstream he balked and refused to cross. Even when we had him following Taiga he balked. We tried Bonnie’s team, but Balu and Platinum didn’t want any part of that either. I wasn’t thinking clearly and tried to pass Bonnie and take the crossing and my dogs just wondered into hers and tangled. During the tangle a fight broke out, which is unusual for my dogs. We didn’t see it then, but Jewels, Sisco, and Basil had minor bite marks.

Cheryl suggested that we rig a leader line from Bonnie’s leaders that Cheryl would hold in her hand (never tie such a line off to the 4-wheeler – you don’t have enough control and could injure / drown a dog) while she drove across. Then she would come back and repeat the procedure with my team. I must admit I was dubious and nervous about hurting dogs, but it worked fairly well. The hole was deep enough that the short dogs had to swim – Basil (in the team) panicked some when she had to swim and Lycos (in lead) tried to climb on top of Keiko (also in lead). No chivalry in Lycos, huh? Sisco seemed to accept the whole thing pretty well, but he is a big calm dog that just takes things in stride. He reminds me a lot of Bass, his father.

After the crossing we spent a fair amount of time on the flood plain of the Knik River. Picture a large wide space covered in sand and gravel with very little vegetation. I hadn’t found a good place to train the dogs to take gee – haw commands in open country like that, so I didn’t expect much. I was very pleased that Kieko was trying to follow my commands, but Lycos didn’t have a clue and kept dragging Keiko off to the left (remember I said he was left handed). I switched Sisco up into lead even though he isn’t really a leader and he pretty much followed Keiko’s lead. That worked well. We ran in about 10 miles, turned the dogs around and snacked them. Then we ran back out. Back at Jim Creek we repeated the first crossing procedure. Keiko didn’t want any part of it this time, but after having Lycos try to climb onto her back the first time I really didn’t blame her. I put Dukat up in lead with Sisco and we made it across, but I had no control on the other side. Bonnie and Cheryl told me that Balu and Platinum were much better the second time around.

Before we hit the water at Jim Creek, I thought my dogs would probably take the crossing, at least the first time across. The fact that they didn’t gives me something else to train. During the fall training so far we’ve crossed several large puddles, one almost as deep as Jim Creek, and a small creek, but moving water is different. You don’t see open moving water like this on every Iditarod, but when you do you need to either cross it or go back and scratch. Sometimes I feel superior to the rookies who are trying to learn to drive dogs and run Iditarod in a single year. At times like this I remember that those same rookie are leasing experienced dog teams that have done this before. They may be old enough that they don’t set any speed records, but the dogs know enough to really help get a rookie through the tough parts.

On Friday the injured reserve included Basil (bite on leg), Dijon (feet), Bass (minor lameness left rear), Tussock (caught a cold and didn’t feel well), Jewels (lame left rear), Dukat (minor lameness right rear). It’s peculiar how you can go from 20 healthy dogs to 14 in a single week. That is why people like to train 20 to 24 dogs for the 16 dog Iditarod team. These are mostly minor injuries and except for Jewels, who seems pretty sore, and I expect everyone else to be back ready to run on Monday.

Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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