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The Journey Continues
December 14, 2007
One of the sweetest sounds a musher can hear is his dogs slurping
their soup. One of the prettiest sights a musher sees are those
firm cigar shaped gifts the dogs leave behind. You forget how much
you appreciate them until you don’t have them, but I’m
getting ahead of myself.
Whee! Looking
down 8 mile hill.
The icy ruts from the 4-wheelers
are clearly visible. |
Late last week the weather stayed warm,
and Ft Richardson stayed closed. We kept running on the Beach Lake
trails, but the 8 mile hill became icy enough that even Iditarod hardened
veterans decided not to go back down it. Brian Bearss training Bob
Bundtzen’s team went to the 8 mile turn just before the hill
and came back on the inbound side. Fools go where angels fear to tread,
so yours truly went up the hill. Well, not quite. The hill was icy
enough the dogs had trouble pulling me up it and stalled. The 4-wheeler,
with 4-wheel drive and chains on all 4 wheels, just sat there spinning
all 4 wheels on the ice. Hmmm. I called the dogs up, and we made it
to the top, but the message was clear. If the 4-wheeler couldn’t
make it up on its own, and even the dogs were having trouble, coming
back down might be more of an adventure than I really wanted.
We came back on the inbound side through the swamp. Everything was
frozen solid, but the trail was rough enough that I missed the bad
sections from last year’s Iditarod. Thank heaven I wasn’t
on a sled. Even so, my sit upon felt sorely abused. Thursday was a
60 mile run in 8 hours. Not very fast, but given the trail conditions
I was pleased.
I’m sure you heard that the Sheep Mountain race, which was supposed
to start the 15th, has been cancelled, but Monday I was still planning
on that race and well aware that the dogs had not run back-to-back
50’s yet (where you run 50 miles, rest 6 hours, and run 50 more
– the cornerstone of our races). Obviously a camping trip was
in order. We got a very pleasant gift – Ft Richardson was open
for recreational use. That meant the 50 miles could all be done on
roads and our rough trails, which smooth out quite nicely when we
get snow, avoided.
Monday night the first 50 miles went very smoothly. Dukat developed
a slight limp after 23 miles and I hauled him the rest of the trip,
much to his objection. All the dogs ate dinner afterwards and a contented
musher settled into his nap. For some reason most of the dogs never
settled down. They sat up all night looking into the woods around
the staging area. I found out two days later that one of the wolf
packs in the area had been picking off dogs and eating them. Hard
to believe there were one or more wolves watching us, but you never
know.
We hit the trail at 7 AM Tuesday morning for the second 50 miles,
but 25 miles into the run the dogs just didn’t seem to be feeling
right. I attributed it to the lack of sleep, but cut the run short
at 35 miles (5 hours). I had to haul Dijon for 2 hours, and Frodo
for 1. When we got back Rosemary and Dash didn’t eat. Rosemary
does this, but Dash is a good eater. This doesn’t bode well
for Sheep Mountain and I’m concerned that I misjudged their
condition that badly.
That night in the kennel there were more dogs that refused dinner.
The next morning Strider, the Lance Mackey dog on the “see it,
eat it” diet refused breakfast and I knew I had a bug. Funny
smelling diarrhea everywhere. Of the 23 dogs in the kennel, 10 of
them refused breakfast and dinner. Eventually it spread to 16 of the
23, with some dogs going for two days without eating a regular meal.
I coaxed some salmon down them. Dijon took three pieces into his dog
house to eat. The next morning when I fed him, he dug a piece out
of the straw and ate it in front of me. The distain for his kibble
was pretty obvious. Rosemary did the same thing. Poor Dash ate her
dinner for me, but couldn’t keep it down.
I was just about to get some sub-cutaneous fluid kits from the vets,
when the first dogs started eating again. This morning everyone but
Rosemary and Thyme ate like starving sled dogs – what a beautiful
sight. Stools are starting to firm and life is becoming good again.
So I’ve got mixed emotions about Sheep Mountain. I really like
the race and hate to see it cancelled, but I don’t have 12 healthy
dogs to run it. By Monday I expect a full recovery and we will be
back in training. Until then....
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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