Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Heavy Trails and 20 Amazing Dogs

I´ve been waiting for the opportunity to take and share pictures of the team running on white trails, pulling a sled, for what seems as an eternity. They are not the greatest pics and as we are right in the darkest and shortest days of the year, not the sunniest, either, but to me they are perfect! :)



Such dark day, full of snowfall and blown over trails and moose zigzagging over the tracks the huskies tirelessly break every day, was yesterday. With an extra load in the sled, the ten dogs Jachym and I each ran, had a tough job with the trail breaking.


Jachym´s team was led by Magpie and Snowy, while I chose for the trail breaking team an unusual couple - Ziggi and Rapid. None of these girls have experience leading while trail breaking, and on blown over trails, where the leaders´ extra responsibility is to find the packed trail underneath.



Up into the hills, the amazing twenty dogs pulled us tirelessly with a lot of enthusiasm. And both Ziggi and Rapid did a great job. Although I have to pick Rapid as the main star of the day. I ran her in lead for second day in row and she did a fantastic job with both gee and haw, and on-by on invisible trail, as well as kept pushing forward in the new 40cm of snow. I am so proud of my wonderful girl!

I helped the team as much as I could, kicking and sometimes running in the longest, steepest uphills, where the trails were really heavy. A great workout for the musher! At least I don´t have to feel bad about not having much time for exercising properly every day :) 

At the end of the 3,5 hour tough run, some of the dogs were tired, but devoured their chicken snacks and soup, as well as wagged their tails happily. As for the mushers, we don´t even remember how we got to bed as we must have fallen asleep the second we touched the pillow :)

Happy Trails!

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