Breaking Trail in Marenisco

  Wow, big difference between this year and last year at this time!  Looking back, temps. were in the 50's-60's last year and our sledding season was over already.  This year it just keeps snowing and snowing!  Temps. have been in the upper 20's for the highs and it's been great sledding weather.
  We took a couple eight dog teams out for a run in Marenisco yesterday.  No one had been out on the trails since it started snowing during this latest snow storm and there was eight to twelve inches of snow to break trail in for 15 miles of a 22 mile run.  It snowed almost the whole time we were out, too!  It was a LONG, slow run and I actually ended up leading for the last couple miles because Jeremy's leaders were kind of burnt out from all the trail breaking they had done.  In the end, all the dogs did really well, we had no injuries or strains and they all were happy and ate and drank well after, so no complaints here.  We will be happy if we can stay on sleds till April!

Miles and miles of fresh, unbroken trail...

This is the first part of the snowmobile trail-apparently not being groomed and maybe one sled had been on it since the fresh snow, so not much better than unbroken trail.

Finally, a stretch of groomed snowmobile trail!  But of course, it was still snowing...

and then snowing harder...

Snow dogs!

The wind was blowing, too, so you can't hear what I'm saying in this clip, but I was trying to get shots of Jeremy's leaders plowing through the fresh snow:

South Boundary Road, Porcupine Mountains

   We finally managed to sled on part of South Boundary Rd., which marks the boundary of Porcupine Mountains State Park in Michigan.  It's about a 35 mile drive or so one way to where we could hook up the teams. We've wanted to do it for several years now and it hasn't worked out in the past for one reason or another.  We heard that there was lots of snow up there, and now its just fun running the dogs-no more conditioning for racing, so we decided to just do it for once.  Of course, everyone tells you to get up there early so that the snowmobile traffic is less and in turn it's safer to be on the trail with dog teams.  Well, it turns out that it really wouldn't matter in my opinion, because first of all, the trail is obviously very wide because its a paved two way traffic road in the summer so if your team stays to the right, there's a ton of room for everyone to safely pass each other.  Also, unfortunately the road is plowed in six miles on our end (the western end) for logging, I guess, even though it looks like there's not much going on.  Those first six miles are mostly exposed pavement with very little to no room on the shoulders for snowmobile traffic to run on snow, even though it is a snowmobile trail (figure that out), so I'm pretty sure that snowmobilers have been avoiding it a little.   In any case, we saw very little traffic despite it being a Friday afternoon.  (We meant to get an earlier start, but stuff came up and it got later).
  So we hooked up two, nine dog teams six miles in where the snow part of the trail starts, ran to Summit Peak Trail Head and back, for a total of about 17 miles. Temps. were in the mid to upper 30's, too damn warm, but the dogs did well.  There's lots of hills, both up and down, a nice mix that made it fun-not too much up hill climbing.  Of course, when driving the road to Summit Peak, I never realized just how uphill you go-its a pretty steep, continuous climb, but coming back down is pretty fun.

Getting ready to hook up- the sunshine was beautiful, and miserable...

A huge, wide, perfect trail.

Hard to tell from a photo, but this is the road to Summit Peak Trail, and its very steep and long-about two miles...but it's a quick two miles back down: )

Harness Breaking the SOA Litter

  The SOA (Sons of Anarchy-their name theme) litter turned eight months at the end of last month and now that racing season is over and there's no more pressure, we have time to start them in harness.  They did pretty well and went about five miles their first time without looking too tired.  We took two six dog teams with Jeremy running the three boys-Jax, Opie, and Clay, and I took the two girls-Gemma and Tara.

Gemma is the black dog in wheel, Tara is the white and black dog in point.

Copperdog

  Jeremy participated in the Copperdog 40 on Friday night.  Its a six dog, roughly 40 mile race that starts in Calumet, Michigan and ends in Eagle River, Michigan.  He ran Thunder and Storm in lead, Hail and Salt in point, and Nakiski and Aspen in wheel.  Storm and Salt are yearlings that have never raced before and with the troubles we had the last month or so, we actually hadn't been able to get any training runs of that distance in this year, so we were a little worried that they might not even finish, but they managed and came in 10th place out of 12.  The dogs were tired, but not exhausted and finished looking happy and eating and drinking well at the end.
  Jeremy's chute time was 8:14 pm, and he finished at about 12:50 am.  The kids and I, along with our friend, Doug, who rode up with us, had to drive from Calumet to Eagle River, maybe 20 miles by road, to wait for and meet Jeremy when he finished. We have to give a shout out to the community of Eagle River, who had a nice spread for handlers and mushers at their town hall free of charge and set up till after the very last musher finished.  It was nice to have a warm place with great food to wait for the mushers and for the mushers, who came in tired and hungry to be able to warm up and eat their fill.  Afterward, we had to head home right away in order to take care of the dogs we left at home.  Thankfully, Doug was nice enough to drive most of the way home, so Jeremy could get some rest.  We got home about 4:30 am or so.  We all had fun and Jeremy is hoping to be able to do the 150 mile race up there next year.
 

Jeremy coming back from registration with his goodie bag.

From inside the truck during vet checks.

Elliot got lots of attention from his wardrobe.  He never wears pants, only shorts, no matter what the temperature is!

We brought the grill along and made brats and chicken legs for dinner.

Elliot and Doug carrying a big snowball over to break on the pavement.

Watching the front end loader filling the paved areas in with snow.

Sunset over musher parking.

Inside the truck to get warm.

In the chute.

Moving so fast he's a blur!:)

They had fireworks after all teams were safely away.

At the finish.  Had to quick snap a pic before grabbing the leaders to get back to the truck.