Over the past couple of weeks the dogs and I have been enjoying having enough snow to run with sleds instead of the four wheeler. Temperatures have been pretty mild over all mostly hanging around 0f, but we have had a few days that dipped down as low as -30 and -40f.
Last weekend we enjoyed the company of Ryne Olson and her team from Ryno Kennel in the white mountains. We took both of our teams out for their first camping trip of the season. We ran the dogs into the Moose Creek cabin, spent the night and then ran back out to the trucks the next morning. I am pleased to announce that all of the dogs did very well and seemed to enjoy themselves.
We decided to extend our training together and take the dogs on another camping trip this Friday(november 29th) we took the teams out on an all day run. We started by running them for 20 miles then camping on the side of the trail, which involves giving the dogs straw to lay on and feeding them, and then letting them sleep for a while. This is good practice for later in the winter when we are racing and doing longer trips and the dogs will be camping a lot more. You don't have to teach a sled dog to run, but you do have to teach them to rest. After resting for a few hours we ran the dogs another 20 miles back to Rynes kennel. It was amazing to watch the dogs work, they seemed to get stronger the longer they ran. We took the dogs out on a short 8-9 mile run Saturday just to let them have fun and stretch their legs and then we will do another 20 or so miles with them Sunday.
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| Enjoying the wonderful snow of Two Rivers. |
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| Out on a nice long run in the Chatanika River Valley. |
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| Doing some passing training in the White Mountains with Ryne and her team. Being able to and learning to pass other dog teams smoothly is an important part of any good training program. |
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| Running in the White Mountains with Ryne and her dogs. |
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| The team enjoying a quick meat snack during the first run before fridays camp out. |
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| Running at night after the camp out, the team is still crusing towards the end of the second run. |
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| Enjoying a short but brisk run in Two Rivers on Saturday. |
