Denali is calling
Greetings from Alaska. It has been almost 3 weeks, since our big move to Paxson. We did the move in stages, which made settling in a little easier. Laird and Dave left first with 20 dogs, than me and Gaetan 2 days later with 26 dogs and - last but not least - came Rudi with his son Sven and his team of 20 dogs. So basically the whole kennel has once again moved. In early fall I was humming and hawing a bit about doing this pack-o-mania once again and thought about training from Whitehorse. Luckily I decided against that choice, as once again the snow conditions are very poor there. For those of you which have a mushing tour booked, no worries, at Fish Lake is plenty of snow for the tours, but I cannot train for the races there, so that does me little good.
Settling in here in Paxson went smooth, but one of our first runs with the dogs was everything but smooth. Dave’s team got hit by a guy on a snowmachine. The outcome was not good, as Marmot died instantly, luckily and amazingly no other dogs got hurt. Laird and Dave were of course pretty shook up, but after all, the risk of this happening is there. I have had heard about instances like this, but never had any problems before. The snowmachiner, although he did have a few beers too many, was visibly shook up also. This has left a bad taste, but after all it comes down to the fact of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, same as any vehicle traffic accident.
Otherwise Paxson is treating us good. The Paxson Lodge has new owners, one big family, of grandparents, children and grandchildren. The service and atmosphere is much nicer than before. Last night while having dinner there, we were all visibly tired and worn out from long miles on the sled. Wiley the grand dad had a great idea: 2 hrs less a day on the sled and 2 hrs more in the bar will fix the tiredness. Interesting concept.
The snow is great here, although also not as plentiful as in past years. Here that is not a problem, instead it makes live a bit easier, also due to the fact that we once again do not have a functional plow truck. Audie seems to have a liking for us having to “just deal with it”. Alan from Mc Laren Lodge tired fixing truck number one, but no success even after a new carburator. Now Rudi is trying to change the whole plow attachment of another, somewhat running, truck, but the new (of course not new, used it is) one does not fit neither. Maybe after all I should buy a plow attachment for one of my trucks, although I would most likely never need that at home, I do not even own a snow shovel there.
The dog running on the Denali Highway has been great this year. There is a good snow cover on the Highway, it had been nicely packed down by Yamaha testing their new snowmachines here. It could not get much better than this: We can hook up right from the yard and go out to MacLaren Lodge. www.maclarenlodge.com. There Susie and Alan always have a warm welcome, no matter of what time of day or night we pull in. It almost makes us a bit soft, on 2 occasions I could not convince myself to crawl out of bed on time, rather opting for a nice breakfast before continuing down the trail. We are getting to know quite a few Denali side trails. Although the other day I learned another lesson, to not always listen to new trail suggestions. The trail going to MacLaren Glacier was hell: getting stuck in willows all over which is fun driving 16 wired up dogs, 3 times breaking though the ice, which was even more fun. Much cussing later I got back to the lodge and Susie’s nice dinner calmed my nerves. I hope no other musher gets the idea to follow my tracks. I chalk the experience up under testing my survival skills and “team bonding”.
Some trips we all go out together, others Dave drives his team in one direction, Rudi goes somewhere else and Laird or Gaetan keep Andy’s team (who is coming soon) in shape. The dogs are doing great, very few injuries this year. We do longer but fewer runs, that keeps the dogs morale up, but also seems to keep the injuries down.
While sitting at Mac Laren a few days ago, we got the news that the first race of the Season, the Sheep Mountain 150 got cancelled due to the lack of snow. Hard to believe when you sit here, with all the nice snow we got. Jeff King also happened to be at Mac Laren training with his handlers. “Hey why do we not do our own race ?” was his comment. I went back outside to feed my dogs, once I came back in, him and Alan had it all figured out: A race starting (a few drinks later we even had a name, the MushIn MushOut 50) and finishing at MacLaren Lodge. Interesting concept, with the only way of getting in there being via dogteam or snowmachine. The race will start on Saturday at 2 p.m., Jeff will drive in his teams from the Cantwell side, we will come from the Paxson side, Alan went to Fairbanks to buy food and fireworks, sound like a fun weekend to me. Hopefully a few more mushers will share the adventurous spirit. So while I write these lines, and thus chickening out from packing, the rest of the gang is getting ready to leave here tomorrow morning with 4 teams to head over to Mac Laren again.
The Denali is calling, happy trails to you all
Sebastian
Sab
