Trail Breaking Sort of Day

Yep, it's been a BIG storm.  I'm guessing a foot or more of snow on the ground since yesterday morning.  As planned, I spent yesterday in town while the snow accumulated.  The bad news is the damned snowmachine will start, but it won't run for any time at all.  The good news is that my friend Mike Green broke out some of the more important trails yesterday.  There was still a good 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow on those trails, but that isn't deep enough to stop the Stardancer dogs.

 The first run was actually fairly unremarkable, except that we WERE out breaking trail, through a significant depth of new snow, on a sled, like a "real" sled dog team.  Just and Cassie led our 7-dog team over the trail quite nicely and though we did need to make a few stops to give the dogs a breather, they were willing and able to get the job done.  Chetan worked her yearling little tail off.  Well, not off, but she was very tired by the last mile of the run, and it showed in her performance.  It is nothing to be concerned about.  She is just a yearly, barely more than a puppy, and I expect puppy behavior from her.

The second team had 8 dogs, but except for Nels and Rose, were mostly smaller.  It was remarkable that Amazing Grace wanted to run lead - she hasn't wanted to do so in more than a year.  I put her beside Capella for this run.  It was evident that the trail was already much better as the larger team moved right along for the most part.  The slower average speed is deceptive because of a rather long delay out at the intersection to the new crossover trail.  We left the yard in the twilight of late afternoon.

Like the team before, the leaders wanted to continue down the money trail.  It took quite a long time and several attempts to convince Grace and Capella that we really were going to turn "haw" and work our way over the steep hill.

Like her sister, Animosh (Ani for short) was very tired by the end of the run, so was slack lining and dinking around a bit.  Most remarkable was Vladimir.  He is only 11 months old and pretty small, yet he was PULLING every inch of the way and acting like he was having the time of his life.  It was full dark when we got back home, but with a good, bright headlamp running in the darkness was no issue at all. 

My training logs give a synopsis of the story, but don't do justice to the amount of hard work involved in breaking trail, especially on relatively steep hills.  I had my video camera running during the first run, so I'll be able to share some clips. It was just too dark to record video during the second run.

Date, Day, &c: Thursday, 12-13-12

Mileage & Speed:  5.4, max speed 10.3 mph, average speed 5.1

Equipment: Toboggan sled

Route, Trail & Terrain Conditions:  Home to TRR trail to Swamp Trail to Money Trail to Borough cross-over trail, to Swamp Trail and return home.  New, wet snow on lightly packed trail -  most of the run was breaking trail through 6 to 8 inches of snow

Weather:  Snowing lightly - 21F

Team:  Just - Cassie Orion - Chetan Aumaruq Denali - Beau

Narrative:  Orion was pretty reasonable on hook up, as were all of the other dogs.  They launched fast with excitement but didn't take long to realize they were in for some hard work.  The steeper hills were especially difficult and required some breather stops, but nothing terribly long.  Just missed the cue onto the cutover trail, and then intentionally tried to take the team back via Rod and Julie's feeder, but corrected when he realized I wasn't buying any of what he had to sell. Chetan was off and on and off and on her tugline the last mile or so, but she's only a yearling and she'd worked hard earlier.  I think she was just getting tired and maybe a bit bored.

Date, Day, &c: Thursday, 12-13-12.

Mileage & Speed:  5.4 mi, max speed 11.6 mph.  Overall average 3.9 mph (due to long unplanned stop).

Equipment: Toboggan sled

Route, Trail & Terrain Conditions:  Same as before.  Breaking out trail (2nd team over trail)

Weather:  Light snow.  18F

Team:  Capella - Amazing Grace Midnite - Animosh Vladimir - Selene Nels - Rose

Narrative:  This is the first time Amazing Grace has run lead in a long time.  She did a nice job, wasn't terribly snarky to Capella.  She did miss a cue onto the new cutover trail that caused a considerable delay as I tried to get it sort out, but we eventually DID get it sorted out. Capella was not particularly focused, so needs to spend more team back in swing behind more driven leaders for a while.  I think that can be arranged.  Animosh was easy to hook up and did well until, like her sister, the last mile or so of the run when she started running tail-up and sometimes slack.  Vlad kept a tight tugline the entire run, even though is a only 11 months and not particularly large.  Selene worked well. Nels was crowding Rose much of the run, but both did their jobs nicely.