Start Chute
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Howdy all. Sorry to have not been
able to update the website more recently. We have
been without internet for a while and just got back
from Copper Basin and are without it again. So,
please bear with us. We just had a fantastic Copper
Basin (CB) race and although we actually finished in
16th this year and 15th last
year, this year’s run was leaps and bounds ahead. We
took something like 9 and a half hours off our time.
(I don’t have the results in front of me, so I’m
going from memory.) This year’s field was just
extremely deep with very good teams. I had a plain
plan for the race and followed it exactly finishing
almost precisely on my schedule. There are a lot of
options in how to run the CB with 7 checkpoints, but
only 18 hours of mandatory rest. We used 3
checkpoints for the whole race and stuck to just the
mandatory. My schedule was significantly different
than almost every other musher, but so are my dogs.
Short story is, we’ve trained to suit our dogs’
strengths, we raced to match our training, and the
dogs finished in super shape, ready for more trail.
I love it when a plan comes together. If you want
the long story, read on-
I’ll just mention the thought
process that went in to picking the team, for you
Tsuga Tsupafans. My goal was to get all of the dogs
I expect to be on my Quest team (14 dog) in either
the Gingin (10 dog) or CB (12 dog) and as many as
possible, in both. That meant not bringing too many
question marks in either, but bringing the right
question marks. Trip and Logan are definites for the
Quest team, but had just minor little nicks that
forced me to leave them off the CB team. (They’re
100% now and are running great, as of Sue’s run on
1/14/2010.) Of the 12 CB dogs (Stump, Merlin, Eliza,
Moon, Reba, Gila, Mugs, Lotus, Wilson, Hawkeye,
Ambler, and Hood) one name should stand out: MOON.
Little puny Moony, went on the Copper Basin??? Our
smallest dog, (except the cat – Zirkle), Moon weighs
in at maybe 32 pounds and hasn’t raced since she was
dropped in Sue’s 2007 Can-Am 250 race back in Maine!
Last year she probably should have made the Quest
team, but I had no faith she would hold up to the
tough miles. This year we decided to train her up
with the race team and she if he could handle it.
She’s been leading some, but mostly running in
swing, pushing the pace with her drive to go and we
had to see if she could do it on difficult race
trail with short rest. This race was her audition
for Quest. The rest of this team may seem like
Quest-definites and most are, but Gila, Reba, and
Eliza had all skipped Gingin because they were in
heat. Now they had to run. Mugs started the season
retired. She worked her way right out of that. She’s
been leading again and is her old self, only better
now that she seems to have settled in to her new
body without all those girl parts she gave up over
last summer. She finished Gingin strong, but still
felt like a question mark to me after her trouble in
last year’s Quest. Everybody else is the core of the
team.
The drive south was great. We had
our neighbor watching the dogs left at home (Thanks
Melinda!!). Sue was along with me this time, so this
was her warm-up for Quest as she has about the same
responsibilities here as in the regular Quest
checkpoints. The information she can relay to me
when I get in and the help parking or passing
through she can provide is important for my
efficiency. The sled went 300 miles but the truck
did over 900 miles, so Sue had her share of driving,
too. Everything was going really well until the bib
draw during the drivers’ meeting at the overcrowded
Brown Bear Rhodehouse, Friday night. My pick from
the hat was dead last, #43. I never really was much
of a Richard Petty fan either. Going out last means
getting a chewed-up trail to travel on slowing our
pace, but also putting the dogs at greater risk of
injury. It also means that I get no differential in
rest time due to 2-minute start intervals. My buddy,
Hugh Neff, in bib #1 would get an hour and 24
minutes more mandatory rest than us, a big
advantage. I couldn’t seem to shake my
disappointment right up until I was on the trail and
could just deal with what was in front of us.
Just got parked.
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For most the first 25 miles to
Tolsona, what was in front of us was the ditch:
trail right along the highway. Up and over driveways
and down the trench on the other side, through
parking lots, around snow banks, then back in to
plowed and punchy snow mixed with gravel and dirt of
a “trail.” It looked like some teams had had trouble
getting out on to the highway at times and with
absolutely NO trail markers for the first 10 miles,
I can see why. You might think it would be easy at
the back for the dogs to just follow the scent of
the teams in front, but many teams in front had gone
the wrong way in a good many spots, so there was dog
scent everywhere!! Thanks to Stump and Merlin
listening to me and me getting lucky with some of my
trail guesses, we made it just fine, passing our
first team just a bit before signing in and out, at
Tolsona Lake.
Out of Tolsona, the trail was ok for
a while, before becoming completely punched-up,
granular “sugar” snow with no bottom except the
un-even, tussock-covered, frozen muskeg below. It’s
hard to watch the team struggle through this stuff
but I kept the drag mat down, using all the patience
I could find. At least this year I expected this and
didn’t let it bum me out like I had last year. We
caught and passed 3 more teams on the way to
Wolverine Lodge after the trail improved some and I
allowed the team to pick up the pace a bit. It was
about a 5.5 hour run in, and my plan was to take an
even four hours of rest. The dogs all ate well and
so did I. My next run was going to be a long one so
we needed to fuel up and digest well. The first
“half” from here to our next rest at Meiers Lake is
a pretty straightforward run across a few low,
wooded hills then on lakes and lowland for 53 miles
to Sourdough. This section was easy for the dogs,
except that it was about 24 below zero and the
yellow plastic I had on the runners needed to be
changed for the smoother-when-colder black plastic.
At my first snack stop about 20+ miles in to the
run; I changed the plastic with the extra set in my
sled. Once rolling again, I had to put the drag mat
back down and keep some pressure on it to control
our speed, which made my feet cold and I’d wished I
just left the grippy yellow on there! We travel
quite a few miles on Crosswind and then Ewan Lakes
and I could see a couple headlamps way out ahead of
me. I stopped every time I saw them to let the dogs
relax a minute or two. We had a very long ways still
to go and I wanted to move at our pace, not get
sucked-in to chasing teams that were only going to
Sourdough for another rest. I had some time to
switch off my headlamp and enjoy the northern lights
show going on! Passing through the Sourdough
checkpoint was a little hectic, as we had to go down
the middle of something like 30 resting teams.
Thankfully Sue was able to guide the leaders and get
us to the out trail after picking up some more meat
snacks for the next 43 tough miles to Meier’s Lake
and the second “half” of our longest, and toughest,
run of the race.
Back in Wolverine sitting and
eating, I heard someone say, “Oh, nobody will blow
thru Sourdough!” I had chuckled, as this was exactly
my plan. I knew the trail is tough, hilly, curvy,
seldom used, and soft for the stretch between
Sourdough and Meiers. I thought a team that was a
little tired wouldn’t be such a bad thing and
getting through it before too many teams chewed it
up wouldn’t hurt either. Plus the timing would work
out that I could get to Meiers just as daylight came
and spend my full 8-hour break waiting out the sun.
We ran in to trouble right off the bat getting out
of Sourdough. After a short distance on a plowed
road getting to the pipeline, we missed a turn, came
to an intersection, turned around on the plowed
road, and then couldn’t get back off the road in the
right spot because the dogs couldn’t see the trail
coming from the wrong way and I couldn’t set a
snowhook. Eventually, I got the tangle figured out
and we got off the road. It was a little early, but
I decided to stop and snack there to compose the
team and myself after the hectic tangle. In the next
10 miles, several fast teams came by quickly, just
off their rests in Sourdough. My stay in the top ten
hadn’t lasted very long. The trail did in fact get a
bit gnarly with side hills, soft snow, stumps, sharp
corners, intersections with no markers, steep hills,
glaciers, and similar Copper Basin hazards. We
watched dawn break from a high ridge above Meiers,
where we could see the entire Copper River Basin out
to our south, the Wrangell Mountains beyond, and to
the north, the lights of Paxson tucked up against
the Alaska Range that crossed the entire northern
horizon in a pastel glow. It was a spiritual moment
for me and I had to stop to walk up and down the
team to share some love with the dogs. Despite being
at the end of a nearly 12 hour, almost 100-mile run,
this team was happy, energetic, and steady. I
promised them straw and a hot meal in just a few
miles and we fell off the mountain, down to the
lake, and in to the promise.
Meiers Lake wasn’t a checkpoint last
year, but it fit the schedule this year and it
proved a pretty good resting spot. My leap-frogging
schedule allowed me to see nearly all the teams at
Meiers. A few had already pushed on to Paxson, but
since I sat here for my full 8 hour rest, when I
finally pulled out a bit after 5pm, I was the next
to last team on the trail.
Merlin hiding from the wind.
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Much of the 17 miles to Paxson are
on Paxson Lake. With a 15-20 mph wind blowing at our
backs, the going was fairly easy on decent trail,
where you could see the trail. Unfortunately, I
could only see the trail about half the time in the
blowing and drifting snow. It was stressful for both
the team and me. I did know that as long as I could
get them directed to the north end of the lake, we
would find the trail. We bounced along over the wind
drifts and I was occasionally able to spot a trail
marker in my headlamp beam and direct the dogs to
it. Stump will also run to a trail marker if I can
hold the reflector in my light beam, which allowed
me to stop trying to yell over the wind. A few times
we did 90-degree turns to get back to the trail from
hundreds of yards away by me guiding him with my
headlamp. Stump continues to amaze me with his
abilities. We were lucky with the bad overflow and
holes in the lake ice at the north end we’d heard
about. They were all frozen-over solid when we got
there! We checked right through Paxson, re-passing a
bunch of teams that were resting, and headed for the
high country, where we’d been warned that the wind
could be blowing hard. The trail here climbs the
biggest hills on the race, in the foothills of the
Alaska Range. And after the serpentine crossing of
the braided Gakona River, climb we did!! I love
mountains. Just being in the mountains is what I
miss most about my pre-mushing days of skiing and
mountain climbing. Getting up in to the hills with
my dog team is like heaven to me. It’s rewards come
with effort though, as with most good things. This
was the one time I wished I didn’t always over-pack
the sledbag, although I usually enjoy the comfort of
knowing I have everything I need to deal with just
about any situation I may encounter with the team.
On these steep hills, the extra weight surely slowed
our progress. I could see some headlamps way above
us, above treeline, climbing still. Other times, I
confused stars for headlamps and thought we had more
of a climb than we did! I could see several
headlamps back behind us, too. Looking at the sky
was much more interesting as the northern lights got
rolling again and at one point made a bow above the
mountains to the north that looked like an even
larger mountain over them. We dropped out of the
hills and found Darrin Lee stopped and removing
booties before the open water crossing of Excelsior
Creek. Darrin lives in Chistochina, where we were
headed, and he puts in the trail through this area.
He gave me some good landmarks and distances for the
rest of the ride as I re-booted where we both
stopped after the mellow crossing. Stump and Wilson
hadn’t wanted to jump in to the open water, but when
I went up to get them across, the water was only
ankle deep. Several teams came by while I re-booted
and I followed these teams for most of the way to
Chisto, occasionally seeing lights ahead or behind,
and with some passing. Then the wind started as we
crossed some open country and although I knew there
were teams just minutes ahead, we could see no
tracks, and drifts covered the entire trail in
places. Within about 8-10 miles of this starting, we
were checking in to a very windy Chisto checkpoint
where the race leaders were just leaving. We still
had six hours to rest to fulfill our mandatory time.
Chores were tough in the wind, but
warm water available inside helped speed getting
things done, and I had the team nestled in their
coats, buried in whatever straw wouldn’t blow away.
The one thing weighing on my mind inside as I ate
breakfast was Hawkeye. He had been just a little off
for the last 20 miles or so. I could not pinpoint
any specific injury or pain, but he has already made
the Quest team and he has nearly the most miles of
any dog in the kennel. He could go to the truck with
Sue and get a ride home from here. Thanks, Hawkeye.
I got a bit of sleep (minutes)
sitting in a chair as the wind howled outside.
Before long it was time to water the dogs again and
I was back out in the wind, watching teams leave,
while we waited. Finally we could start to get
ready, and I left the girls’ coats on while I put
the boys in their wind coats. They were on their
feet and off the straw on command and all 22 eyes
watched me as I ran over to the checker’s cabin to
sign-out. In the morning light Sue led the team to
the exit and we were off on our last run, starting
in a drifted-in ditch trail. I missed a turn that
would have taken us in to the trees, on to better
trail paralleling the road, but we were stuck in
this ditch in foot-deep snow. After a mile or more
of doing maybe 2 mph, I found a break in the trees
and called the leaders gee, over to the better
trail. After just a few more miles, the wind slowed
and I took off dog coats. The trail is pretty boring
here, in and out of the ditch, off to a power line,
and on to more ditch trail. Unfortunately, we came
upon Normand parked with his team next to road. He
had some trouble with his team getting out on to the
highway with another team where neither had control.
Normand had a couple dogs get injured and he was
waiting for his handler to load his team into the
truck, ending his race. I felt horrible for him and
could see the disappointment in his eyes. That’s not
how I would ever wish to pass a team. When I stopped
to take off booties about 10 miles before the
Glennallen checkpoint, a team came up behind us. I
finished up quickly, pulled the hook and the loose
tug Lotus had went tight! Her booties had been
bothering her, I thought so! Our pace quickened some
and we held off the team behind (for now) and even
caught and passed another team just before coming in
to the checkpoint, to find Mike Santos still there.
I hadn’t expected to see any of these teams and
wanted to get out of this checkpoint before the dogs
had any idea of sticking around. Mike pulled the
hook as I waited for a couple drinks, but we were
less than a minute behind him. We passed him after a
mile or two and he said there was another team
ahead. I had planned on just coasting in to the
finish, taking it easy. Now I had motivation to work
a little harder. I wasn’t going to ask the dogs for
more at this point, so I went to work myself,
pedaling for all I was worth, instead of my usual
easy but constant pedaling. Within just a mile or
so, I could see a headlamp ahead, but all of a
sudden there was another coming up behind me.
Colleen caught me soon and she disappeared from
sight in minutes. That’s two years in a row she has
passed me on the last leg of this race, cruising
like a team just out of the start chute. Nice job,
Cole. I did continue to gain on the other team in
front and no longer saw anything behind us but
darkness. At a confusing turn where they had told us
we would go right, but now the trail was marked
(sort of) to the left, I opted to follow the markers
and ended up in a parking lot right behind another
team having trouble getting to the correct spot to
hit the trail that led back in to the ditch we used
the first day. She got her leaders started. My
leaders had tried to go around, but went too far to
the right and got tangled around a sign post. Once
back on the trail, we caught back up, she let us
pass, and I looked back a lot, trying to judge if we
were gaining or loosing ground. Although I hadn’t
planned on catching these teams, now that I had, I
sure wanted to stay in front. Knowing Sue would be
there to help with dogs and I’d be able to be inside
within minutes of finishing, I disregarded my normal
efforts to stay as dry as possible and worked as
hard as I ever have behind a dogsled. I ran,
pedaled, and pushed and with 10 miles to go, I
didn’t see any lights behind me anymore. That made
five teams we had passed since Chisto and only got
passed by one of the faster teams from behind that I
thought might catch us. We rounded the last turn in
the trail, hit Tolsona Lake, and coasted the last
mile to the Tolsona Lake Lodge and the finish line,
where Sue waited to greet her team. The team looked
super at the end and I know we could have taken a
moderate rest and been back out on the trail in
great shape. We had done the 300 miles in almost 10
hours less than last year and were much less than
that off the win. All in all, the team couldn’t have
done much better for where we’re at right now. I
made a few mistakes along the way, but think I
learned from them and don’t think they cost us too
much. I had a good time and think we are perfectly
set-up for the Quest, in just a few weeks!!
Our "kitty", Zirkle
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Tuesday, while waiting for the
evening finish banquet, I got a chance to have some
great conversations with other mushers and handlers.
We analyzed, anthropomorphized, criticized, and
generally de-briefed the race. It’s always nice to
feel some respect from our competitors and friends.
We are proud of what we’ve done so far, but not
satisfied by any means. We’ve more to do and look
forward to continued improvement. The best is yet to
come!!
We’ve got the nightmare of Quest
drop bags to do in the next week, as they are due on
the 23rd. This is crunch time for us, with much
chopping, cutting, buying, bagging, sorting, and
packing. The dogs still need to be run 4-5 days a
week and sleep for us now becomes a novelty. I
better get going as I’ve still got a frozen toilet
drain to fix and toilet to remount, dogs to feed and
run, 1500 pounds of meat to chop and bag, and I’ll
try to find time to get somewhere with internet to
get this posted today.
If you’ve been thinking about
sending in a donation to the team or sponsoring a
dog, this is a great time of year to do so and we
could really use the help right now as the bills add
up and the Quest is just around the corner.
Thanks for checking in and take
care.
Yukon Quest, here we come…
