Last dog run...

A little late in posting, like always, but wanted to put up a few photos from our last dog trip out to the White Mtns. Andy hadn't gone out on a dog trip for a few years, so it took some convincing, but once she got interested, she got into it and had a great time. It was a bit of a slog with only eight dogs for two teams, but the dogs ran great and Andy and I got a lot of exercise running up the hills. We had near perfect weather there, 10-20 above, and it was almost 50 when we got back to town. It was a fine way to end the mushing season.

Back to the Black...

Went back to survey the Delta River at Black Rapids with my friend Mike from Glenallen. Hadn't been there for a winter visit in awhile (Flight Time 4/03/09). Unlike the last time, we had great weather and no equipment problems. The only odd thing we found was that the river was almost frozen to the bottom in the middle, while the two sides of the channel had most of the flow. This created high water pressure that forced water up and out of the center holes, forming a pool of water-covered ice in the middle of the channel. It added new meaning to the phrase slipping up on the job.

Happy Trails...

March has been great for running dogs: plenty of snow, cool, but not cold weather, and lots of blue sky. Can't have it any better to finish the winter.

An extra day to post...

Haven't posted for awhile, so thought that February 29th might be good day to always post. That way at least every four years I'd get something out. It's been a cold winter so far, January was the coldest in the last 40 years. I think there were only 3 days when the temperature got above zero. It's hard to get decent dog training when it's that cold. February's been a little better so at least I'm getting out on the trails again. Ruty the Maine coon cat solved the cold problem by sleeping in front of the monitor heater. You'd think a big fuzzy guy like him would get hot; maybe he's a southern coon cat.

Newbies...

While we‘ve tried to limit the number of the dogs in the yard these past few years, you eventually have to bring in some younger ones if you want to keep a working team. My friend Lynn took in a couple of unwanted litters of sled dogs this past winter and we wound up taking a couple of the older pups this summer. They’re around 8-10 months old and pretty obnoxious. It’s going to take a fair bit of work to get them trained right, but that’s the main focus in running dogs.

Grrrate...

The tractor originally came from Soldotna. It had been a rental unit there and had real low hours. It only needed a loader attachment. The local John Deere dealers found a loader for a 970 tractor in Anchorage and installed it before shipping it up to Fairbanks. That loader is a little bigger than the one for an 870 tractor and gave it a larger bucket. The loader only lacked a grill guard for it to be complete. No problem, I said, we’ll put one on ourselves.
Over the years, an occasional log has come over the top of the bucket, just missing the grill or headlights, but no harm was done. One time I picked up a heavy piece of equipment with a chain attached to the loader. Once lifted, it swung right into the front of the tractor. Amazingly, nothing happened. But I knew it was just a matter of time until something broke. Last summer when I was getting some parts at the dealer, I checked out a new tractor they had for sale. Not only did it have a grill guard, it was made of expanded metal, welded to the front of the loader frame. Incredible, I thought, the perfect grill guard. So the next time I was near one of the local steel yards, I wandered through their scrap pile and found a decent piece of expanded metal. They cut it to the approximate size and I had my grill guard. Well it only took another year or so to finally attach it to the tractor, trim it to fit, weld, sandblast, and then finally paint it John Deere green. Now it looks just like a factory job and it only took about twenty years.

Another Andy...

My two wheel dogs are both ten now; one is mostly retired and the other thinks he's got a part time job. So when I saw an add for a super hard working wheel dog named Andy, well I just had to respond to it. The woman who had the dog lived in Ruby, a small village on the mighty Yukon River, and she said he was just too strong for her to handle. That sounded perfect to me, but not so much for my wife Andy. While she tolerates my mushing addiction and occasionally runs a team herself, the thought of another crazed sled dog, leaping and barking in the yard, was, at best, not high on her to do list. But promises to finish the house, well at least keep at it, won the day. So now we have another Andy, a big, strong boy to help me get up those monster hills in the White Mtns.

Ice road truckers...

My friend Bill and I drove up to Bettles, a village north of the Arctic Circle to run our dogs. While it's normally isolated from the road system, the village puts an ice road in each winter to haul fuel and supplies from the Dalton Hwy. We heard a lot of horror stories about traveling the ice road, but the trip went remarkably well and I only hit one bad hole on the way in. Once we got there, the people we met helped us have a great time. On the last last day, we visited old Bettles. After WWII, the village was relocated seven miles upriver to where an airstrip was built, so now the original village is abandoned. All the old buildings are still there and it was an interesting bit of history to see. We hope to get back there sometime soon.

Is February the cruelest month?

Seems like if it isn't snowing this month, it drops down to near -40. It's great to finally get some decent snow after last winters drought, but enough already. It snowed over a foot and a half in the past week or so and over two feet for the month. And as soon as it stops, it's back down below zero. But it sure makes the mushing trails a lot smoother and gives the global warming skeptics something to gloat about. Here's a couple of photo's from a recent dog run. Spuds likes to roll around on his back when he gets hot. Looks weird, but he never gets tangled up in his tug line.

Another perspective on the recent weather: http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/12139655/article-Groomers-break-trail-after-back-to-back-blizzards-in-Interior-Alaska?instance=outdoors

New year updates...

Quite likely the most interesting fall in a while. Training on the 4-wheeler in Oct. to late Nov. Then the rains started and we had to cut ditches through the dog yard to keep the water away from the dog houses. After three days of rain, it cooled off and snowed half a foot, then dropped below zero until new year's eve. At least there's enough snow now to run dogs with a sled and the weather's warm enough to enjoy it.

Grindin' away

Back in '04 and 05 when we had a lot of forest fires, we cleared a bunch of trees near the house. It was a hard thing to do, we built the original cabin to fit in amongst the existing trees, but we did what we thought was necessary. When it came time to clear the stumps, we decided to try a stump grinder. It worked great and we cleared the whole area without tearing up the ground like a dozer would have done. Well since then we've accumulated a bunch of new stumps and it was time to get rid of them. The stump grinder, once I got it hooked up again, worked great, and now we have a stump free yard, until I drop some more trees.

Dozin' off again...

Spent the last few weeks out at Nome Creek off of the Steese Hwy. While it’s only about a 60 mile drive north of town, it’s a relatively remote area in the foothills of the White Mtns. This area had been mined years ago and while some reclamation had been done, a few of the larger piles remained. As the creek has continued to meander closer, the piles had begun to erode.
Drove the same dozer as last year, the first time that’s happened, so it made it a lot easier to feel comfortable on the machine and just focus on the work. Moving the old tailings piles back from the creek is a lot like peeling an onion, just strip it off a layer at a time. The hardest part is finding a place to put all the excess material. Fortunately, the miner had left an old bypass ditch behind the piles and it held stripped tailings nicely. It always seems like it takes forever to finish the dozing, but the biggest pile was reclaimed in just about a week. And it’s still a lot of fun to drive a piece of equipment nearly as big as the garage,