I travelled up to Alpine Creek Lodge on the Denali Highway with my buddy Wade Marrs. We made it to Alpine, spent a few hours there and camped with the dogs before going further down the trail. The trail was soft so we didn’t go as far as planned and headed back to Alpine Creek Lodge.
I was driving a team of 20 dogs but leaving Alpine heading back to the truck I decided to pack three young dogs and give them some extra rest. They then road in their dog crate chariot 50 miles. Before we’d led the lodge we had received word that part of the highway had been plowed, 10 miles closer than we had parked. Our friends from Hey Moose! Kennel offered to let us use their truck and gave us their key. We took the key but as we neared the truck and the plowed road, we ended up deciding to just forge on ahead. Bad idea.
I still had to drop the key off, stop my 17 dog team, and somehow in the process flipped my sled. Because it was cold, the dog crate with my 3 young passengers broke open like an egg shell, cracking into tons of pieces. Zeus, Cricket, and Marlow spilled out and were running around with fresh excitement, happy to be released from what they thought was a prison cell. They darted to and fro like bouncy balls, unable to contain their enthusiasm.
So my sled was tipped over, I had three loose dogs running around, and I was hanging on for dear life as 17 other dogs pull me down the plowed road. Great.My buddy Wade couldn’t really help and was probably buckled over laughing on the back of his sled. It was a mess.
As I was dragging down the road, I yelled at my lead dogs, telling them to go Haw. Essentially I wanted them to dive off the road and over a snow berm so the team would ball up and I could, sort of, regroup. Finally, all-star Fidget takes a running leap and takes the front end of the team over the berm where they immediately got into a giant tangle.
Good, I thought, this is good. We are stopped and I was able to get my sled back up right. But I still had 3 loose dogs who thought this whole thing was a giant game. I was carrying each dog for a different reason. Zeus had a bit of harness rub, Cricket looked like she might be getting a sore wrist, and Marlow had stepped in a Moose hole. All in all I was just being overly cautious. Now, these young dogs were showing me just how badly they wanted to run.
Somehow, I eventually grabbed them and put them back into my team. Because they’d gotten a lift they were barking and screaming with excitement. The team was roaring like a freight train.
We finally made it back to the truck, put the dogs away, and headed back to Willow. I’m still shaking my head at all of it. Next time, I think I will just take Kristin and Andy up on borrowing their truck!
Overall the trip was successful. We saw about 30 moose on the trip and I’m really happy with all the speed built into the team I’m training and think they are a solid group of dogs, until that is, they decide to flip me over!
Until our next adventure,
-TB
