Day Twelve - mushing and wipe-outs
We started the day with breakfast at Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, which had the most awesome views of the sunrise over the Alaskan range. Not the worst spot in the world to have breakfast.
The first activity today was mushing. Someone crazy thought it would be a good idea to put us in charge of a sled and dog mushing team.
We arrived at he dog sledding place (whose name escapes me for now) and were ushered into the main reception area, which absolutely stunk of dog. In a good way of course. There were dogs everywhere, on the couch, coming up for a sniff, milling around, sleeping on a bed in the corner. We had to sign the usual waiver, acknowledging that no-one would be held liable for any accident or damage. Welcome to Alaska, please sign the waiver.
Then we were given some simple instructions on how to "mush". If you want to make the sled go left, put your weight on the left hand side of the sled, if you want it to go right, put your weight on the right hand side of the sled. You can slow the dogs down by putting weight on the drag mat, which is essentially a rubber mat that "floats" between the two runners on each side of the sled, and when you stand on it, it drags in the snow and slows that whole sled down. There is also a brake, which is a bar you stand on which digs four spikes into the snow.
When you first start out, the dogs are fresh and super excited to be going somewhere. The noise is incredible, barking, leaping, lunging, tugging at their lines. As soon as your take off, it all goes quiet. They are working, and concentrating, and getting the job done. I was blown away by how much pulling power the dogs have. We had six dogs to pull our crapload of weight probably 400 pounds, plus the sled.
It was stunning, with all the fresh snow, the track was basically a channel dug in the snow, shoulder high, that the dogs followed. I started out sitting in the front of the sled, supposed to be taking pictures but cocking it up royally by forgetting to change the setting on my lens back to auto focus. I didn't realise until some way around the track. Dammit. Another lesson. I did have my go-pro running and managed to get some good footage from that.
Fortunately I had been warned, but one of the first things the dogs do as they set off on the trail, is poop. While they are running. And boy, does it stink. One of the dogs at the front of our team had diarrhoea, so he was just pumping out liquid as he trotted along. I kept my mouth closed, but there was nothing else but to inhale the smell.
About half way round the course we switched over, and I got to "mush" and drive the sled. I really had no idea, and it's the dogs that know what they were doing. We were supposed to keep about 20 feet from the next team in front of us, so at one point I was stepping on the drag mat to slow them down, and boy, did I get some reproachful looks from the dogs. Looking back at me over his shoulder, as if to say "what the heck do you thing you're doing, we got this.
We survived the mushing thanks to the experience of the dogs, and made it back to base safely. We were then allowed into the puppy enclosure, where all the pups were penned. They are about 9 months old, full of energy but short on manners. We were warned that anything dangling that look like it might be a toy would be snapped at, but we should not let them bite or chew. They were brim full of exuberance, leaping, barking, licking. Both Jon and Belinda made the mistake of getting down to dog level, and they are monstered, faces licked, dog slobber everywhere, including Belinda's lens, which promptly froze on, and had to be scraped off.
Soon it was time to leave, and we reluctantly loaded our stuff into the trucks and headed off to have lunch at Latitude 62. It was a burgers and fries kinda joint, the food was good and filling and set us up for the snow machines.
We headed out to take some landscape photos, a bunch of 4 novices on snow machines in deep soft snow on barely worn trails. What could possibly go wrong ?
The prize for the first mishap of the day went to Brett & Claire, Brett managed to get too close to one of the snow banks and wiped his wife Claire into a large snow drift, but manged not to get stuck. It was my turn next, crossing the frozen river, where it was pretty important to stay on the clearly marked trail. Did I ? Well that was my intention, but I did not follow the advice of looking where you want to go, and ended up plowing a new path just off the main trail before I managed to turn us back on course. The snow is so deep and light that you end up covered in it.
The next wipe-out happened as we were turning and supposed to be going up a short rise, but I muffed it and we ended up going over and having to be hauled out. In my defence, three other machines also got stuck in the same spot.
We stopped a few times to take photos, the sun shining though trees, the sun making amazing shadows on the snow etc etc. We swapped drivers, and that's when things really went south. I had just manged to take this picture, and was still putting my phone away in my pocket, when Belinda drove us way too close to the soft snow at the edge of the track, and over we went.
My leg was jammed briefly under something snow-machine-ish, but the snow was so soft we could just push down into and untangle. There was a bunch of hands helping us up, the machine was righted and we were soon off again, no damage done.
We carried on, the next challenge was to get the machine up a fairly sharp little hill, but once again, we got too close to the soft snow on the edge, and the machine rolled over on top of us. It must have looked impressive, but the snow was so soft it was like landing in a soft fluffy cloud. The hardest bit was getting back up again. This time we managed to pop the wind-shield off and we had to shove it back in place again. Thankfully that was it for mis-haps, for us at least. As we were parking, and reversing the machines back into the parking slots in front of our cabins, Brett got stuck in reverse and went hurtling backwards, managed to plow a new space in the soft snow, narrowly missing Kevin, who manged to jump out of the way.
After all the crash excitement, we took a 45 minute break, and grabbed some coffee and a slice of my almost stale leftover coffee cake.
Our next adventure was on snow machines again, but this time only a short drive back towards the river. A sunset photo shoot. Jon has borrowed his neighbour's sled team and was doing laps in the snow with the dogs, so they were silhouetted against the setting sun.
Much fun to be had as Jon tried to wrestle the dog team and get them in to position for us. No easy task, with the snow so deep and the odd wandering dog causing a major distraction for the sled team. Still we managed some good shots and came away happy.
By now it was about 8pm and time for dinner, so we took a short walk around the corner to the Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant, where we all had delicious pizza.
Here's the crew, and apologies, not always flattering photos
L to R in each photo:
As we all walked back to the cabins, Chris pretended that he could see northern lights on the horizon, as a practise run, so that we would all rush back to our cabins and gather the gear we needed to a Northern Lights photo show. There were not lights.
The first activity today was mushing. Someone crazy thought it would be a good idea to put us in charge of a sled and dog mushing team.
We arrived at he dog sledding place (whose name escapes me for now) and were ushered into the main reception area, which absolutely stunk of dog. In a good way of course. There were dogs everywhere, on the couch, coming up for a sniff, milling around, sleeping on a bed in the corner. We had to sign the usual waiver, acknowledging that no-one would be held liable for any accident or damage. Welcome to Alaska, please sign the waiver.
Then we were given some simple instructions on how to "mush". If you want to make the sled go left, put your weight on the left hand side of the sled, if you want it to go right, put your weight on the right hand side of the sled. You can slow the dogs down by putting weight on the drag mat, which is essentially a rubber mat that "floats" between the two runners on each side of the sled, and when you stand on it, it drags in the snow and slows that whole sled down. There is also a brake, which is a bar you stand on which digs four spikes into the snow.
When you first start out, the dogs are fresh and super excited to be going somewhere. The noise is incredible, barking, leaping, lunging, tugging at their lines. As soon as your take off, it all goes quiet. They are working, and concentrating, and getting the job done. I was blown away by how much pulling power the dogs have. We had six dogs to pull our crapload of weight probably 400 pounds, plus the sled.
It was stunning, with all the fresh snow, the track was basically a channel dug in the snow, shoulder high, that the dogs followed. I started out sitting in the front of the sled, supposed to be taking pictures but cocking it up royally by forgetting to change the setting on my lens back to auto focus. I didn't realise until some way around the track. Dammit. Another lesson. I did have my go-pro running and managed to get some good footage from that.
Fortunately I had been warned, but one of the first things the dogs do as they set off on the trail, is poop. While they are running. And boy, does it stink. One of the dogs at the front of our team had diarrhoea, so he was just pumping out liquid as he trotted along. I kept my mouth closed, but there was nothing else but to inhale the smell.
About half way round the course we switched over, and I got to "mush" and drive the sled. I really had no idea, and it's the dogs that know what they were doing. We were supposed to keep about 20 feet from the next team in front of us, so at one point I was stepping on the drag mat to slow them down, and boy, did I get some reproachful looks from the dogs. Looking back at me over his shoulder, as if to say "what the heck do you thing you're doing, we got this.
We survived the mushing thanks to the experience of the dogs, and made it back to base safely. We were then allowed into the puppy enclosure, where all the pups were penned. They are about 9 months old, full of energy but short on manners. We were warned that anything dangling that look like it might be a toy would be snapped at, but we should not let them bite or chew. They were brim full of exuberance, leaping, barking, licking. Both Jon and Belinda made the mistake of getting down to dog level, and they are monstered, faces licked, dog slobber everywhere, including Belinda's lens, which promptly froze on, and had to be scraped off.
Soon it was time to leave, and we reluctantly loaded our stuff into the trucks and headed off to have lunch at Latitude 62. It was a burgers and fries kinda joint, the food was good and filling and set us up for the snow machines.
We headed out to take some landscape photos, a bunch of 4 novices on snow machines in deep soft snow on barely worn trails. What could possibly go wrong ?
The prize for the first mishap of the day went to Brett & Claire, Brett managed to get too close to one of the snow banks and wiped his wife Claire into a large snow drift, but manged not to get stuck. It was my turn next, crossing the frozen river, where it was pretty important to stay on the clearly marked trail. Did I ? Well that was my intention, but I did not follow the advice of looking where you want to go, and ended up plowing a new path just off the main trail before I managed to turn us back on course. The snow is so deep and light that you end up covered in it.
The next wipe-out happened as we were turning and supposed to be going up a short rise, but I muffed it and we ended up going over and having to be hauled out. In my defence, three other machines also got stuck in the same spot.
We stopped a few times to take photos, the sun shining though trees, the sun making amazing shadows on the snow etc etc. We swapped drivers, and that's when things really went south. I had just manged to take this picture, and was still putting my phone away in my pocket, when Belinda drove us way too close to the soft snow at the edge of the track, and over we went.
My leg was jammed briefly under something snow-machine-ish, but the snow was so soft we could just push down into and untangle. There was a bunch of hands helping us up, the machine was righted and we were soon off again, no damage done.
We carried on, the next challenge was to get the machine up a fairly sharp little hill, but once again, we got too close to the soft snow on the edge, and the machine rolled over on top of us. It must have looked impressive, but the snow was so soft it was like landing in a soft fluffy cloud. The hardest bit was getting back up again. This time we managed to pop the wind-shield off and we had to shove it back in place again. Thankfully that was it for mis-haps, for us at least. As we were parking, and reversing the machines back into the parking slots in front of our cabins, Brett got stuck in reverse and went hurtling backwards, managed to plow a new space in the soft snow, narrowly missing Kevin, who manged to jump out of the way.
After all the crash excitement, we took a 45 minute break, and grabbed some coffee and a slice of my almost stale leftover coffee cake.
Our next adventure was on snow machines again, but this time only a short drive back towards the river. A sunset photo shoot. Jon has borrowed his neighbour's sled team and was doing laps in the snow with the dogs, so they were silhouetted against the setting sun.
Much fun to be had as Jon tried to wrestle the dog team and get them in to position for us. No easy task, with the snow so deep and the odd wandering dog causing a major distraction for the sled team. Still we managed some good shots and came away happy.
By now it was about 8pm and time for dinner, so we took a short walk around the corner to the Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant, where we all had delicious pizza.
Here's the crew, and apologies, not always flattering photos
L to R in each photo:
 |
| Chris Mark and Brett |
 |
| Pizza action shot, Kevin and Chris |
 |
| Belinda being forced to eat Vege pizza while Claire chuckles |
 |
| Brett Meena and Alastair |
As we all walked back to the cabins, Chris pretended that he could see northern lights on the horizon, as a practise run, so that we would all rush back to our cabins and gather the gear we needed to a Northern Lights photo show. There were not lights.
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