There and Back Again- A Musher's Tale

I recently had the opportunity to tag along on a Quest training run from Manley to Tanana with my good friends Hugh and Nicole. Both competitive dog mushers with chops I lack. I run a rec team, maybe 5 to 7 dogs at a time, 7 miles here, 12 miles there. No hills. No worries. Always pretty close to home base. Ten of my 17 live in the house full time. It would suffice to say that I have never done anything quite so enterprising as a run to Tanana, Alaska. But I wasn't going to say no...

I was somewhat aware of what I was getting into. I knew the area between Manley and Tanana was hilly, windy terrain that would give a musher a little taste of just about everything you could expect on the Yukon Quest. Susan Butcher Trained out there, Brent Sass trains out there...A lot of tough mushers train(ed) out there. The list goes on and on.

I have a heavy old-school sled. It was given to us by Joe LeFervre. There's a lot more metal and wood involved in its construction than you'd typically see in the newer sleds. But it was tough and nobody doubted that it would carry me the distance. I couldn't pick up extra runner plastic for it so Hugh brought some along to toss in my sled bag. We never got to use it...

We couldn't have asked for better weather—about 30F degrees with a light breeze to help keep us and the dogs cool on such an unseasonably warm late December day.

Our initial plan was to run tandem, but we abandoned that plan well before arriving in Manley. We decided to run three teams instead.

As we hooked up dogs just below Joe Redington's place I was pretty nervous about running someone else's dogs.

"Hmm..."

“Don't tell the dogs though.” I thought to myself.

I know my dogs. I know who's harness belongs to who in my team. I know who likes to run where in the line. My dogs know how I talk to them and respond well to my voice. My dogs are patient and won't take off without me (usually). If the sled suddenly goes light, they stop.

I didn't know these dogs, this super pumped team of hearty Yukon Quest veterans, very well. I was just going to have to settle with knowing dogs in general.

Ich spreche hund.

Nicole left ahead of me and Hugh left behind me. I stayed between them for about half of the run to Tanana. Aside from a small amount of overflow and some knee deep wallows it was a fairly leisurely start to our adventure. I'd never done hills, but I wasn't having a horrible time with it. It was a workout, no doubt—helping the dogs, kicking and running up hills and pushing through deep spots. I'd done a lot of hiking over the summer and am in a lot better shape this year than in the past and I thought—

“This isn't too bad.”

"Not bad at all."

I ate it a few times at the bottom of some short hills, slogging through the accumulated snow in the little valleys between. My first wipeout was actually pretty smooth. I found myself skating along beside my sled on my knees across some hard windblown snow. I pulled myself up onto my runners all smooth and ninja-like—surprising myself, as I have an old rotator-cuff injury that I have been slowly rehabilitating for some time. Apparently I did a good job. I never lost the team and I must have wiped out six times total, five on the way to Tanana, and only once on the way back to Manley.

My biggest problem was stopping my team.

You see, when I first pulled that old-school style sled out of storage and began accumulating dogs, I really had no clue what I was doing when making modifications to it. It had a brushbow on the verge of shattering, and needed new runner plastic. It had a drop down seat that seemed cumbersome, uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous. I could totally see losing a kneecap on that bad boy, so I swapped it out for a drag mat. Just a piece of snowmachine track bolted to my bed. No cleats. Just rubber knobs.

For years, at home, on hard, fast, flat groomed trails, it worked fine. It was sufficient for what I was doing.

But out in the real world...

Not so much.

As snow accumulated under the front of my drag mat it became increasingly difficult to get a bite out of the trail with my rusty, old-school brake. I struggled with it all the way to Tanana, running my team up on top of the team in front of me almost every time we stopped to snack. I was constantly kicking snow off of the mat or picking it up with my hand to release accumulation. The drag mat could not be tied up out of the way without cutting me off from my brake completely.

As the day wore on and the darkness began creeping in the wind picked up and I could feel that we were getting closer to the Yukon River. It was at this point we began encountering bare stretches of gravel and things became increasingly more difficult.

It was overcast, and moonless. Your world shrinks down to this tiny bubble that extends as only far as your headlamp can shine.

Its getting cooler and the dogs have fallen into a great rhythm as well as picked up some speed. Nicole is leading the way, Hugh is behind me.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of Nicole's leaders swings the team around for a big fat u-turn. There's no way for her to plant a snowhook in frozen bare gravel. I barely got my team stopped myself. Nicole requests that I try to pass her but as I do it becomes apparent that my team wants to do the same thing hers is doing. It's understandable, since technically our three teams were all one pack, of which, Hugh is the leader. No one is listening to me. I'm not their musher. I'm just the dummy on the sled that can barely stop the team.

Nicole lays down her sled and begins to straighten out her team. As Hugh passes me mine straightens out.

“She lost a mitt, dude!” He says.

“I see it. I got it.”

I don't know how I caught that mitt. I was on one runner pulling my sled hard backwards and to the right and just barely had the mitt in my hand when I felt the lurch of my team moving forward after Hugh and Nicole.

Shortly after that Nicole blew out some runner plastic so we stopped to replace it. She's missing the pin that secures the plastic to the runner so it is held on by a piece of wire.

A half mile or so later I see this red curl of runner plastic spring up out of the trail.

Somehow I caught that too.

My runner plastic was still in one piece but wearing thin on all the exposed gravel. Especially the left runner, which has a twist to it so it wears plastic unevenly. I knew it would be the first one to blow out. I resolved to favor the right runner try to preserve my plastic for the final stretch. It was then I began to ponder the plastic Hugh had brought. It never occurred to either of us to ask “What kind is it?”

I worried whatever kind it was, it was the wrong kind...

My left runner plastic started to shred just before we dropped onto the Yukon River.

“You'll make it. We'll be there in about an hour.” Hugh tells me.

The wind is howling good, and I know were very close. You know you're getting close to the river when the wind howls and the temperature drops.

On what I expected to be our last snack stop I threw on my wind layer (I had been wearing a light fleece jacket the whole way out) and pulled out my big mitts. The gloves I'd been using all day were no longer adequate. My hands were cramping and I had very little control of what my fingers were doing. I'd grown out of holding on to my sled too tight long ago, so I knew that wasn't the problem.

I dropped a hand warmer in each mitt. Soon my hands were sweating. Fingers still cramping and misfiring I began my self analysis.

My fingers aren't listening to my brain.

My left hip is cramping up a little.

My right butt cheek is cramping up.

I've eaten three pieces of jerky, a single peanut M&M, and a chewable B-12 vitamin.

Drank about a quart of water.

Been on the trail about nine hours. Running on five hours sleep.

Hmm...

I was dehydrated, for sure. I'd been trying to make sure I drank every time we stopped, but it's difficult sometimes.

Ahead of me I see Hugh and Nicole drop clean out of sight. They are on the Yukon.

Here we go. Into the Mouth of Madness.

Fingers don't fail me now.

My team drops out of sight over the edge of the river bank.

A split second later my sled crests the top of the bank into a near vertical 30 foot drop with a step halfway down. Can't turn back now. No stopping this train.

I'm sure every aspiring musher has seen video of other mushers eating shit on very similar pieces of trail.

Downhills are dangerous—especially steep ones like that. You have to keep the line from going slack and juggling. If dogs trip or become tangled they can be badly injured.

I lay everything I've got into my brake and drag, I have both feet dug in hard. Somehow I managed to get a foot on a runner to shred the hard left at the bottom of the drop and try to stay upright.

I don't think I did stay upright. If memory serves me, I ate it right there.

No big deal.

Crossing the Yukon is a bit of a blur. Like, flying through space at warp speed.

"Uhh...Mr.Sulu?"

I remember a moment early on in our crossing when I looked up from my dogs and saw Hugh and Nicole's teams stretched out in the bubble of their headlamps, wind blown snow creeping eerily across the landscape around them. It struck me then that I'd only seen anything like it on Iditarod and Quest videos. Maybe a documentary or two.

I've never even crossed the Chena with my team.

As Hugh pulled away from us both mine and Nicole's teams wanted nothing more than to make a beeline run toward Hugh's headlamp. They weren't following Hugh's “trail”...

There really wasn't a trail.

So.

Here we go, helter-skelter across alternating patches of glare ice, jumble ice, and snow drifts at borderline uncontrollable speeds.

Right then I really wished my drag mat had cleats and that my brake wasn't a rusty, welded, hunk of crap.

My world is shrinking.

My headlamp batteries are weakening.

I can barely see my leaders and I'm struggling to see my line. My concern for the dogs is growing, even though their concern for me is obviously zero.

My headlamp had flashed earlier in the night and Nicole had stopped thinking I needed assistance. “Your batteries are probably going dead.” She had said.

I thought about changing them at the time but they were still pretty bright and I only had one set of replacement batteries. I decided to risk it.

The wind is blowing snow in vortexes around me, periodically obscuring my view of Hugh and Nicole's headlamps. It was then I decided a strong headlamp would have made it harder for me to see at a distance through the blowing snow anyway. A half dead headlamp seemed a happy medium.

I started singing to the dogs. One: to let them know was still there. And two: To let them hear the tone of my voice, to hear that I remain upbeat despite the chaos I'm experiencing.

“I see a baaad moon a-rising.”

SLAM.

CRASH.

“I see trouble on the way.”

BANG.

SLAM.

“I see hurricanes and lightnin'.”

CRASH.

SCRAPE.

“I see bad times today.”

My team is scrambling across some glare ice when I suddenly find that they are pointed south and my sled is pointed west. The wind is pushing my sled around the left side of my team because my rip-stop nylon sled bag is like a wind sail. I'm heading sideways toward a huge chunk of jumble ice.

Somebody asked me later if I was afraid while I was down on the river ice.

I didn't have time to be afraid. I only had time to react. You don't have time to second guess yourself. I hit my brake just in time to skate it around and regain control.

“Maybe I shouldn't be singing this particular song, huh guys?” I said to the dogs.

Just then I caught a small ridge of jumble at a bad angle and ate it pretty hard. I felt some ice rip at my knee and then was dragged for probably twenty feet across some glare yelling “Woah, woah, WOAH!”

I may have said a few other choice words...

All I could really do was hold on and wait to hit a snow drift. When we did, I was able to right my sled and look down my line.

“Is everyone okay?” I ask.

The dogs respond by barking impatiently to get going again.

“Alright! Let's go!”

Easier said than done...

It's hard to describe exactly how slippery glare ice is. Helping the dogs get started after plowing into a snow drift on glare ice is...difficult.

On the move again, it seemed the worst of it was behind us. I'd ascertained the dogs were fine. Was I fine? My knee was cold. Was I bleeding? No. I didn't think so. I looked down. No hole in my pants. I'm good.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway. It was still well above zero. My hands were sweaty and a river of sweat was making its way down my spine. A little air conditioning wouldn't have hurt. I'd worn my usual system of sweat wicking layers and remembered to powder my socks. I was, despite sweating all day, not soaking wet. I was in pretty good shape and almost there, theoretically.

The dogs (I had very little to do with it) came across a place on the ice where snow machines had crossed but they left it again in favor of their beeline toward the “Pied Piper”. No one was listening to me.

Riding my brake to keep control, I hoped it would hold out.

As I listened to my brake scrape the ice I hear a light crackling, like walking across frozen puddles in the road that have turned into hollow shells of what they were the day before.

I wasn't overly concerned. I was sure it was what it sounded like; shallow pockets of air.

Right?

Sure. Let's go with that. I never looked down to see. I just kept listening. I wasn't listening for such light small sounds.

I'm told breaking ice sounds like shotgun blasts...

The crackling only lasted maybe 20 seconds.

It was replaced by this strange howl rising under me, like wind across the mouth of a wine jug.

Or didgeridoos.

I really don't think I was hallucinating.

I'm listening to this sound trying to visualize what's going on under the ice. My eyes still fixed on the dogs in the dimming light of my headlamp, squinting to see their feet moving in a steady trot and that my lines remained taught.

Is it hollow? I think it's hollow...

I contemplated its thickness based on the sound.

Six inches? Eight inches?

Who knows. I don't.

The dogs knew more than I did and I trusted in that.

Next thing I know I'm dodging big rocks on the bank, but there's at least some snow under my sled again.

Ahead I see Nicole is stopped and Hugh is redirecting his team.

I stop. “What's going on up there?” I ask the dogs. “Is Hugh getting us lost?”

It was then, for the first time, I noticed a hill, and it occurred to me that the only reason I could see this hill on such a dark overcast night was because there was at least some light behind it, reflecting off the clouds. “No, Tanana is right there. We're almost there. Alright, let's go.”

I had slammed into so many big chunks of ice and only half missed most of the rocks I tried to dodge I was sure my sled must have big holes in the bed plastic. Surely some part of my sled must be broken. I tried to fathom what it would be like to run river ice like that for ten hours instead of just one...in 20 below instead of 20 above.

Hugh leads us into the driveway of our host while in Tanana, Stan Zuray, of “Yukon Men” fame.

This is what makes Alaska both large and small at the same time. You never know who you'll run into, and chances are, whoever you run into knows at least three people you know. We're all neighbors in a state the size of 1/3^rd of the country.

Stan leads the way past his dog lot to a place we can feed and bed down our dogs for the night. As I step off the runners into punchy snow it hits me how physically tired I am. Mentally I was wired, but my body was out of fuel.

Three pieces of jerky, and a peanut M&M...

I unharnessed my dogs slowly and deliberately, trying not to step on feet or trip on my way with a dog to the tie out cable. The wind was still howling and pushing against me. I remember turning my shoulder into it to keep it from pushing me over.

“I'll take care of the dogs.” Hugh tells me after I've got everyone unharnessed. “Go ahead and pull the dog food out of your sled and you guys can take your stuff and the coolers down to the house and hang out for a little bit while the food soaks.”

Stan leads me and Nicole down to a building I'm told is their old house, pointing out the outhouse along the way.

Water is all I can think about.

My fingers are still being stupid. They have me playing air guitar while I fumble with the lid of my water jug. The spout wasn't enough for me. I wanted the whole thing open.

I finally get it open and start chugging this ice water and a million little prickly, annoyingly painful bumps rose in the back of my mouth.

Sharp tiny ice crystals I guess? Whatever. I was thirsty.

I stepped outside into the wind to smoke a cigarette (Sorry, mom. I'm a smoker again. Had to happen.) and Stan reappears and tells me there's hot tea and soup inside.

“How was crossing the river?” He asks me in his somewhat still thick—despite living in Tanana for 40 years—Bostonian accent.

“It was uhh—pretty rowdy.” I say, in what I'm sure must be at least a slight understatement. “I thought Hugh was getting us lost for a minute but I saw the hill and figured Tanana had to be on the other side, so I wasn't overly worried.”

“Oh yeah! That's Mission hill.” He tells me.

I'll never forget the shape of that hill. It's seared into my mind.

Seared.                            Photo: Stan Zuray

He asks me about the stretches of exposed gravel on the way there. I told him I thought it was only about seven miles of combined stretches. It felt like ten. It was probably only four for all I know. I've never done so much running next to my sled before. I told him my runner plastic was shredded and that I was worried the plastic Hugh had brought wasn't the right kind.

“Oh, I've probably got something around here. Don't worry about it, we'll figure it out.”

Stan and his family were great hosts. His grandchildren flocked around us as we ate and asked us a hundred questions and pretty soon the kids were giving me drawings and Christmas cards and offering to paint our nails.

Stan let us use the wi-fi and when I checked the weather in Tanana it said 22 degrees with 6 mile an hour winds. I didn't believe it. There were a few gusts I felt that had to have been at least double that.

My body was tired but my mind was still on the trail. I wasn't sure how well I would sleep.

As soon as I hit the floor I was out.

I was a little stiff the next morning but no worse for wear. Punchy snow aggravates the tendinitis in my ankles if I run dogs without having them wrapped or otherwise braced and tightly laced into my boots. It's something I've come to live with, so I have some sympathy for what the dogs must feel like in punchy snow. My wraps were holding up and my ankles felt fine. My rotator-cuff was still...rotating. My back was okay. I had totally forgotten about the knee I'd slammed into the ice the night before. The wicked bunion on my right foot felt fine.

I still had all my teeth.

There was nothing wrong with me that I couldn't shake off with a stroll around Tanana.

We loaded up on whole wheat blueberry pancakes, cream of cauliflower chowder, and coffee.

I made sure to drink a tall glass of water and refill my jug.

Before taking a sightseeing tour of Tanana, our sleds needed some attention.

Hugh dragged my sled down to the old house and Nicole starting peeling the plastic from my runners as I removed the screws—yes, screws. No handy dandy pins here...

“Oh, no. Hugh! Her plastic isn't the same as ours.” Nicole says.

“I was worried about that.” I tell her “I talked to Stan a little bit about it last night and he seemed to think he had something laying around. If not, this is Tanana. Someone's bound to have that plastic and I can pay for it.”

Stan did have some laying around. It was about ten inches short but some of the old runner plastic was still good so we slid it on behind the new plastic, cut it to length, and screwed it down. My other runner was still in tolerable shape, I thought. We decided to leave it on and I told myself to favor the new plastic on the way back.

Should've just changed it.

Should've, could've, would've...

Changing that plastic required a hammer, a steel punch, and some muscle. It was not an easy change out and took more time and hands than it should have.

"Why, yes. That IS a TARDIS sled bag.

Because a dog sled is a time machine and bowties are cool."

Someday I'll learn to take a hint. Thanks for trying though, Universe...

Stan and I also talked about my brake (he was surprised it wasn't bent from the river ice) and drag mat system but every temporary fix had its drawbacks.

“I think I'll just stick with the devil I know.” I resolved. “I made it here. I'll make it back.”

I stuffed the other runner plastic in my sled bag, but I'd never get to use it.

Stan drove us into town and Nicole and I walked around to loosen up while Hugh caught up with some friends. We took photos of some Jumble ice in the daylight and I met Lester Erhart—a notable dog man who owns the sprint kennel where Hugh started out as a handler so long ago—as well as Charlie Wright, also of “Yukon Men” notoriety.

We were burning daylight. It was well after one in the afternoon and we needed to get a move on.

Back at Stan's I scarfed down another pancake and packed up my stuff. I mashed it all into my sled and pushed it up the hill to our temporary dog lot. Stan had his snow machine fired up and waiting to help us cross the Yukon a little more safely this time.

“There's a sharp left at the bottom of the hill.” He tells us.

Sleds are loaded but much lighter now, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Dogs are harnessed and howling to get moving. Stevie Ray is hammering at his harness just like his brother, Merlin—a dog I got from Hugh I run in my team at home.

Stan takes off, Hugh, then Nicole. I pull my snowhook from the tree stump securing my team and we're off. I'd become accustomed to holding my team back given my inability to effectively stop the team in a short distance.

My stomach was full and I'd gotten what I assumed was eight hours of sleep.

Sharp left. No problem. My trails at home are narrow with sharp turns.

Photo: Stan Zuray

We passed some familiar looking rocks that somehow looked smaller and less intimidating in the daylight. Hugh and Stan were up on the “trail”—a thinly packed skiff of snow across the ice marked out by withies—long, thin willow branches set in the river ice. Nicole's team dropped into a small canyon of ice that had caved in, filled somewhat with water, and refroze.

My team followed suit.

It couldn't have been more than 300 feet long, but it was a rough 300 feet which culminated in yet another epic spill on the ice as my sled crested the jagged lip of the depression at a bad angle and I ate it yet again. It was totally a repeat of the spill I took the night before. I was dragged, yelling at the dogs to stop, waiting to hit a snow drift.

I can hear Nicole yelling at my team to stop too. Or maybe she was yelling at hers. I don't know. It didn't matter.

“Are you okay?!” She shouts over the wind as I right my sled.

“Yeah!” I give her a thumbs up.

“YEAH!” She says, throwing a fist in the air. “Let's go!”

Back up on the “trail” we begin to veer out across the river, following withies and a faint white snow machine track that the wind had pretty much erased in a lot of places.

Just when it seemed like we were doing good I look up and see Hugh's team going the wrong way, and Nicole's team is balled up on the ice in front of me. I see her up there doing the penguin shuffle on the glare ice trying to straighten out. Meanwhile I'm trying to pay attention to my team.

I'm sure we looked ridiculous. Part of me was trying not to laugh as I wondered what aerial footage of the chaos would have looked like.

I think Stan may have helped Hugh get his team pointed towards the bank again but I'm not sure because I'm busy watching my team get blown sideways across the glare ice.

Rosalita, one of my team's leader's, God bless her furry heart. I'm glad one of us knew what the hell we were doing out there...

My team is being pushed sideways and back at an angle and Rosalita makes the executive decision to turn us clean around.

At first I'm like “No! Wait. What are you doing!?” trying to deduce what she had in mind here...

I realize then that she has her eye on this strip of ice that has more texture, like refrozen slush.

“Yeah! Good girl! Haw on over there! Yip, yip, yip! Let's go! GOOD dogs!”

The strip of traction led us to the bank to a spot where I thought I saw Hugh's team stopped a few seconds before. There was decent hard-packed snow here so I planted the hook, laid over my sled and made a quick walk down the line to adjust a dog who had gone under a juggled line to the wrong side of the team. I gave Rosalita a rub on the head and told her she was a good girl.

Stevie Ray barked his impatience and hammered at his harness.

Time to go.

The rest of the way down the far side of the river was easier going as I regrouped for the steep run up that thirty foot cut-bank.

Photo: Nicole Faille

Steep uphills suck. That's all I really have to say about that...

Not one of us just sallied up that, save for Stan on the snow machine.

I held my team back pretty far until both Hugh and Nicole's teams were clear of the crest and my team seemed to have had enough of a break and were howling to eat up the trail ahead.

“Alright! Alright! Let's go, let's go!”

I let them attack that hill and when our momentum slowed I jumped off and ran. I didn't want to have to stop short and have to get them going again.

I had tied my drag mat up out of the way so I could push the sled and run behind it when the time came, but it eliminated the option of braking...I had to do this just right.

At the top I planted my snowhook to stop my team, flopped my sled on top of it, and draped myself over it, trying to catch my breath. I just don't do well with “Steep”. I'll have to work on that.

We had a lot of uphill running to do still, but nothing that grade.

We said our goodbyes to Stan and I told him I would probably be back with Hugh and Nicole next year. Hopefully with at least some of my own dogs.

Up off the river the wind was significantly decreased, gentle even. It was about 4:00 PM and we were losing light pretty quickly.

My headlamp batteries were fresh and I was sure they would make it all the way to Manley.

My short term resolution for my drag mat problem was simply to flip it up and let it rest on my feet. If I needed to kick I was able to, for the most part, hold it up on one foot while I kicked with the other. If I needed to brake it was easy enough to just move my foot, drop the mat, and hit the brake.

I was still having trouble stopping my team with the brake, just like before, so I got pretty good at stopping them with my snowhook. My sled was so light at that point laying my sled on the snowhook did little to keep Stevie Ray from coaxing the team into popping it out of the snow. I ended up just standing on it every time we stopped while Nicole snacked my team. It was simply more effective.

Safer.

I was developing a laundry list of things I needed to change about my sled.

The sky was clear but it was still in the 20's above zero. Sweat traveled down my spine as I jogged next to my sled on long stretches of exposed gravel.

I remembered Nicole the day before. “Is that what you're wearing? You're going to get cold.”

“No, I'm pretty sure I'm going to die of heat stroke.” I replied.

Sooo, hot.

It felt like there was more gravel than there had been the day before. But it was obvious a few snow machines and at least one dog team had been on the trail since we'd passed through. The snow machines had beat down a trail through the snow that took us around many stretches of gravel, but there still seemed to be a lot of it. I began to wonder if it would ever end. I stopped the dogs for some two minute breathers, mainly for my benefit, but they seemed to appreciate a brief stop here and there.

My right runner plastic was blown out so I set my headlamp to flash and waited for us to find a suitable place to stop.

Hugh comes back to me and starts peeling plastic and scraping the channels while I pull those stupid screws.

“We have to do this fast, dude. This is NOT a good situation, the dogs are pumped and don't want to stop.” He says to me.

I can feel it in the air. The energy rising through the dogs as we struggle with my not-so-quick-change runner plastic. There's wood glue all over the runner, in the channels, impeding the new plastic from sliding on. Neither of us can get it to budge.

“We should have just swapped it out at Stan's.” I grumble at my shortsightedness.

Scraping, pushing, pulling. The plastic refuses to cooperate.

“Shit, we can't do it, we just have to go.” Hugh sprints by me and I hustle to make sure I have everything in my sled. Screwdriver...Hugh's ax, my knife. Runner plastic.

I don't really care about my runners at this point anyway. They're on that laundry list. Obviously I need to put new hardware on them and make sure they're well lubricated and free of gunk like wood glue and frickin' varnish.

Totally not amused...

Favoring the only runner with fresh plastic—ahem...The only runner with plastic at all—we continue on.

Balancing on one runner, propping up the drag mat, kicking, running, dropping the drag mat, picking it up again, dropping it again, running some more. I'd almost rather have the jumble ice at this point, than one more mile of gravel.

I was hot, periodically winded, and mildly annoyed, but I had to admit we weren't doing too bad. I felt like we were making better time back to Manley than we did on the way to Tanana.

Eventually our elevation dropped enough that the bare gravel became a thing of the past. The trail was hard and fast from the other travelers passing over it, and the time to set-up in between. I started to sing to the dogs again.

I'd sung many songs to the dogs on the trip. I sung them some Janis Joplin, The Oscar Mayer Wiener song, Me and Julio Down by the School Yard, CCR, I'm sure there was more that I can't seem to recall now.

As long as I stayed far away from Hugh and Nicole the dogs listened to me pretty well. Whenever we were close together and Hugh said “Alright!” all of our teams would surge ahead in unison because he commanded it so. Whenever I stopped to do something away from them the dogs were more intent on me. They didn't move until I had my snowhook resting comfortably where it belonged and I said “Alright, let's go.” In my typical measured indoor voice that I usually talk to my own dogs with while on the trail.

Over the past few years I've tried to train myself to keep my patience and maintain a sense of calm authority and consistency. That's been a trial in itself, for there are times when working with dogs feels more like a test of patience than of endurance, as I'm sure anyone who has ever owned such a strong willed breed can attest to.

Keeping my Zen has done me well. Maintaining a relaxed body language during stressful situations seems to help keep the dogs calm in those tense moments.

My remaining runner plastic was shredded by the time the gravel was behind us. It really didn't matter what runner I stood on anymore...

There were a ton of fresh animal tracks that weren't there the day before. Martin, lynx, rabbit, ptarmigan, and moose. I could see Hugh panning his headlamp side to side up ahead.

Beware the moosebeast.

I noticed a place where some small animal tried to scurry across the snow and was rewarded with death from above. Probably an owl as the wing beats in the snow around the hole left behind seemed to indicate.

Hugh's team makes an abrupt maneuver off of the trail and they grind to a halt. I can't really see what is going on up there but I can hear Hugh yell “No! NO. What are you DOING!? Haw Haw Haw!”

Nicole stops. I stop, waaaay back.

“What's going on up there, huh guys?” The dogs ears orbited around at the sound of Hugh's voice as they watched and I stood on my snow hook. Nicole's team went off the trail in the same spot too and I wondered what was so distracting from the trail up there.

As my team passed the spot I saw what the dogs had in mind.

There were four or five nice neat fluffy beds of straw on the side of the trail another musher had left behind, probably with intentions to use them again on the way back.

My team glanced at them, but never tried to leave the trail for them. They were in chase mode.

Follow the pack.

The dogs are dialed in, chugging along rhythmically, rolling down the trail. My drag mat is no longer picking up piles of snow and my runners are so fried out I barely need to use it anyway. All I have to do is keep the dogs from loping and keep the line from juggling on the long series of downhills ahead.

It's all pretty smooth sailing from here. The sky is clear and the weather is warm by all standards. There's only a few things missing from this perfect stretch of trail...

My patience and endurance was rewarded shortly thereafter. Mother nature was ready to give us the show we had earned.

An unearthly glow appeared behind some distant clouds ahead. It took me a minute to process what I was seeing. Aliens seemed like as good a guess as any.

Of course it was a big slice of half moon, a deep rusty orange, coming over the horizon.

I laughed. “There's our bad moon rising, guys.”

Stevie Ray smiled over his shoulder at me, just like Merlin would have, and I gave a howl and laughed some more.

My headlamp was dying again and the stars began to stand out brighter. Slowly, a green ribbon started to materialize across the sky. It pulsated and grew into an amazing show. I found myself at times standing full on my drag mat and staring at the sky for extended periods of time. I'm sure Hugh and Nicole were wondering why I was so far behind them on such hard fast trail.

I was on autopilot.

One time I looked up and saw a big huge “S” encompassing the sky. It dissolved into curtains of pink and I smiled to myself.

“The Universe approves, guys! There's a nice cozy dog truck waiting for you. Yip, yip, yip!”

I found Hugh and Nicole stopped on the trail. We smoked a cigarette and chatted about the light show. We conferred on the condition of our dogs a little bit and I mentioned my headlamp was dying. Hugh gave me one of his if I needed it.

I tried it out after we were moving again and found it was about the same brightness as what I had.

Oh, well.

A little bit further on down the trail I see a pair of eyes in the middle of the trail behind Nicole. Hugh had let Walter off to run loose.

As my team passed him he fell into stride next to my sled and ran happily next to me for the rest of the run, content with our slower pace.

We were almost there. Only about another hour to go. The dogs could sense it with each familiar landmark we passed. A small amount of overflow, construction signs left over from the summer, a partially finished bridge. The trail we were on is set to become a road to Tanana someday soon. We may never get to use it like we did again.

We arrive in Manley around 12:30 AM. A nine hour run back compared to our ten hour run out—55 to 65 miles each way, depending on who you ask. I seem to be in pretty good shape. My fingers work, no cramps.

Back at the Redington's, dogs put away and sleds loaded up, Joe and Pam are kind enough to let us crash in one of their cabins. We eat, we drink, we discuss. We talked about our run until about three in the morning. I told Hugh about Rosalita's performance on the ice and he said it was good to know, and good that I picked up on what she wanted to do in that moment.

Laying in a bed for the first time in a few days I close my eyes only to discover the image of eight trotting dogs is burnt into my corneas. My brain was still on the trail. I thought about all the things I wanted to do different next time. All the things I needed to do to my sled. I thought about how a tandem run would have been impossible on that trail. I thought about how having more dogs would have made some parts of the trail easier, but having less made crossing the river safer. I thought about how my dogs would have stopped and laid down on the glare ice.

My dogs act like they're falling of the face of the planet when they encounter linoleum.

I tallied up all the things I did that I had never done before with my own dogs. I had never even run in the dark before this trip. I had never crossed a river, or glare ice, or jumble ice. I'd never done hills, wallows or snow drifts...

On the way back to Fairbanks the next day Rosalita wallowed in my lap in the back seat happily absorbing all the praise and massages I was more than glad to give to her, even though I'm pretty sure all she wanted was for me to get out of her seat. I found myself crying tears of joy as the sun set in the southeast and gilded the clouds in gold. I felt as though I probably “leveled up” in a couple of skill lines...

"This dog, dude."

I learned a lot on this adventure. I learned a lot about my sled and a lot about myself and what I'm capable of. I learned what to prepare my dogs for in the future and how my team should look when they are performing effectively.

When I got home I gave Hugh a hug and thanked him for dragging me thoroughly out of my comfort zone...

I needed it.

I can't thank Stan Zuray enough for hooking me up with some runner plastic and helping me get back on the trail, even though it all went out the window pretty fast. I left behind four brand new pairs of felt work gloves at his place that I hadn't used on the way there and didn't feel the need to pack back out. I hope he finds them useful.

I should thank everyone that helped us along the way, some people I met and some people I didn't get a chance to shake hands with. Some names I can't remember. We were hosted for a night in Minto by some very generous Tituses. I hope you enjoyed the cookies, and that your Open North American dreams come true. I'll be watching out for you on the trail.

I'm bad at names. Ask Hugh's dogs about that...

It was a wild ride at times...

And I can't wait to do it all again...

"I'll be back."