A Recap

I don’t know if you’ve been following the weather up here in Alaska, but we are currently experiencing a record-setting amount of freezing rain. Yes, freezing rain. You may think “Freezing rain? Is that not also called ice?” Let me explain. Freezing rain is even better than ice, hail, sleet, slain, or any other combinations of rain and ice. Freezing rain is exactly as it’s name suggests: rain that falls from the sky as water and upon impact with the cold ground, freezes, resulting in a layer of ice covering any packed surface like dog circles, driveways, and roads. A small amount of freezing rain fell back in February 2003, but other than that, the last recorded occurrence of substantial amounts of freezing rain was in 1936. Over the past couple of days, we’ve received approximately one inch of freezing rain, which (I try not to think about) is the equivalent to about 10 inches of snow. But instead of walking out to a nice layer of snow, we walk out to ice filled puddles in dog circles and an ice skating rink on the roadways. Driving has become treacherous, so the entire Fairbanks is closed down, and the few foolhardy travelers crawl along the roads at 15 mph. Yesterday, Aliy and I took out two dog teams with four wheelers for a 40 mile run before the trails turned into ice chutes. As we paralleled the road, a SUV came puttering up behind us with one set of tires in the snow berm and the other on the glare ice. We were almost going as fast as the car! But enough complaining. Snow and cold weather is in the forecast, so with a little luck, we’ll be back on sleds and complaining of the subzero temperatures in no time.

Before all this freezing rain, we had nice, snow packed trails. Even though we couldn’t really set a snowhook, we were taking out sleds with teams as large as 12 dogs. On Friday, we decided to take the dogs to the White Mountains for a fifty-mile training run. It was my first time to the White Mountains, and I was looking forward to running dogs on new terrain. We loaded up the dogs in the morning and drove the hour and a half to the trailhead. Seeing two snowplows in the parking lot is always a good sign. We harnessed, bootied, and hooked up our teams, then started out on the fresh, unbroken trail. Along the way we passed forest service cabins, two moose, and a few larger birds. The sunset was a rush of vivid red and orange streaked across the sky. I posted a picture of the sunset, but even the photo just can’t capture the intensity of the colors. Combine that with the rolling hills, the scraggly black spruce, the winter stillness, and an enthusiastic dog team, and it was a wonderful experience. I look forward to our other training runs in the White Mountains.

The day after we trained in the White Mountains, Aliy and I drove 20 dogs down to Denali to practice running on a treadmill. The SP athletes are not practicing running on a treadmill for everyday exercise, but rather because they are subjects in various studies conducted by veterinarian, Mike Davis, from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Davis has obtained different grants over the years to study the physiology of sled dogs. Prior studies have explored the circumstances of gastric ulcers. Currently, he is working on studying the effects of high altitude on the dogs and eventually VO2 max of these incredible athletes. I’ll post of video of the study in the near future. But for now, we’re keeping busy doing chores and waiting for the ice to disappear!













A fun video with Sam and Tig testing out the kids sled! Tig isn't quite a sled dog, but she pulls her weight and then some.