Friday, December 28, 2007

The Side Bridge

I am loosing sleep worrying about how to cross this damn stream. I went back to the site to take another look and see about a possible reroute which might allow a straight approach to the bridge. There is an old logging trail off of the end that might work; it just has a lot of brush growing in it so I think if I cut that it might work. There is a pretty large ridge before getting back to the main trail but it might be doable. I cut the brush then asked both employees to join me for another training run. I figured I might as well have some weight in the sled since that will be the situation for tours. We approached the new side trail and I was nervous; it was still pretty tight with a pretty good bend in it plus it had a rise of about eight feet in the space of about twenty feet. Not great. We went into the spur and the dogs pulled the sled up the sharp rise until they were down side of it and the sled was on the uphill side at which point we stopped dead. It was too steep for them to pull a loaded sled up. I was able to get behind the sled and push with everything I had to get the sled over the top at which point we shot down the other side and into another corner. Over went the sled. %$#@! The corner is too sharp and if I can’t get a sled through there how can I expect my help who have much less driving experience than I do to make it? We did the remainder of the run and on the way back I was actually able to get us across the bride and through the reroute without incident but it wasn’t easy.

Now what to do? Yet another; bigger reroute? I went back to the site to look around some more. Maybe I could run the spur a little further out on the old logging road and it could work. We went back and spent another half day working on another approach trail. The following weekend I had tour booked at 12:00 and we had not yet run the new spur trail. Stress, oh yeah. It happened to be on a Sunday when my wife was off from work so she agreed to go help me and we were going to do one run with half of the dogs before the actual tour then run the other eight for the tour. We hooked up the team and off we went. I made it through the new reroute and over the bridge but it was still pretty scary. I’m once again thinking to myself that there is no way my help is going to get a loaded sled through this spot. We did the rest of the run and came back; crossed the bridge and headed into the spur trail. As we were about half way through we went around a sharp turn with a drop off to the right and I lost control of the sled. Over and down we went. I hit so hard that it sheared the laminated ash driving bow off of the sled. My wife was limping from banging her knee on something and she had scratch on the side of her forehead. We somehow got the sled up and back on the trail and made it back to the truck.

Now I have guests coming for a tour in forty five minutes; a broken sled and no safe trail. The first thought was to cancel and go home. My second thought was that they had come all the way from New Hampshire mainly to go on this dogsled ride. My third thought was that I had just enough time to run home; grab my second sled and get back here to meet them but how were we going to make it across the damn bridge? There was no way I would attempt to drive them through the spur trail after what had just happened. I decided we could sled to the bridge location; unhook each dog and walk them across the bridge one a time and hook them back up on the other side. This was time consuming but all went well and the guests were able to have a little extra interaction with the dogs.

I managed to pull this tour off but we really don’t want to be unhooking and walking the dogs across this bridge all winter long. I was quickly coming to the conclusion that somehow; some way I was going to have to build a thirty five foot span bridge seven feet in the air where the old logging bridge used to be. I had no idea how since there is not a way for equipment to get in to the site. I had also burned up another week attempting to make the side bridge work. Four days working out there and $250.00 worth of lumber and we still didn’t have a workable solution.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Early Season

Early December. So much for the best laid plans. The temporary bridge idea did not pan out so well. We spent the better part of a day working in thirty five degree drizzle building a twenty foot bridge over the steam that is a quarter mile up the tour trail. A week later we had enough snow to run the dogs on the trail for the first time. We hooked up small six dog teams to keep things a little more sane for a first run. All went well until we arrived at the new bridge crossing. The angle from the trail onto the bridge was too sharp to drive even a six dog team around. I went first with my employee following. I was able to get my team onto the bridge but they then jumped into the stream which is only about six inches deep to get themselves a drink. I pulled them back onto the bridge and jumped back on the sled at which point they jumped back into the stream. We repeated this about three times until we finally made it to the other side of the bridge. At this point I new the second sled was going to have just as much or more trouble than I did. I put my snow hook into the ground to hold my sled and team and broke rule # 2 of dogsledding. I walked back behind my team to help her across the bridge. I had just gotten back there when I looked up and saw my dogs running down the trail without me! Damn; I really should know better. If you are in front of your team and they pull the snow hook loose you at least have a chance of grabbing them as the go by. If you are behind the sled even five feet there’s no way you will catch them.

I went into controlled panic mode. The dogs had never run this trail before and had no idea where they were going. There was a loop turn around at two and a half miles out but the trail also continued and split in several locations. One would take them all the way over the top of Elmore Mountain, one would take them to Lake Elmore and possible the main road if they kept going. Of course there is always the possibility that without some one controlling the sled they could tangle around a tree or other object and become injured or fight. Sometimes if dogs are injured and they are attached to another dog they will blame the other dog for their pain and lash out. All of these thoughts were rushing through my head. My dogs are like my family and it would break my heart if something happened to them because of my mistake.

I managed to get the second sled across the bridge and had my employee jump in the sled so I could drive and we took off after the second team. I knew there was very little chance of us catching them but couldn’t think of any other option at the time. The first team had a empty sled which meant they were flying along the trail. We had two people in the sled and a team with less power. I ran and pushed the sled up every hill to keep us going as fast as possible. I am in pretty good shape from cycling, hiking and other outdoor activities but running and pushing at this pace sure had my heart rate way up there. I probably had a little adrenaline running through my veins as well..

I drove on and every corner we rounded I hoped for a sign of the team but saw nothing but foot prints in the snow. We were about a quarter of a mile from the turn around where I would have had to stop because the rest of the trail was not packed and the loaded sled would have bogged down when I heard some screaming and barking in the distance. Siberians can make these sounds when they are excited to run or when they are hurt so I was still very worried but at least we were getting close. We came around the next corner and there they were in the middle of the trail screaming to go. The snow hook which was out of the sled had caught one of the two tines on something in the ground on a slight uphill and it had stopped the team. I was SO relieved! I jumped off of the second sled and grabbed my team while my employee took over on the second sled. We turned both teams around for a fairly calm run back. We again had trouble with the bridge and both of us tipped out sleds over trying to make it around the sharp corners. At last we made it back to where we started and loaded the dogs back in the truck.

Back to the drawing board; obviously this bridge situation was not going to work. More panic; it was about two weeks before I would have tours starting and I basically had no trail to run on.