Any Friday where you get a hall pass from the office has the
potential to be a wonderful day, but it may be a while before I top
yesterday's "work" day!
On
a beautiful and snowy February day, I traded the business casual
attire, desk chair and nice warm office for wooly pants, mittens and and
sleeping bag in the basket of a dog sled for an adventure into the
hills of Tom Miner Basin with
Yellowstone Dog Sled Adventures. A worthy trade? Without a doubt.
Our
day started with meeting our guide, Josiah, who drove us the rest of
way up to our starting point. During the ride, he told us about the type
of dogs we would be using (primarily Alaskan huskies) as well as some
of the big differences between the common types of working dogs (Alaskan
huskies can go 150 miles in a day, where Malamutes go, well, about
35....). We also learned a little bit about his company and their dogs -
rather than breeding their own dogs, their owner prefers to get dogs
from racing kennels in Alaska where they often end up with too many dogs
and nothing to do with them. Not only does this practice prevent
unnecessary breeding, but it also allows these "extra" dogs to keep
doing what they love and not ending up in a shelter or with someone who
does not understand them and their need to work. After a day with these
dogs, I can't imagine one of these guys or gals being happy living in a
place where going for a walk or throwing the ball around was their
source of exercise!
When
we reached the point where we would begin our trip, we were able to
watch Josiah hitch up the sled teams while he gave us instructions on
safety and how the drive the sleds, of which we had 2 different types.
Tamarak and I had a traditional sled, with a large basket in front and
the driver standing behind. The other was taking by Linda and our guide,
and had a smaller basket in front and room for 2 drivers in the back.
This unique sled type is much less common (in fact these guys are the
only ones in the area to use them) but allows novice wimps like us the
opportunity to drive the sled, but still having our guide there to help
out...basically Driver's Ed for dog sledding! We voted that Tamarak
would drive her own normal sled (she does drive for a living, right?!
Sure, it's trucks and snowcoaches, but who's worrying about semantics
here?) and Linda and I were perfectly content going along for the ride.
While Josiah was getting them set, we got to meet all of our dogs and
see a little bit of the personality in each of them. Tam and I had a
team of blondies - our lead dogs Dogwood and Rodick, who were followed
by Krypton and Brie, our red-headed stepchild Drago (aka, our only
non-blondie, a recent transplant from Alaska) and Peanut and Argon
brought up the rear.
Once
the dogs were ready to go (and they very vocally told you that they
were ready!) we were off into the hills of Tom Miner Basin. The trip is
about 8 miles round trip and follows the road up past the Tom Miner
Campground on the Sunlight Road. The trip in starts out fairly flat and
then begins climbing. When they are climbing, the dogs seem to be
getting too tired and stopping, but in fact many times it is just that
they can't tell whether the pulling got harder because of the uphill or
because their driver has the brake on telling them to stop. You give
them a little pip of encouragement to let them know they can keep going,
and the energy jolt comes one to where Tam thought they were going to
leave her behind a few times! There are of course regular rest breaks
for them throughout the trip, but after they have eaten some snow and
rolled in it for about 3 seconds, they seem raring to go already. Our
comic relief on these stops was Argon, aka the Alaskan Jumping Bean....
Once
we reached the top of Sunlight Road and it was time to head back down,
Josiah's words of wisdom were simple - take it slow! After such a long
rest (in their eyes, at least!) the dogs were ready to hit the road and
the downhill would just spur them on even fast. Even with a foot firmly
on the brake, the first stretch of downhill was like a wild natural
roller coaster and the dogs seemed to be having the times of their
lives. I, on the other hand, would have a prime candidate for the
amusement park cameras that catch you mid-scream on the roller coaster
free fall. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome and exhilerating, but I
can become somewhat of a chicken when I feel like I'm flying through a
tree tunnel. Tam did not seem quite as afraid as I was, because she was
pretty liberal with leaving the brake along...which became a bit more
evident when she dumped me in the snow. Near the bottom of the biggest
downhill, there is a sharpish turn to cut across to another trail - we
had a bit too much speed when we hit it and into the soft fluffy snow I
went. Our safety instructions had been that, in the event of tipping
over, to NOT reach out of the sled but just let yourself fall. Once you
fall, get out of the basket and grab the sled so the dogs don't try to
run off (fortunately, the tipped over sled creates enough resistance to
keep them at least momentarily in place). So, I sat in the sled and felt
like a slow motion movie camera as I gently tipped over into the snow.
Later on, Tam told me that I had looked quite funny, sitting serenely as
me and my pink poof ball hatted head tipped over as it was the most
natural thing in the world. And then I was stuck, since she picked a
pretty deep patch to throw me into.
The
rest of the trip was uneventful, other than of course the awesome dogs,
company and surroundings. When we returned our starting point, we were
able to play around and pet all of the dogs while they each waited their
turn to be unharnessed. They truly were such a loveable bunch, and few
of them certainly had that puppy dog "pet me, pet me!" face perfected.
All told, our trip was about 3.5 hours and what an amazing way time it was. Definitely something I would do again :)
