Why doG created Malamutes.

Best Friends.


With the snow line about 200 feet above sea level we went for our first hike of the season. At a pullout from the only snow free trail, I found Saint Nicki and our foster dog Trek enjoying The Good Life.

April Powder

April powder brings happy funhogs and fundogs.

We started out skiing on crust.


Touring for turns makes for some long skins.


then some telemark turns in Powder.


and


Gotta love being up front and personal in the mountains


Nice long sunny days, mmmm, mmmm.

This is fun!

Nothing beats four dog drive :)

Trek

We continue to have good news about our foster dog Trek.

We skied out to the Denali View Chalet this weekend accompanied by all the dogs including Trek. He really shined.

Can you believe this is the same dog terrified of men just a few months ago?

(As always, you can click on the picture to enlarge it.)

He loves to skijor, he has a steady pace and pulls hard. He's not too good on speed but then what malamute is? That's him closest to the camera with Jago on his right side, Nicki is being towed.

Speaking of Jago, she skijored Nicki 9 miles into the Chalet, 10 weeks after her ACL operation.

Denali on the right, Hunter on the left. It was a pretty cold day despite the temps in the high twenties. The stiff North Wind was the culprit.


Happy Nicki and Happy Trek during a lull in the skiing.

We had Trek tied outside the Chalet. His first night he was subdued and stayed away from the action. But Day Two he was up and milling about the 18 folks who attended the ski tour. Trek is coming into his element.

My New Ski Dog

Well I have always like malamutes as ski dogs. Functionally they are well built for the role. Rocket is fading so he can only go on the simpler stuff. Jago (Babe) blew her ACL in December so she is out. When I had a four day, 38 mile ski tour from Forest Service Cabin to Forest Service cabin I enlisted Valley's help to be the new ski dog. From the trailhead at the start all the way to the end she was my new ski dog. She did great. She ran ahead to have fun, then either ran back to check on me or sat and waited to make sure I was coming along. She threaded herself between skiers with pulks and would blast ahead into the lead. She was even polite enough to sit on the side of the trail and let dog teams go by. In the cabins she found her spot, and stayed there not bothering anybody.

Here are some pictures:








Yep she's my new ski dog. Took 6 years of training but it was well worth it.

Dos

Guess who had ACL surgery two months ago. The one pulling LOL.

That's a Dog!

Yesterday I was showing pictures to Nicki's grand niece Lauren. Lauren turns 3 in another month. When I showed her this picture, and said "This is Moose". Lauren said, "That's not a Moose, that's a dog!"


It was a great sunny day, this is like two weeks of sun without clouds. Valley seems to like it.


And here they are together.


Moose was adopted from a rescue in Logan Utah 6 years ago. Several years ago his owner asked me some questions about how to fit him with a harness on a website named telmarktips.com. She just moved to town and wanted to go skiing, so that we did. And we got to meet each other and each others malamutes. Seems like I must have given her good advice :)

Alumni V2

We were up in Fairbanks dropping a malamute off for foster care. Tom adopted Siku and Lady Lou several years ago. Both of them couldn't have found a better home.



That'd be Siku with his head turned, Lady lou looking at the camera, and Tom behind them in the skis. The Alaska Pipeline is behind them.

Family Affair

Well you know what they say, "Families that skijor together stay together."

Yesterday we were out skijoring together. I got behind Trek and Nicki was behind Rocket. Valley as you can see is leading the party.

Blast Off!

We continue working Valley into a great backcountry malamute, and this weekend we took her out on her very own into a new spot. It was a bit of a struggle to get her away from the trailhead, she also followed behind until lunch break. but once loose she became her old self again :)

First the scenery pose:


Blast Off! she takes off running...


Pouring it on!


Landing


Only to take off again




To Cool down.


What a great day to share with Valley.

Alumni

Every once in a while I get to see some of my alumni I've adopted out. This weekend we were skiing in Turnagain Pass at a place known as Eddies.

Roxy (B&W) I adopted out 5 years ago, Takotna (R&W) a couple of months ago.


Roxy looking pretty.


Takotna looking pretty.






Of course they love it when they can give chase, and we love it when we can ski in powder.


I have to admit, I love the alumni who are powderhounds. That'd be Roxy and Takotna.

Paybacks are not hell

Paybacks aren't always hell. Hell they are sometimes fun. When Takotna was adopted out I told the adopter, I'll take you back country skiing. Today was payback times.

Takotna on the way out on the trail,after finding a great spot to take a break.


She's waiting for us to catch up to her. At a little over one, she has all the energy in the world. 8 or 10 inches of powder doesn't slow her down.


Valley was along.


After skiing out we returned and did some telemark turns. Looks like Takotna is having fun.

What goes up....


Must Come Down.


Takotna can even surf.


and comes up smiling.


After a day like this, you know what they say?
"If the FunDogs are Happy, so are the FunHogs."

Trek!

Trek has been in our home now for about 6 weeks. He came in terrified of men and when I picked him up to put him in the rig he peed all over us. Poor guy, but he loves Nicki.




and he loves to skijor. Here he is running with Rocket. Looking pretty happy he is.


Running along side Valley:







We've been taking him to the same spot over and over again. Shy dogs learn from repetition and consistency. Its the main way they learn to trust. It must be working, because when we come out with the harness, he plants himself next to Nicki :)

Happy Howl-i-days

We are wishing the visitors to the blog the happiest holiday season, and a year full of healthy adventures.

Spiritwalker

We went out for a little tour Saturday ending up on Spiritwalker near Summit Lake. It was a great day, with some sunshine and warmer temps up high. We lucked out and the skin track was set too, which made it easy on the dogs.

We skied up to and down the knob along the ridge behind Valley. It was a great powder day with 12 or 16 inches of powder on a hard rain crust. You can see why I was excited the dogs had a trail to charge up the hill on.


On our way down we had good views up Mills Creek before it clouded up.