Trail of 98

Today we skied our 98th outing together for the season. With clear skies, a cold clear starry night, below freezing temperatures and 10 feet of snow at the trailhead; perfect conditions for crust skiing were awaiting us. No need to worry about soft snow and the dogs if we can return before it softens up. Today we left at 7am and arrived back at the trailhead at noon.

Starting out on nice hard snow.


Taking our first break after climbing 900 feet and traveling 2 miles. There are always good views on bluebird days.




Valley is pondering our next move.


Moving along Center Ridge before we drop down to the valley floor where the traveling is easier and faster.


I am not sure why she is coming back to me but she seems happy to be out today.


View off to the right while skiing on the valley floor.


Moving along on the valley floor. You can see an "undulating surface" which we are traveling on, that was weird, it was like boating on water with wakes.


Skate skiers moving up valley from us. Skate skiing on crust snow is a common thing for some of us to do this time of year. Its like its own season.


Checking another couple of skate skiers out who are closer during our lunch break.


Trotting back. By now the snow has softened incredibly and its a good thing we are on our way back. You can see the skis are making a mark and the dogs are starting to sink in.





The sun is pretty hot, so we took a few breaks to let the dogs cool down. Hot on the top, cool on the bottom.


Valley View.


A great day to be on the snow. I can't believe we are still skiing. Some of the low lying trailheads are free from snow, and they are packed with cars and folks hiking. However we are still out enjoying alot of snow waiting to melt.

Dawn Patrol

When its clear at night, the morning is cold. That makes for some mighty fine crust skiing. The crust is as solid as concrete and it also allows the dogs to travel along. Something they can't do in the afternoon corn snow which doesn't support their weight. Without crust skiing, it'd be hard to get them some exercise in the spring months of April and May.

What its like when we first show up at the trailhead before sunrise. Enough light to ski, and barely enough to capture photos.


If you enlarge the picture, by clicking on it, you can see the skate ski tracks from earlier travels. There is no sinking in the snow by the dogs and we can ski quite fast.


Ptarmigan Peak in the background. Until I figure out how to take motion shots in low light, we'll have to do with these "static" pictures.


And Ptarmigan Peak with the rising sun shining on it, right as we are leaving the trail.


In alot of ways, this is my favorite time of year to ski, its beautiful out, nobody else is hardly around, you can ski anywhere, and the dogs love it.

Many thanks to Tim Kelley, who many years ago introduced me to this. Without him and his website, I'd still be missing some of the best skiing in Alaska.

Spring Skiing

One of the best reasons for spring skiing. Finding a patch of bare tundra and sneaking a nap in.


Even Rocket is looking like he's going to tip over.

Where's Waldo?

Can you spot Valley in this picture? She's there. Click on the picture if you think it will help you spot her.


It kind of shows us how small each of us really are in the world. Just a speck. But a fun speck non the less.

More evidence she is really there.


It was a beautiful bluebird day in the Talkeetna Mountains north of Palmer. Down low it was corn snow, and up high it was deep powder. A great day to be out touring. Just ask Valley!

Mother Nature or Old Man Winter ?

I am not sure which one gifted us with 6 inches of fresh powder but thank you for looking out for me ;) It's not a good idea to ignore a gift, so we thought we'd enjoy it while we could. Folks in town were whining about the snow, but us funhogs and fundogs don't like to complain, we fired up and took the matter into our own hands. We know how to solve this problem, we've been training all winter.

Can you recognize the Alaska State Dog in the picture? (click any picture to enlarge)


At the trailhead we ran into our neighbor Amy who adopted Yukon from Malamute Rescue of Alaska. He's looking like a fundog to me.


Lookie here, The Funhogs and the Fundogs. All of us in one picture, ain't that sweet.


Saint Nicki!


I don't know what it is about Rocket, but when somebody goes down in the snow, he has to clean them up a bit after laying all over them. Sometimes he frenches them Yuck!

Sure was a fun evening after work.

That Leg

You know the one that had the ACL operation back in December. Its looking pretty good, good enough to pull and go out and pull for a long weekend of fun.


We enjoyed a 9 mile skijor out to the Denali View Chalet during a beautiful sunstorm. We gave Jago a rest day on Saturday and only skijored her 4 miles. Then Sunday it was 9 miles out in a blazing snowstorm with about 6 inches of wet snow for her to deal with.

No ill side effects. She pulled strong all day, was ready to go the next day and no limping the entire time.

What Denali looks like on the approach to Kroto Lake. Looking over Valley's noggin.

A Grand Day in the Neighborhood.

What a grand day it was, sunny, warm and no wind. In town the mood is spring, in the mountains we are still talking powder. We took advantage of the day and toured to a mountain in our neighborhood, McHugh Peak, which we can see up the valley from the house.

The dogs are always happy to go someplace where the can run.


This is the first grass they've been on since mid-October.

and


Mt Redoubt the volcano in the background. Is it blowing steam? Or is that a cloud over its top?


They love being in a spot where they can look around. Usually when I get a picture of one of those two peaks we are at the bottom.


Outdoors, they are always looking around, they always have the eye on the lookout.


Lunch is a great time to take a break, although the scenery never seems to.

and over Rocket's shoulder is the Kenai Peninsula in the background with Turnagain Arm in the foreground.


They love to run. For them running after us as we telemark down hill is the most enjoyable fun of the trip.


and


Not sure how much longer we'll be able to take the dogs out. Mother Nature and Old Man Winter will dictate that. As soon as it quits freezing in the morning, and the dogs start breaking through, that will be the time for them to quit the snow season. Six months of fun will come to an end.

Tipped Over

My Gosh Darn Malamute tipped over, now what do I do?

Snowcamping snowdogs

We had a weekend of camping with the ski club and our dogs. It was fun, temps down into the single digits below zero F zooming up to near freezing during the day. We had a great tp to climb into after dinner to enjoy life thanks to Jeff.



We had about 12 inches of powder going into the weekend and awoke to fresh
snow every morning. Jago even joined us for the trek into the camping spot, although she didn't get the chance to run around. Which is fine, we enjoyed her warmth in the tent while sleeping.


this is the trail in and out


Rocket gave us the look to let us know when it was time for bed.


But the scenery was great


and the snow conditions good.

Lovely Pair

A lovely pair don't you think?

Two of my favorite "girls". A lucky man I am.

Four Play

This is a one of a kind picture. About once a year I seem to get our 3 in a picture together, and now I have Four! Quite the magic spell I must have worked. Ok, but the big question is, one of these dogs isn't one of ours, which one is it?

Skijoring Fan Hitch

I've been asked several times how I run 3 malamutes together. Lucky is the word that comes to mind.

Running from each dog back towards Nicki is a fixed line, individually they are attached to a central O-Ring, which is attached to a single line running directly back to Nicki.


This is a picture of the middle or central portion of the assembly. This is the "fan hitch" connecting device, a 1 inch metal o-ring purchased at the local hardware store. You can see the colored 4 foot fixed lines leading to the dogs. The one inch webbing returns to a flexi leash connected to the skier


Back at the skier we have this.


The two inch webbing is actually the shoulder strap to a duffle bag. You can see the metal O-ring again from the hardware store at each end of the webbing. The quickdraw is a device used by climbers and can be purchased at any outdoor shop that handles climbing equipment. Connected to one of the carabiners is a webbing version of the flexi leash.

The 2 inch nylon webbing goes around our waist, we clip in and unclip using the other carabiner--the one not attached to the flexi leash. We then run the belt of our back pack through the handle of the flexi leash adding stability and comfort.

This is a comfortable and convenient system we've used for years. Maybe you can find something useful here for your dog driving days.

Even on a snowy day....

it's fun to get out and run with the dogs.

Blowhard

We had a little bit of weather blow in so we stayed near home for skijoring and touring. The wind was blowing about 30 mph (48 kmh) with temps in the teens F. A great time was had by all but you can judge for yourself :)

Groundhogs Day

We celebrate Groundhogs Day like its a national holiday. Why? Its Nicki's birthday. We go out to dinner, I make a dee-licious chocolate cake and a few presents are opened. Its almost like Christmas, only different :) So while Phil is out checking for his shadow, we are whooping it up having a good time.