In the blink of an eye, our season is already at the halfway mark. So far, we’ve only attended one dryland race back in November (Paws of Thunder). We’ve only scratched one planned race due to warm temperatures. There’s a lull in events over the holidays, so we’re just now ramping back up into snow race season.
Speaking of snow—there hasn’t been much. A few small bursts over the past few weeks. Enough to get on the sled, but not with the full 8-dog team. So, instead, I’ve been splitting the dogs into two 4-dog teams and running them back to back. The challenge is finding enough time to run both teams the distance they need to prepare for our races. We’re still not quite there.
Each snowstorm has been accompanied by heavy winds and rain. I’ve spent just as much time maintaining the trail as I have mushing it. After the first snow, I took the snowmobile out to pack the base and check for downed trees. Even though temperatures had been below freezing, the trail on the far side of my neighbor’s land was still pretty soft underneath the snow. Combine that with a snowmobile that’s too big for me, and a bit too long for the complicated, winding trail, and you end up with a stuck machine.
It might look like I crashed into a tree, but it was more of a slow-motion slide into one. The snowmobile’s left ski caught the tree and I couldn’t manage to reverse in the soft mud. Luckily, I wasn’t far from home, so I left the machine overnight with no real plan, but the universe provided one. A town plow driver saw me struggling and managed to find me on Facebook to see if I needed help. He went out later that evening and pulled the machine away from the tree. I couldn’t believe it! What kindness, out of no where.
The next morning I set back out to get the machine home, but immediately got stuck again. The trail tilts left in this area and I didn’t have time to build momentum and get away from the trees. I also don’t weigh enough to effectively lean the machine towards the trail. Neil, the plow driver, was nice enough to come back out and rescue me yet again. He ended up driving the snowmobile back home for me, which was an enormous relief.
After a second wind and rain storm, I knew better than to take the snowmobile out and instead did trail cleanup by snowshoe. I quickly hit another snag—my chainsaw wouldn’t run. It had gotten pretty gunked up after cutting through rotted logs and hitting mud, but no amount of cleaning could get it running. I ended up buying a second, bigger chainsaw, since my current one was a bit too small for the trees I needed to tackle. The new one worked wonders and I took care of six trees in twenty minutes.
We only got a few (glorious) runs in before a final rainstorm took out most of our snow. Now we’re in for a week of below freezing temperatures, leaving us with an icy trail that isn’t safe for anything unless we get more snow. The meteorologists amped us up for lake effect this past weekend, but it hit north and west of us while we got a dusting. Our next shot is Tuesday through Thursday. Cross your fingers!
