iditarod and snowshoeing...

maureen takes my picture as kaya chills on the sled. i went snowshoeing 2 days in a row in fresh, deep snow. maureen joined me on day 2.

the sun makes it's appearance on day two....as did jill, her friends and emma and luke. they were jumping all over poor rio (they are puppies still) so it made it a bit rough in the deep stuff for her,but she does love doodles.

kaya is just a cute dog so hard to resist taking photo's.

just to give you a feel for the deepness of the snow out there. rio is 120 pounds and pretty dang tall. she was almost covered in the snow below.

blossom is a bit shorter and she makes her trails out there as well. she snuck up after day one and defrosted on my bed. seemed like a good idea to her. i got fresh sheets though as she gets loaded with snowballs and it's probably a few gallons of water once it melts. nice!

just liked this picture of rio...such a good sport.

day one was still snowing pretty intensly...i probably should have done the smart thing and stayed at home. but no...there was that fresh snow out there. i opted to be a bit nuts and enjoy it all. it may be a sign when you are the only one out there...but i loved it.

the picture below is care of maureen. she posted it on facebook. thanks maureen. thought it came out nice.
this is me and the dogs headed out the open field...ready to break trail and burn some calories.

back to the iditarod...

i'm following the iditarod of course, these are a few pictures from sundays start. i'll keep tossing iditarod pictures in here with tales and updates. many of the mushers are finishing up their 24 hour layover and others have yet to do thiers. they are required a 24 hour stop, an 8 hour stop and then they all must also do an 8 hour stop in safety before they hit nome. so many stopped in takotna. i guess it's a friendly place with good food so many racers stop there.

below is martin buser coming and above is his dogs going. out of order..sorry. he has won 4x. he holds race record for shortest time to nome, just under 9 days. i think while he is out there one of his sons just got arrested. his boys are named after checkpoints along the iditarod trail i believe.

several racers have already scratched. the model chick apparently stopped breastfeeding cold turkey and took off on the trail. she got mastitis out there. i hear that is pretty awful so can't imagine that was too pleasant out in the middle of nowhere. seemed a pretty dumb thing to do, but people are strange. another guy whacked himself on a tree limb and was found passed out by the next guy through. he made sure the guy was breathing and then went to secure the guys dog team. pat moon had woken up by the time he got back from that. he was shipped to anchorage and his dogs were as well. he was taking a break from cancer treatment to follow his dream of running the iditarod. he is doing fine. a few more quit over concerns of thier dogs, sled issues....so 6 have scratched already.

last i checked dallas seavey was in lead....he didn't take the 24 hour yet so there will be some jostling for position and it will all shake out closer to nome. he did get to the halfway point first which earns him $3000.00 in gold nuggets. halfway is cripple, which is an old abandoned mining town. it's pretty amazing that in an over 1000 mile trail you run into no towns larger than 1000 people en route to nome. most of the stops, there are less than a few hundred people living there. the iditarod passing through is a huge event in these villages.

the picture loading thing is not working well this week. seems like there are occasionally periods where it loads better than other times. strange. i think it's a web site issue rather than a my computer issue. it's been a great week. we got tons of snow tuesday night, like 2 feet, so i took the dogs out to north bivouac for some snowshoeing. i'll post some of those pictures if i can as well. tuesday i met with my friend maria for a late breakfast at ihop, always fun, and then headed off with the girls to snowshoe. we were the first ones there...i love fresh trail. the parking lot was totally covered in the white stuff and i wasn't sure if i'd be able to get in or out. we did maybe 3 miles in 2 feet deep snow at least so i got a work out. blossom is willing to lead for much of it, but when it gets deeper or she gets tired she just gets behind me and lets me lead. that night was a good night to warm up in the shower and put a log in the fireplace.

the next day my friend maureen wanted to get out for a snowshoe. i figured the trails would still be pretty open and we got some good use out of those snowshoes. i took us some places that nobody had been so she could get that experience. i think she had a great time out there. her little dog kaya would ride in the sled she brought when he got tired or it got deep. rio had it rough across the open field as the snow got really deep and rio kept post holing into the deepest of it. we ran into my frien jill and her dogs and friends. they skied ahead of us for the last part which helped a bit. it was a beautiful day out there. today looks gorgeous as well, but i figured i'd worn these pups out enough the past two days and took the day off. i attempted to toss the toy in the deep snow of the backyard for blossom, but she only lasted 15-20 tosses. the parking lot yesterday was pretty wicked with the snow. i had no issues with my element but everyone was getting stuck and we stayed there pushing everyones cars out. when it was just down to me and the guy with the rhodesian ridgebacks i always run into out there we both thought we'd have no issues. i hope he got out okay. i left and then worried that i hadn't seen him driving down the road after me. i think he and i helped push 4 cars out before our turn a

came to attempt to get out.

i better run get ready for work. strange alaskan news though. out in chignik (a place our ferry stopped at this summer) a woman was attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. that is a first up here and they are off to kill wolves tonight. she was running with her ipod on, which is never a good idea in any area of wilderness in alaska. what a horrible way to die though, my heart goes out to her and her family. wolves and man have always squared off. we've had issues with wolves attacking and killing family pets in anchorage, but not people yet...

alright...i really have to go get ready for work. more later.