What are the runners doing up there?!!

 

 

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. As we have 17 dogs in training, Rob has recently moved up to running 10 and I have just moved up to 6. This means of course that someone gets left out. But today Rob planned to run 11 for the first time. As I say, a week ago I moved up from 4 dogs to 6, a move taken with much trepidation, but which had turned out to be rather easy. So easy in fact that on yesterdays run with 5 of the yearlings and Poppy I was bemoaning how slow they were going and wishing that I had some more dogs in the team. I mentioned this to Rob on the drive to our training area, and so he suggested that I take 7 and he would take 10. ‘OK’ I said, without hesitation. In retrospect the word ‘foolhardy’ springs to mind. For my 6 dogs I planned to take Poppy again, 3 yearlings in Mannie, Joe and Koko, plus a couple of the older boys, Nero and Lewis to provide the ‘oomph’ that was missing yesterday. ‘Who do you want as your seventh dog?’ Rob asked. After a little deliberation I chose Eclipse, the youngest girl, still a puppy in fact. I certainly didn’t want any of the big, strong boys.

 

     So it was that my 7 were hooked up on one side of the trail while I held Rob ' s team and waited to set him off. I kept looking over at my team, bouncing around and yelling their heads off. I started to become a bit apprehensive. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. I am still very much a beginner when it comes to riding a sled and I manage to fall off with monotonous regularity. My worst experience – thus far – had been on our first sled ride of the year about a month ago when my 4 dog team had managed to dislodge me at the start of the trail and had dragged me on my side for about 100 yards. I then fell off several more times during that run and told Rob quite categorically that I was never getting on a sled again. (I seem to remember having the same problem with the rig about 10 years ago and also vowing never to run dogs again, which makes me wonder why I am, these days, hurtling through the woods on a sled with 7 dogs hitched up…………) However on that first run the trail entrance that day was particularly icy and rutted due to some pillock who shall remain nameless (lets call him ‘Rob’) getting a VW van stuck down there for 4 hours the day before. This despite the fact that his much more intelligent and insightful wife (lets call her ‘Louise’) had strongly advised him not to take it down there as it would get stuck. There then followed an awful lot of pushing, pulling and swearing, during which poor ‘Louise’ had her fingers run over, got crushed between the van and an ATV and missed not one, but TWO Christmas parties, neither of which she wanted to go to anyway, but that’s not the point! Apparently. So I was told.  Anyway the damaged trail provides some mitigation as to my original falling off.  

 

 

   Anyway, back to today’s catastrophe. The trail was in much better condition today, even I could stay on this couldn’t I? I let Rob’s team go and started over to my team. When they saw his team go they started to go REALLY ballistic, slamming in to their harnesses and screaming. I was quite perturbed by now, but it had to be done, so I stepped on the runners. With one foot on the brake I pulled the snowhook. The team surged forward but was stopped by the snubline. The quick-release is some way behind me, so with one foot still on the brake I have to lean back and release it………..at that point, brake or no brake those dogs are going. I’ve never been behind that much power before. Unfortunately my starting place is right next to a two foot ditch, and as the dogs took off and I frantically tried to go with them, I slid sideways into the ditch, followed by the sled. I got dragged a little way along the ditch upside down, until I got wedged into a tree that had also fallen into the ditch, no doubt with a lot more elegance than I did.. I opened my eyes and all I could see was grey, I was completely buried under the snow. I brushed the snow away and looked up………..at the sled runners above me. “This isn’t good’ I thought. I then became acutely aware that I hadn’t actually let got of the sled and was still clinging on to it with one arm, an arm that 7 screaming hellhounds were doing their best to remove from my body. I must have lain there for 20 seconds or so, wondering ‘how the hell am I going to get out of this one?!’ It’s at moments like those that I yearn for one of those husbands that make scale-models of the Houses of Parliament out of used lollipop sticks for a hobby. ( I was also thankful that I had declined Rob ' s offer of a ski pole, no doubt it would’ve disembowelled me by now.)

 

    Anyway, I was in quite a predicament. The snowhook was lying by me and I tried to dig it in, but the snow in the ditch was too powdery and useless. So I carefully unwedged myself from the tree and the dogs, being so released, proceeded to drag me on my face for about 30 yards before ‘Louise the Human Snowhook’ was so buried in snow that it brought the whole lot to a stop again. The sled of course was still on it’s side. I knew that if I could get it on to its runners they would be off, with or without me, and I’d have to get on quick. The dogs were going CRAZY. I somehow managed to get the sled upright and to cling on to it. I went to put my foot on the brake/dragmat, and sitting there was the snowhook, lethal points facing upwards. I just managed to get a toe onto the brake and get it down a bit, but they were still flying along. ‘If I can just make it over the bridge and up the hill, then I can slow them down enough to sort out the snow hook’ I thought, ‘If I can just hold on……” WHAM! At that moment the snowhook bounced off the sled and dug in hard. Coming to a complete and instant stop when you are travelling at over 20 mph is unadvisable. I flew over the handlebar and landed about 10 feet in front of the sled. I distinctly remember thinking ‘wow I didn’t know you could do that on a sled!’ Well at least the team was stopped. I got up, collected my thoughts, said a few prayers and prepared to let them go again. Only one problem, the snowhook had gone in with such force I couldn’t get it out. I did briefly consider taking each dog off and taking them back to the van, but it was about 200 yards away by now, and I was loathe to leave the other dogs in the team, knowing my luck they’d pull the hook while I was gone. So after much kicking, pulling and swearing I finally got the hook loose and we were off again, all of us screaming, or maybe it was just me by that point. The rest of the 23 miles were reasonably uneventful, apart from coming perilously close to falling off several more times. And, despite standing full on the dragmat every time we went down the slightest hill (these dogs had me terrified by now, and for some reason while yesterdays trail seemed to be all uphill, the same trail today seemed to be all downhill!) we still went round almost 2 HOURS faster than yesterday. I was so glad to get back to the van, never have I been more relieved to get off the sled. I think I’ll stick to 6 dogs for a while!

 

I’m off to lie down in a darkened room now…………..