 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
From 6 to 14 Dogs in One Fell Swoop
Today was another one of those examples of why mushing is so, er, adventurous. :P
I'm sitting here with my glass of Bailey's (well deserved after today) and thought I'd share the humor.
© 2003 Jaye Foucher An edited version of this story appeared in the July/August 2003 issue of International Siberian Husky Club News Kim, Kelly and I decided to take some dogs down to Hill to do a little puppy/spring training with their heavy Risdon Rig. We planned to do 2 teams of 8 with 3 of us on the rig, starting from the Profile Falls end. Well, we get down there and discover there's still quite a bit of snow on the trail but hey, we were already there so we figured what the hell. How bad could it be? We take off with the first 8 dog team and quickly realize it's pretty slow going. Some areas of the trail are completely melted down but others still have a good deal of soft mushy snow on them. The dogs are struggling to pull the 3 of us on this heavy rig through the snowy sections. And then, to help matters some more, one of the tires was flat. So we come up with the *brilliant* idea to turn around, go back, fill up the tire with the little air pump the twins carry in their truck, then hook up a larger team so we have enough dog-power to get us thru the tough sections. Well this is all fine and good...we get back, we decide to use my truck's cigarette lighter to plug the air pump into because I was parked closer, we blow up the tire (not literally, mind you), snub off the rig again, and start hooking up a 14-dog team. At some point during the hookup, Kelly - eyeing the single quick-release snubline with severe doubt in her mind, I'm sure - says, "Gee, maybe somebody better stand on the rig just in case." So I jump on. They finish hooking up the last dogs. Kim is headed back towards the rig, and Kelly has one foot lifted in the air, about to step on the rig when WHAM, the dogs slam forward and pop the quick-release. I'm yelling "Jump on!" to the twins but the dogs are going just a tad too fast even with the brakes locked, and Kim and Kelly were just out of reach. I shoot one last and completely horrified look back at them as I skid and slide down the trail, screaming "SHIIIIIT!!!", as I embark on my first 14-dog solo run. And oh, believe me, I tried to stop them. I yelled "Whoa" and "Stop" and "Noo!" (Geez why is it, when I KNOW for a fact that sleddogs just don't listen to either one of those 3 commands, that I STILL have to try it??). I applied the brakes (little good that did me...I think it may have slowed them down 1 mph). Finally I realized that my marrying Brad Pitt was probably more likely to happen than me stopping this team to wait for Kim and Kelly to catch up. At that moment the fear and horror really set in. I was alone out there. Just me....and a team of 14 screaming, end-of-winter-super-strong sleddogs on a 300 lb rig whose brakes were pretty much useless. The most dogs I've driven before - by myself anyway - is 8. In fact, I only just started driving 6 a few months ago. Am I ready to handle 14? Do I have a choice? And let's do the math: if every husky can pull it's own weight and I have 14 dogs weighing approximately 50 lbs each, that means they can pull about 700 lbs. Possibly even more. I weigh 130. The rig weighs 300. Hmmmm.... So I start thinking "Ok. Obviously Kim and Kelly have no way of catching up. We have no other rig with us. And the trucks can't get past the gate, even if they could get over the snowbank. So it's up to me to stop this team and turn 'em around." HAH! The question was, How? I have no snubline with me (note to self: always carry extra snubline). The brakes barely work, nevermind hold them while I get off to turn them around. If I could get the rig stopped long enough to unhook half or more of the tuglines, maybe I could have enough control to turn them around. But the brakes on the rig wouldn't hold the dogs back even when locked, so I needed some other way to hold the rig in place while I got off it. For a short while I imagined running the dogs to one of the turns that loop thru a field where we've occasionally turned teams around in the past. I imagined myself giving the leaders their commands, and they would execute them properly and we would happily make our way back to the gate where Kim and Kelly were most likely frantically wringing their hands wondering whether the dogs had killed me yet. Unfortunately my vivid imagination also conjured up the image of me flipping the rig and flying off during one of these perfectly executed turns, yet even with that scary image in mind getting the dogs to take a side trail that would loop us back around still seemed like the best option. Ace and Storm had other ideas. We come to the first possible place where we can turn around. I holler, "Gee!" (and man, with 14 dogs it seems like you really need some good projection in your voice to reach the lead dogs' ears). Ace shoots me a dirty look, which I'm sure in dog language means, "Screw you!" and keeps going. We come to the second possible turn. "Ace, Storm: HAW!" Storm looks like he kind of wants to go Haw, but Ace has a completely different plan in mind (probably involving my mutilation by dogteam and resulting death). So now I figure they aren't going to listen to me. Therefore Plan A isn't going to work and I've GOT to find a way to stop the rig so I can turn them around. I tried to aim for a tree. Not suicidally, mind you - I was merely trying to wedge part of the rig behind a small tree. Or between 2 trees. (Ok, I do realize that if I had accomplished this I may have gone flying over the rig, slammed into the tree, and been knocked unconscious, but I was willing to take the risk.) Unfortunately, the rig just refused to steer anywhere near close enough to a tree for me to wedge it in there. (Sure, but last fall when I was trying NOT to hit a tree, do you think I could avoid it????) I tried to bog the rig down in deep snow. No luck. I tried to aim the rig to get stuck behind a big rock, a downed log, anything. I almost had it made at one point: I spotted 2 large logs just off to the side of the trail and right past them was a big rock. Miraculously, I was even able to aim the rig right for them. I thought, This is it! Finally! If the 1st log doesn't stop us, and the 2nd log doesn't stop us, then By God the rock will stop us! We rolled right over them all. Finally, and don't ask me how, I managed to steer the rig into yet another snow-filled gully and this time one of the wheels got wedged in so deep under the snow that the dogs could not easily move it. I let them test it a few times to be sure, but when the rig didn't budge I ran off and started unhooking tuglines as quick as I could. Then I grabbed the leaders and turned them around. Took me another few minutes to manage to get the rig unstuck and turned in the right direction. But then I had a new problem: the rig was no longer held back by anything, but most of the dogs' tuglines were unhooked. Do I hook them back up and risk leaving the rig or run all but the leaders with no tuglines? Since I doubted the ability of the leaders to pull me all by themselves (silly me) I figured I'd best hook up a few more dogs at least. I hook up 2 more and guess what? Yup, that's right, they took off. I made a valiant attempt to grab the rig as it went past. And then proceeded to drag down the trail sitting on my ass beside the rig holding on for dear life, but facing the opposite direction and watching this enormous wheel turn in front of my face, knowing that if I let go I'm going to be run over by it. Of course my wet gloves couldn't hold on for very long and don't ask me how that rig wheel went over my body without damaging me but it did. I think I rolled out of the way in time... it's a bit of a blur. But hell, I'd lost the team. I thought, "There goes the best of mine and the twins' kennel combined down the trail. If something happens, we're all screwed." The only consolation was that they were at least heading towards Kim and Kelly now. And only about 4 dogs were completely hooked up to pull so I figured they might give up on the first hill. In fact, running after them, I was almost able to keep pace with them but just couldn't catch up fully. (I think they were taunting me, to tell you the truth). Well they had just barely gone out of my sight when I come around a curve to find the team stopped; the rig had managed to slide off the trail and down into a raging stream and had wedged behind a tree. The dogs, thank god, were perfectly lined out and no one was hurt or tangled. Problem was, the 300 pound rig was now jammed down in a place where there was no way in hell little ol' me with the bad back was going to get it out. Just as I'm debating on what to do, Kelly huffs and puffs her way around the curve ahead in the trail and Kim isn't far behind. They must have hoofed it about 2 miles out, and they looked way more worn out than either me or the dogs. Between the three of us we managed to tie dogs off to trees, tie off the front of the gangline to a tree and then the rear to another tree, then we waded into the cold muddy stream to pull the rig out. Not without injury: Kelly later could barely walk as she had banged her knee badly on the rig. Meanwhile Ace chews his way through the lines holding him and Storm to a tree... About a half hour later we manage to have the dogs hooked up again, a makeshift tugline to replace the one Ace chewed, and we head off back to the trucks all of us absolutely soaked to the skin because of COURSE it had started to rain while we were out there. Not to mention my boots were not high and definately not waterproof, and wading into the stream left me pretty much with the effect of walking on sopping wet sponges instead of boots. We get back to the trucks (yay) to discover I'd accidently left my keys in the ignition after we pumped up the tire (oh shit) and now my battery is dead as a doornail. Do any of us have jumper cables? Of course not!! But hey, I drove a 14-dog team today. That's something. << Back | |
 |
|
|