The mild winter we have so far experienced this year in the Yukon has brought several nice snowfalls with it, though some of the accumulated snow melted with the most recent chinook wind. Nevertheless, I looked out yesterday and saw that there was enough snow on the ground to establish a trail. So I broke my 20-year-old SkiDoo loose from the icy ground, pulled about thirty or forty times on the starter rope and finally got it going.
Last year's access route to our hinterland trails was a nightmare, going right across the neighbouring sod farm's sod flat, an open, unprotected large flat where the wind obliterates all traces of a trail within fifteen minutes. We had to mark the route with spruce boughs so that I knew where to go, and all our leaders save old Tonya had major problems -- all the more so since an irrigation ditch created overflow problems in the middle of the field. By season's end, we vowed, "Never again!"
So this year the access has been re-routed to take advantage of shelter belts of willow, alder and aspen poplar -- at the cost of going across a pretty bumpy bog and then an awkward right-angle crossing of the offending irrigation ditch. It's still tricky, but I hope not so daunting for the leaders.
Recent high winds had left trees down across the trail, some of them ten and twelve inches in diameter, so I had an afternoon's chainsaw work just to section and remove the trunks where the trail was obstructed. The dogsled bridge across Horse Creek had to be repaired.
Other than that, the trail looked great! In the hinterland there were no nasty surprises with sufficient snow everywhere to pack a reasonable base for a trail. More snow needs to fall -- and will. What's important is that the packing process begins when there's around four inches on the ground, so that a firm base gets established and the dogs never have to wade around in major accumulations where they can't feel a trail bottom.
I broke out the eight-mile circuit and came back home -- and got stuck in the awkward ditch crossing, unable to ascend the sharp bank. Isa heard me and came to help; together we horsed the machine up onto the bank so I could do
the last quarter-mile to the kennel. The dogs will have little trouble with that crossing, but until more snow blows into that ditch and smooths out the angle of its banks, it's a snowmobile trap!
I hate snowmobiles anyway. They are a cold, uncomfortable, noisy, smelly mode of winter transportation, and unreliable enough to be dangerous in the wilderness. I mean, if the damn thing quits and you are thirty miles from shelter and warmth, you may have a nasty time getting out. Dog teams don't quit like that. They don't create noxious fumes. They make very little noise. And standing on the runners is much warmer and more comfortable than sitting or kneeling at low level on a steel-and-plastic contraption. The only use I have for this machine is to create a visible track that the dogs can follow and to pack the trail when the snow gets a little too deep.
This weekend, serious training starts for nine unbroken puppies, a dozen second-year dogs, and a variable number of older experienced sleddogs. It looks like it's going to be a good winter at Seppala Kennels.
Posted by jjeffrey at November 25, 2004 02:55 PM