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A LONG OVERDUE UPDATE !

2009-10 Racing

Beargrease 2010. Robin started with Neil, Wallace, Tude, Rascal, Carbon, Onyx, Pepper and Gyp. Neal and Rascal along with Wallace ran lead. Emilie and Greg provided support as Wade was drafted by another team to help guide them up the shore. The dogs ran a solid race with Robin finishing in 6th place with all 8 dogs still in harness, happy and healthy.

Mid Minnesota

Now it was Emilie's turn on the runners, with Greg providing truck support. She ran with Rascal and Neil in lead. The remaining dogs in the team were Lindy, Toby, Happy, Carbon, Pepper and Tude. A short distance from the start, Em took a wrong turn and ended up 5 miles off course. She turned the team around and retraced her steps, essentially giving the rest of the field a 10 mile lead. Being so far behind all the road crossing help was asking her if she wanted to scratch and have the dog truck come and pick her up. She kept going and at each road crossing Ham Radio support reported she was gaining on the pack. After a while questions about scratching were replaced by shouts of encouragement from the road crossing crews as she kept steadily gaining on the back of the pack. The ham radio chatter was excited at what was taking place in front of their eyes. At the one check point 50 miles into the race, Emilie had caught the back of the pack and passed the last two teams. After a one hour rest and having gone 60 miles the team needed to head out again. Carbon was showing some soreness in his front wrist and so was drpped from the team to ride in the truck the rest of the way. The remaining dogs all ate well and seemed ready to go. While waiting at the line to be given the signal to go. All the dogs started screaming and jumping up and down to go. A truly inspirational sight for Greg and ME. At the finish Em and the team had passed two more teams and finished in the middle of the pack. Pepper had developed a sore leg and needed to be hauled in the sled. The remaining 6 dogs never wavered and made Em and Greg extremely proud. Young Rascal had run the entire race in lead. Toby, Happy and Lindy had run their first race!

Ely

to be continued

We started our training in early October. We had great temptures to run the dogs. Emilie showed up on October 14 to start training the yearling team. We even had a surpirse snow storm( we even had to shovel) in late October. We thought it would be a sign of lots of snow for the winter. So far that has not been true. It is now December 18 with two inches of snow. Bummer, no sled runs yet. We have downsized our kennel this year and have only twelve dogs in the race team pool for the eight dog Beargrease team. It is a rather young group of dogs. The race pool consist of Wallace, Neil, Egypt, Rascal, Carbon, Pepper, Onyx, Maku, Tude, Toby, Wilbur, and Lindy. They are looking good!! Our Montana puppy litter from last year are running strong on the yearling team. They are Stryker, Lewis, Clark, Darby, Shelby, Ledger, and Circle. We even have three more yearlings beside those. Brownie is out of a one pup litter from Backtrail, Brule our youngest, and our new addition is Happy. She came to us in late November from Katie Davis, Whitefish, MT. Happy is running strong in lead! With ten yearlings and two veterans(Thunder and Teal) it has been a blast watching the team progress with confidence and ablilities. It is hard to keep ourselves from putting some of the yearlings on the race team. We have been looking at a few races for the season but the Beargrease Mid-Distance is the only one we have commited too.

The past two months Travis and Frannie have been working with our Camp Menogyn dogs. Both the dogs and humans are top notch and ready to go to camp for the tour season! The past week we have been busy getting gear and food ready to haul up to camp. We made our first delivery today. We were able to bring up a ton of dog food, straw and chains for the dog houses. We are hoping for snow soon because there is not enough for Travis and Frannie to practice sled runs. It might be our first time bringing the camp dogs across the lake with not enough snow to run sleds.

BEARGREASE RACE REPORT 2009

Saturday January 24th we headed to Duluth for the start of the Beargrease. The final team consisted of veterans Teal, Bail, Maku, Wallace, Neil and Barker. New to the team this year were two 3 year old brothers, Onyx and Pepper. We did not have the miles of training we wanted (with trails not available due to logging and continuous snowing which made keeping trails in a problem, we felt the dogs were a couple of weeks away) but it was race time. The dogs were all checked out by a race veterinarian that afternoon. All passed with flying colors; a couple had splits on their feet which were healing with the special cream we were applying regularly. That night at opening ceremonies Robin drew bib # 7.

Sunday January25th dawned clear and cold. We loaded up and headed to Ordean school in Duluth for the start. Below the dogs having a little broth and kibble to aid hydration prior to the start.

Above picture shows Wade and Robin returning to the truck after checking out the start line and the first part of the trail.

All our children and grandchildren were there to see the team off. After Robin and the team left, Jill, Wade and I loaded the truck and headed to Hiway 2 out of Two Harbors to the checkpoint. Sarah Allen and Terry Olmem from the handling team met Robin at Billy's which was the first check point about 8 miles into the race. There Robin stopped and put new dog booties on all the dog's feet. Many of the booties they started with were shredded by the harsh trail conditions. After giving all dogs a snack she left for the Two Harbors checkpoint about 40 miles down the trail.

Hiway 2 is a wilderness checkpoint meaning no trucks are allowed; everything needs to be hauled in by sled. With all the snow digging out trenches for the dogs to rest took a lot of work from Brian and Wade with an assist from Jill. Below they are resting after getting the trenches in.

After the trenches were in, stake out chains were layed down and secured at each end. Then two bales of straw were layed out so each dog would have a nice bed to rest on.Then food was made up and brought to the race site in coolers to keep it warm. Finally coats and wrist wraps and blankets were brought up to apply so the dogs could rest. Once everything was ready we waited, and tried to stay warm. Fortunately Dave Kamphenkel who was handling for his daughter parked his truck with camper right behind our truck and graciously allowed Robin to rest there when she arrived.

Shortly after dusk,Robin and the team arrived. Sarah, Jill, Wade Brian and myself along with Laurie, Michael, Kristi and even baby Cody were there to welcome the team. Andrea, DJ, Tanner, Taylor and Talon had gone ahead to Tofte where the finish would be. When she came in Neil had been moved up to lead to run with Wallace. Neil had replaced Teal who is older but had always been our rock-solid leader. We moved the dogs to our area and snacked them with salmon kibble and electrolyte water. All drank but Maku who seemed exhausted. We removed all their booties and the dogs were then placed in the stake-out area which had been prepared earlier. Robin said that about half way to Two Harbors the team just seemed to "go flat." Teal was no longer driving in front of her team and seemed to be having trouble keeping up. Then Pepper started to develop a limp which seemed to worsen. She was not sure how much team she had going forward. We fed the dogs their meal of dog kibble and a meat broth; Maku did not eat, a sign she was very tired. She would need to be hand fed later. We had earlier decided to have our mandatory vet check done at this checkpoint to get it out of the way. It now seemed to be a good idea to have the vet look things over. This was complicated by the fact that two of the vets scheduled to be at this checkpoint had gotten lost so the Chief Vet, Jerry Vanek, was the only vet present. After some delay he went through our team. Jerry is a veteran of sled dog races and is always very thorough; Robin trusts him explicitly.

Pepper had strained his triceps muscle, probably from slipping on ice. He would need to be dropped so his race was over. Teal seemed quite tired and had some extra heart beats. Maku was exhausted. The rest looked good to go after a rest. After Jerry finished his exam, Robin and I went to Kampy's camper to get her a bite to eat and talk over the situation; Jill and Sarah applied algevyl and shoulder coats and wrist wraps to the dogs. She felt she would need to dop Teal and Pepper; Maku would probably be recovered enough to run but worried about the long term effects on her mentally. Robin then made the most difficult decision... to scratch or drop out. It was a decision that I supported. It would be the first time she had ever dropped out of a race.

"We race our dogs so that we can race them again." ---the late Susan Butcher

That wisdom has always guided our races. It also provided a context for why the reason to drop out was done. That ended our race for this year.

As of January 31 when this was written all dogs are fully recovered, including Pepper although he will be rested for the next few weeks. Teal will probably not run a competitive race again but will be a huge help in training our young dogs for the future. We will need to find another Teal. Perhaps it will be Neil who was a shining star in this race. His daddy, Vince will be very proud of that. Soooo, stay tuned.

Many factors played a role in what occurred... not enough miles in training, training in loose snow then racing on a rock hard surface, extreme cold among others. Hopefully lessons learned from this race will help in future races

Greg

January 31,2009