It’s been hard to find the motivation to write about mushing lately, because mushing itself has been less than perfect this season. It’s January and we should be (consistently) on sleds here in the north country. Instead, there’s been frequent warmups, unfrozen ground, and partially-frozen ponds across our trails. We can only go so far on our home trail with the dryland cart, so we’ve been repeating loops to try and gain miles. This is boring for the dogs and for the musher.
Right now, we’re focusing on the Tug Hill Challenge in February as our final race goal for this season. As much as I wanted to try mid-distance, I know it’s not within reach for us yet. Instead, I rather make sure to end Knox and Denali’s racing careers on a high note. While I’m sure they’ll continue running to some degree next season, I expect their younger teammates to handle the bulk of our big goals.
Tug Hill will be a poetic bookend in a lot of ways. I attended this race a decade ago, before I even had my first husky. It’s what brought me to the north country. It’s where I saw friends and mentors race their teams, back when I just had Dexter and a dream. I’ve wanted to run six dogs since the very beginning. It took some time, but here I am. I’ll have Denali, my first husky, lead us through Winona Forest in our first snow race. Knox, my second husky and a rescue dog, will be right behind her.
If all goes well, this will give the younger dogs more race experience and it’ll be a thank you to my older dogs, for seeing this whole adventure through.
Okay, enough sappiness for now. Aside from races, I’ll be pushing to reach 500 miles for the season. The fact that we somehow managed 400 miles on the rocky, miserable trails in SoCal is weighing on me. Of course, it’s about quality and not quantity, and the dogs and I are much happier here. It’ll take work to get another 300 miles before spring, but I’m hopeful we can do it. Just keep on trying.
