6/5/08- Sorry for not updating lately. Work is going great. We, including the dogs, are all having a wonderful time. The dogs seem to like having scenery, trees and such as opposed to just snow, to look at and the humans are enjoying being able to go home at the end of the day. The weather has been pretty mild with not much rain at all, which is pretty impressive for Juneau. We stay very busy and get to meet lots of great new people everyday. Ryan has his plane ticket purchased to head home in order to sign up for the Iditarod! The Iditarod board has decided to limit the number of entrants this year and Ryan decided that it would be best to be there on sign up day. It will be another wonderful racing season looking forward to running the Iditarod again!
4/27/2008-- We have headed south, to Juneau that is, for another summer of touring. This year instead of working up on the glacier, we will be running the dogs in Juneau itself using carts. We are really looking forward to doing something different this summer. The camp is located up on the side of a mountain. It is a great spot for the dogs because it is miles away from people and homes. Hopefully we will get a few sunny days here soon!
4/5/2008--- Sorry for the lack of recent updates, I didn't realize that it had been so long! There hasn't been too much going on at the kennel lately. The weather has been normal spring weather, which has meant that it is wet and muddy! Right now we are waiting for the rest of the snow and ice to melt so that we could get the dogs out on four-wheelers for a little bit of spring training. Until then, the dogs are just enjoying basking in the spring sunshine!
Ryan and team crossing the finish line of the 2008 Goose Bay 120.
2/17/2008- Ryan and team finished 3rd place in the Goose Bay 120! The team was running the race to get more miles on before the Iditarod and to have yet another camping excursion. Ryan is really happy with the way the team is running and can hardly wait to start the Iditarod.
The ecg machine.
2/15/2008- We have had a busy couple of weeks here at the kennel. In addition to Ryan training dogs for the Iditarod and Erin training the pups, we have been busy taking care of Iditarod requirements. Each year before the start of the race all the dogs running in the Iditarod have blood drawn and an ECG taken. The race organization does this to make sure that all the dogs are healthy and ready to run the race. All of our furry friends are looking good and ready to run! Also this past week we dropped off all the supply bags for the Iditarod!!! This is always a huge task and it is great to have them all off and on their way to the checkpoints. Ryan had a total weight of about 2200 lbs! That includes all of his dog food, dog care items, and his personal needs for the entire race. Hopefully we didn't forget anything! The start of the race is now just two weeks away. Ryan and team will head out on a few more long runs and then they will be ready to race.
Iditarod drop bags.
1/30/2008-- This past weekend the team had a great run down at the Tustumena 200. The race is held about a 4 hour drive south of where we live in Kasilof, AK. Ryan was excited to go and run this race because the trail is vastly different from the one that we normally train on. At home here the trail is very flat, lots of running on rivers. Down at the race, there is nothing but hills. Ryan said that as soon as you go up one hill you go right back down in order to head up another hill! The weather the whole weekend hovered below zero with the morning of the race start being about -15 below (sorry for the lack of pictures but at that temperature there was no way of keeping the camera warm enough to function)! Heading in to the race Ryan had said that he wanted to draw an early bib number and he was lucky enough to draw bib number 2. There were a total of 24 mushers in the Tustumena 200, including Iditarod champions Lance Mackey, Mitch Seavey, and Joe Runyan. For the race course, the teams ran 100 miles straight up to the half-way point and then ran the 100 miles back. The run up took the teams about 10 hours to reach the mid-point of the race. When Ryan came in for his 8 hour layover he was happy to be in and out of the windy hills for awhile. The team had a great rest, everyone ate super well and right before getting ready to leave they were all bouncing around and really happy. Ryan left the half-way point in 4th place, following Lance Mackey, Judy Currier, and Bill Steyer. Behind Ryan were some more great teams including Sigrid Ekran, Mitch Seavey, and John Little. The run back down to the finish took the teams almost 12 hours. Ryan and team maintained their positon and finished 4th place! Ryan was really happy with the team's run and proud of the dogs for running the tough 200 miles in the way that they did.
1/19/2008--- After having a few well deserved days rest following the Knik 200, Ryan and the team have been back out on the trails. The team has been going on shorter runs lately just to keep them in shape. Ryan is happy with the way they are working as a team. We have gotten a little bit more snow, we now have about 8 inches total at the house here and much more farther down the trail. With the extra snow, the pups have been heading out for their first runs on sleds. The pups are all doing great and very happy to get to go running.
1/5/2008- Happy New Year everyone! The annual Knik 200 sled dog race got under way this morning. Despite the lack of snow, the first 10 or so miles of the trail have less than an inch but it gets much better after that, 33 racers took off from Knik lake this morning for the run up to Skwentna and back again. Ryan was lucky and he drew number 7, so hopefully he will be able to stay ahead of the crowd! I will try to add to this post as I know what is happening with the race.
At the half way point it looks like Ryan is in the lead! He had an incredibly fast run up to Skwentna, he made it there in just 6 hours and 59 minutes, setting a new course record for the run up to the halfway!!! Hopefully he and the dogs will have a good rest on the layover and finish strong tomorrow.
Ryan is the champion of the Knik 200!!! He and the dogs made it across the line at 9:00 this morning to win the race. We are very proud of the musher and the dogs. There was a lot of tough competition in the race, and Ryan and the team did an outstanding job.
Click on image to see it larger.
12/22/2007- Merry Christmas everyone! Well we do have a white Christmas, there is just barely enough snow to cover the ground but at least it looks festive. Ryan and the team have been going out on mini camping trips. He runs the team out about 38 miles and then camps for a few hours before running the 38 miles back. The dogs are doing well and Ryan enjoys the camping time to go pike fishing. We will keep our fingers crossed for more snow!
One of the pups, Yip.
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12/10/2007- We had our first race of the season this past weekend. The Aurora 25/25 was held in Trapper's Creek, about a 2 hour drive north of us, and it is just about the only place in the area with enough snow to run on a sled! The race consisted of two 20 mile heats (the day of the race they recieved a foot of snow and were not able to break 25 miles of trail before the race start), one on Saturday and one on Sunday. At the end of the first day Ryan was ahead of Cim Smyth by about 3 minutes. So going into the second day we knew it was going to be a close race. For the second day of the race the teams went out in place order, Ryan went out first becuase he was in the lead. At the finish line on Sunday Cim came across the line first so he had made up at least 2 minutes on Ryan and we just had to wait and see if Ryan was close enough behind him. When the times were all added up Ryan had lost by 1 second! It was definitely a close race and everyone had a ton of fun.
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11/26/2007-- Well it isn't looking very much like winter around here. We have had temperatures in the 40's for the past week or so. All of the snow has melted and it looks more like September around here than nearly December! The dogs are all looking good and training continues on the fourwheelers. I guess we just have more time to get the sleds ready!
First sled run of the season!
11/19/2007-- We have a little more snow on the ground now, not more than an inch or two but enough to drive a sled if you want to! Ryan took out a small team, just six dogs, on sled and had a lot of fun. The weather right now is making it tough to decide how best to run. On four wheelers, it is a bit icy and you tend to "fish-tail" around corners but with the sleds there isn't enough snow to get a hook in (you can hook to a tree on the side of the trail if need be)! After a few months on the four-wheeler it is always great to be able to take out the sled. We just hope to get more snow soon.
11/9/2007-- Since last update all of the snow that we had has melted yet again and we are back to bare ground. Training continues on the four wheelers and the miles keep adding up. Hopefully we will get snow back sometime soon!
Yesterday Ryan and some of the dogs did get to spend the day on snow. They went up the mountain a little ways to help in the filming of a T.V. commercial! Two teams of dogs were used to stage a race and they spent all day running a short loop on the snow. Everyone seemed to have a very good time.
Click on the thumbnail images below to see the picture full size.
Scenery at Hatcher's Pass
Carmack looks happy to be on snow!
Another look at Hatcher's Pass
10/25/2007- Training has been moving right along here at the kennel. Ryan and the racing team have been going on longer and longer runs and can hardly wait until the sleds can come out. Also, most of the pups have now been "harness broken," meaning that they have run for the first time in team. Erin and the pups have been getting out while we can still use the four wheeler, which makes it easier to stop and untangle if need be. All of the puppies did extremely well and are running like they have been doing it for years!
10/25/2007- A couple of inches of snow on the ground!
10/14/2007- This morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow!
10/11/2007--- Ryan and I spent the last couple weeks on vacation. We traveled down to Wisconsin to visit my parents. It was a lot of fun to see every one and to travel around to see all of the beautiful scenery. We are back at home now and ready to get into training again. The temperatures around here lately have been in the 20s in the morning! Winter is definitely on its way.
Sonia (Erin's sister), Paula (Erin's mom), Erin and Ryan standing in front of Split Rock Lighthouse.
The dogs enjoying the sun!
9/28/2007- We have been busy training and getting a bit of fall dog lot work completed in the kennel. As the dogs run in circles at their houses, they generally do this when they get excited about the chance to run or when it is time to eat, they kick out some of the dirt below them and start to make big pits. So this past week we brought in heavy equipment and a bunch of new gravel to smooth out the "dog pits." They were all very excited about having the new ground to run around on! Our racing dogs are running in two different teams, the A team and the B team. In having the two different teams, we keep many dogs in training for the race season but it allows us to have a faster group and a slower group. The A team, the faster group, contains many of this year's Iditarod hopefuls and, in our kennel, is the team that has the speed to run the shorter, 150 to 300 mile, races and hopefully do fairly well. The B team is the group that is made up of the dogs still in training to race and the mature, dependable Iditarod dogs. These are the guys that love to run and pull at a good steady pace, and are always there at the end of the race. When the two teams are put together at the end of the season, they will hopefully mesh into one solid team.
Keira and Chief looking happy to be running
9/21/2007--- Welcome to the new site! We switched sites to allow for easier web updating. With the new web program we will be able to keep it more updated than in the past.
We have started fall training once agian. The dogs, Ryan and I all had a great summer on the glacier giving sled rides to cruise passengers. After returning home around the 10th of September we gave the dogs a few days off to enjoying being back on dirt and then went right into training. Right now we are going on 7 mile runs and everyone is having fun being back on the ground. There is lots of training to be done this season. We have around 22 dogs in training for the race season and Iditarod. In addition we will have our hands full with about 14 puppies! While we were on the glacier, three of our females were staying with friends back at home to have pups. We now have them all back at the kennel and are looking forward to working with them this winter.
Out on an early morning training run with the team.
