6/14/2009: Summer is moving right along. It is hard to believe that we are half-way through June already and Iditarod sign up is just two weekends away! Ryan has his tickets booked and will be there to enter the 2010 Iditarod. Other exciting news, this August Ryan is one of the key note speakers at a sled dog symposium in Michigan. Visit their website here:
5/25/2009: Everything is going well down here in Juneau. We have had some amazing sunny weather and it has hardly rained since we arrived here almost a month ago! Dogs are doing well and we are having lots of fun meeting new people.
Hurley had 5 pups on May 2nd, 4 girls and 1 boy!
One of Hurley's puppies.
5/4/2009: We have made it down to Juneau for another summer of giving tours. The weather has been pretty good down here so far with only 1 day of rain during the week. It is great to be back to work and hopefully it will be a fun and busy summer.
Before
4/11/2009: The snow is melting pretty quickly around here but we still had some time for a few runs yesterday. All the pups have been doing wonderfully this winter and it will be neat to see how they do with tours this summer and then racing next winter. Also, we took Mesa in for a haircut and she looks like a whole new dog!
After
3/30/2009: Since returning home from the Iditarod we have been taking it easy here at the kennel. The puppies have gotten to go for 10 mile runs almost every day and the race dogs are enjoying lounging in the sun. The other day we actually got some ashfall here and so we had to put pup training on hold. It snowed a little last night though and so we should be good to hit the trails again.
Ash on the hood of the truck
Heading out on a run
2/23/2009: Training has been going well. Ryan and team have been going on many runs lately to try and see who will be the final 16 for the Iditarod. Check the "2009 Iditarod" link to see the pictures of the team!
2/17/2009: After a week of cooking, cutting, and packing, the food drop has been delivered to Anchorage. The total for this year was 2120 pounds of gear! The dogs and Ryan should have plenty of stuff waiting for them out on the trail. Our weird weather has been continuing, for the past 5 days we have had temps in the mid 30s and tonight we are getting rain again! Hopefully the weather will go back below freezing and the rain won't hurt the trails. Ryan and team having been putting on quite a few miles this past week. With Iditarod approaching quickly, Ryan needs to decide who will be on the team. Check back next week for pictures and bios on this years Iditarod team!
2/10/2009: Ryan and team have placed 2nd in the Klondike 300!!! We are very excited and proud of the team and musher. The weather was great for running dogs, dropping to about 20^ below sometimes, and the trails were nice. Ryan finished with 9 happy looking dogs. Now everyone will get a day or two off while we work on food drop for the Iditarod!
Ryan's team at the start
Thanks Barb for the pictures!
2/7/2009: And the teams are on the trail!!! The Klondike 300 finally got underway this morning. Ryan and his team of 15 dogs were the 8th team to leave the starting line of the race. It should be a great race with lots of good competition. The weather here today is perfect for running dogs with bright sunshine and temperatures around zero! Ryan and team were the first team to arrive at the Deshka Landing checkpoint, 40 miles into the race. They have about another 30 or so miles to go to reach Yentna and there they will take a 6 hour break.
1/31/2009: Finally we have winter weather!!! In the past few days we have gotten about 5 inches of snow! The trails are once again looking beautiful and we just hope that the good winter weather will stick around for awhile now. Ryan and team had been trucking an hour north to Willow to run but now with the new snow we can resume training out of the yard. The team has been going on 40 - 50 mile runs to get ready for the Klondike. Right now Ryan is very pleased with the way the team is doing. Now that we have good trails, we will have to keep our fingers crossed that Mount Redoubt, the volcano that has been rumbling lately, doesn't decide to erupt and throw ash on the trails!
Icy Trail
1/23/2009: Well the Klondike 300 has been put on hold again and is now scheduled for February 7th. The temperatures have returned to normal here but everything is icy. Between the high temps and the rain, the trails have been turned into ice skating rinks. We are now just keeping our fingers crossed to get a bit of snow to make the trails usable again.
1/15/2009: This weekend is the Klondike 300 sled dog race. This is a race that runs right on the Iditarod Trail here at home. The weather has been pretty strange around here the last few weeks. Earlier this week we finally got rid of the below zero temperatures but they were traded for highs of 40^ above and rain! I think that the cold weather was better, at least then we didn't have puddles. Ryan and the team will hit the trail on Saturday morning. Hopefully they have a great time out there!
UPDATE: The mushers meeting was Thursday night. Ryan drew number 13 but the race was postponed until Monday. With all of the warm weather and rain lately there is too much water out on the rivers. We should know more about if the race will run or not on Sunday.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The race is now scheduled to start next Saturday (1/24). Hopefully the weather will cooperate!
1/04/09: Ryan and team decided not to race the Knik 200 this weekend. On Saturday morning, the temperature was -25^F at the starting line. This is generally the warmest spot on the whole race trail. The temperatures ended up dropping to around -45^F at some spots along the trail. Ryan decided that it was in the best interest of he and the dogs to not go out racing in such extreme temperatures. Congratulations go to Ken Anderson and Ryan's brother, Ray, who placed 1st and 2nd! The forecast is for temperatures to remain below zero until Wednesday, when the highs might get into the single digits above zero! Right now the plan is for Ryan and team to run shorter miles until the weather improves and then do a few camping trips. Happy New Year!
Back at the finish line.
12/30/2008: The past weekend was an eventful one. Erin and the team were running in the Aurora 50/50 race. The first leg of the race on Saturday went well. It was windy and the trails were very drifted but the dogs preformed wonderfully. At the end of the day the we were in third place! Sunday was a beautiful day as well, it was cooler, a little below zero, and the trail had hardened up over night making it a nice trail to run on. The team was still running in third place heading back in to the finish when we scratched from the race to come to the aid of another musher. About 15 miles out from the finish, Meredith, a junior musher running in the race, and her team were struck by a snowmachine. We hooked the remainder of her team in with mine and mushed back to the finish line together. (Meredith is doing well and all her dogs are back at home with her.) The next race up on our schedule is the Knik 200 this weekend. The forecast for the weekend is for temperatures staying around the zero mark, which will make for a chilly race! The dogs are looking good and Ryan is excited to get in the race and see how the team does.
12/24/2008: Merry Christmas! Training is going very well here. We have lots of snow on the trails and the temperatures have been pretty nice lately. This last week we did a bunch of 40 mile runs and the dogs are looking good. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
Enjoying the snow!
12/16/2008: The first race of the season, the Sheep Mountain 150, was last weekend. It don't go quite as we had hoped but it was still a great race and training opportunity. It was a beautiful weekend to have a race, the temperatures at the checkpoints stayed between about 10 above and 10 below. There was a full moon and lots of shooting stars during the night leg of the race. Our younger team was driven by our friend Jeff Deeter and he did a wonderful job with the team. They finished in the top half of the field and had good run times on each of the three legs. Ryan had a tough run the first leg and so he used the rest of the race just as training to get more miles on the dogs. All in all, it was a great experience and we are looking forward to the next race, the Knik 200, which is held the first weekend in January.
12/8/2008: Here at the kennel we are getting ready for the first race of the season. The Sheep Mountain 150 is scheduled for this weekend. We will be running 2 teams in the race, Ryan and our friend Jeff Deeter. The dogs are looking good and it will be a lot of fun to get out there and see some other teams!
Ryan and team
Bark enjoying the snow
Snow!
11/27/2008: What are we thankful for this year? Among other things, we are thankful for SNOW!!! We finally have enough snow on the ground to get off the fourwheelers and onto the sleds. Now training can get kicked into high gear for the season! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
11/19/2008: The dogs have all been running really well. We have been doing 30 to 40 mile runs and everyone comes back in loooking great. It still hasn't really snowed yet but there is a chance of snow in the forecast for the next few days. We will keep our fingers crossed and hopefully we will be able to get on sleds soon.
11/9/2008: Training is going great but we are still waiting for snow! The weather has been cool lately, between about 12 to 24 degrees, but no snow in the forecast. Right now we are training 23 dogs for the eventual Iditarod team and everyone is doing well. The dogs are coming off of every run looking excited and happy, hopefully it is a good sign of things to come.
Happy Halloween!
10/26/2008: Well we have been on vacation for the last week or so. Right now Ryan is back at home in Alaska and I am still on the sunny beaches of Florida. Ryan says that all of the dogs are doing well and it is definitely looking like winter. He said this morning it was 15 degrees and we still have some snow on the ground. Hopefully we will get more snow soon and get out on the sleds. Happy Halloween!!!
10/12/2008: Right now we are up at the sled dog symposium in Fairbanks. It is neat to see all the different mushing related stuff and people that we normally just see in the winter. Training has been going very well. The dogs are running about 12 mile runs and we have 24 dogs in training for this years racing season.
10/1/2008- We have made it home safe and sound. The road trip back home went well, other than the heater going out in the truck, and all the dogs were happy to be back again. After giving ourselves a few days to settle in at home, we will start up with fall training. Winter seems to be on its way, it was only 25 degrees here this morning!
9-13-2008: Here are a few pictures of our latest litter of pups. Everything is going well here in Juneau, we are just all looking forward to getting back home. Our last day here is the 27th and we will hopefully be back in Wasilla by the 30th and starting fall training!
7/15/2008- Just a quick note to catch up and what we have been up to lately. We are now half-way through our summer season down in Juneau! The humans and dogs are all still really enjoying running tours and getting to meet all of the new people that we see every day. Each day is pretty darn busy and time sure flys when you always have something to be doing! Ryan is all signed up for the 2009 Iditarod!!!! He is very excited about this years race and thinks that he will have a very nice team to race with this season. He flew home for the sign-up day and is currently number 25 on the list. Hopefully he will get lucky and draw a nice low starting number at the banquet. We also have a new set of pups to train next season. June 6th Columbia had four puppies, three boys and one girl. They are all fat and sassy and doing well. I hope that they all turn out to be as smart as their mom!
