Winter: Gone and Come

I would have never thought that I could run dogs in shorts and t-shirt in January in Alaska, but such was the case last week. There was a record heat wave across the state: it down right rained in spots, it got to 59 degrees in Palmer, and we hit close to 50 degrees three days in a row. Ok, so maybe shorts and t-shirts would be a bit extreme, but it sure was darn warm.
Although this type of warming trend can never come at a good time during the winter (at least according to mushers), it especially didn’t come at a good time for Iditarod mushers throughout the state. We were all busy preparing our food drops for the race, which are due this coming week. This means that thousands of pounds of raw meat meant to be fed to hungry dogs running a thousand miles across the state of Alaska thawed to dripping mounds of thawed beef, chicken, beaver, fish, and whatever else type of meat you can dream up. Luckily the warming trend was relatively short-lived and the meat stayed cool enough to prevent it from becoming spoiled.
Needless to say, the warm weather had adverse effects on our training trails. I think we would be better off skating down the trails than running the dogs in front of our sleds. There is still snow (rather ice now) covering the trails, but unless you are craving for a death wish, 7 is about the maximum number of dogs that can be run safely. Even that number is a little hairy.
Luckily, the Denali Highway avoided much of the warm weather and is in excellent shape. I have made two trips out to camp in the past week and will be making another trip tomorrow. The run is 52 miles out to camp, making it a 104 mile round trip. This is a pretty long run for the dogs, and with the race fast approaching, we will soon be finished with runs this long and will taper them off until the race.