The Road to Glennallen
- Thursday, January 12, 2006
In discussions with Bill and Sandy and by process of elimination due primarily
to minor injuries, we were down to a possible 13 dogs from which I could choose
12 to run the Copper Basin. They were Gertie, Goldie, Dale, Kali, Mars, Steele,
Monty, Curly, Bob, Jim, Pancho, Teddy and Lucy.
Lucy was number 13 and during a 22-mile training run that Thursday morning, it
became apparent that she was the weakest due to a nagging injury which kept her
from pulling hard on her tug through the majority of the run. So rather than even
try to have her run, if by chance one of the other 12 did not pass the vet check
before the race, I made the tough decision to leave her home. Lucy was one of
5 puppies which I had started training last season and had spent the most time
on the sled with. Jim, Bob, Curly, Mars and Lucy had all gone on some of their
first runs in harness with me on the sled, and I was pretty excited about how
far they had come. It was unfortunate that Lucy wasn't going to make this trip,
but there would be other opportunities in the future.
We finished packing the drop bags and truck, secured the sled and straw on the
trailer, and finally loaded up the dogs for the trip. By that time Bill and Sandy
had gotten home from work and they bid us farewell as we hit the road for Glennallen,
but first we needed to make a few stops in Fairbanks.
In Fairbanks we picked up a few supplies, sandwiches for dinner and a few other
snacks for the road and then finally left town around 7pm with two full tanks
of gas and clear roads ahead. We drove for 100 miles seeing not much of anything
else except for a group of fancy looking cars which we leap-frogged with a few
times and then finally caught up with in Delta Junction as we had all stopped
to refuel. It turns out they were doing cold weather testing on some new vehicle
models and were doing so under the cover of darkness. We were sworn to secrecy,
so I can't share with you what we saw.
We "dropped the dogs" just outside of Delta Junction and let them empty
their bladders and stretch before loading back up for the rest of the trip to
Glennallen. The dog truck had 12 eye bolts spread out along the rocker panels.
When we dropped the dogs we grabbed foot-long drop chains with brass snaps on
each end and used these chains to hook the dogs to the truck. By the time we had
gotten the last dog out and hooked to the truck we could usually start loading
up the first ones we had dropped. An efficient stop with 12 dogs could take less
than 10 minutes.
From Delta Junction we continued on the Richardson Highway south and left the
majority of traffic behind. The moon was two days shy of full so we were able
to enjoy the surrounding landscape even though the sun had set hours ago. We had
clear skies, but did have the occasional snow shower or mini ground blizzard which
kept our speed slow and focus sharp. As we climbed up and over the Alaska Range
we started to pass by a few of the checkpoints for the race, and I woke JJ up
periodically to point them out to her so she'd be somewhat familiar with them
later on in the weekend.
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