Wolverine to Tolsona (26 miles)

We found our way off Lake Louise fine and started another series of minor hill climbs up to the section line trail leading to Tolsona. Goldie and Dale were doing alright in lead, but were each thirsty and were as a result prolifically dipping snow on the side of the trail. The trail was wide enough that they weren't just able to reach over and grab a mouthful of snow, but they needed to pull the team over to their side of the trail in order to reach any. This went on for a few miles and I could sense the frustration building between the two of them and the rest of the team as they were getting yanked back and forth.

Finally, I knew I needed to make a change as they were expending more energy trying to dip snow than pulling the team forward. We were doing a bit of hill climbing so I decided to try running Dale in solo lead. This isn't very often done these days as most leaders are trained to run in tandem with another leader. Tandem leaders divides the pressures of running in lead between two dogs and also gives a bit of redundancy in case one dog doesn't hear a command or mixes up their Gee and Haw for an instant. Dale had been just an incredible leader thus far and had far surpassed any expectations we had of her up to that point. I decided that it couldn't hurt to give it a try and figured that I had a few options if it didn't work out.

So I buried Goldie back in the team and hooked both leader tugs to Dale's harness and away we went. Dale had the lead and no need to waste any energy pulling the team to her side of the trail to get a little snow. She ran well, even taking the team up a few hill climbs by herself. After about six or seven miles I figured that I better not push her too much to where she quits, since she was starting to look back a little bit, and I stopped the team to give her some help.


Steele was the last dog which had leader skills that I hadn't yet used. He was the largest dog on the team and as a result was good to have further back in the team for the majority of the race. Now that I was literally on the home stretch, I decided it was his time. So I put him up in lead with Dale and off we went, flying up the remaining hills and down onto Tolsona Lake and the last checkpoint before the finish.

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