It was fascinating watching the dog team find the trail which was covered by fresh snowfall and often completely blended in with the surrounding untouched landscape. When there were 2 clear trails, Jeff quietly told the dogs right or left (gee or hup, maybe?) & they seamlessly took the correct path. Throughout this post I don’t have photos to illustrate my text, but figure random photos are better than nothing.

If they got off the trail, the dogs would sink and flounder in the deep snow while the lead dog struggled back and forth trying to find it again. If Jeff knew where it was he would suggest a direction. Most of the time they found it fairly quickly & it was fascinating to see how excited they were at finding the trail. I’m not sure if they were celebrating their success, or pleased that it was so much easier to move, or thrilled that now they could go fast again. Even the dogs who weren’t back on the trail yet would be excited when they realized the lead dog had found it.

One time he unhooked his brilliant lead dog Benelli so that she could search for the trail freely without the responsibility of keeping the team in line. Wish I had decent photos of this! She is a great dog & a couple of her pups were on the team.

I didn’t want to lose my phone in the deep snow & only took photos when we were stopped. The dogs wanted to GO, so we only stopped briefly and while they were a bit tired from either breaking trail at the lake or from going up hill. At the lake Jeff wasn’t concerned about them going far as they still had a ways to go before getting back on the trail. He could take my photo without otherwise securing the dogs.

At the second stop we were on an established, freshly packed trail. Jeff had me get out of the basket while he stood on both brakes. Then I stood beside him & as soon as he lifted from the first brake, I stomped on it with my foot, then we did the same with the second brake so there was just a fraction of a second when there was only one brake. The dogs seemed mildly curious & used to the routine, and yet most of them pulled now & then, checking if it was time to go. Smokey insistently kept tugging & lunging the whole time.