Chapter 35
Dashing Through the… Dirt

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Soon we were off and barreling up the mountain.

These Unimogs do not mess around, and we were climbing at really steep grades. All around us, the forest floor was coated in some plant akin to moss that the guide told us about. It’s apparently really spongy and absorbent, so they’ll actually use it to line some of the dog kennels and soak up waste.

I feel like this photo gives you a good idea how steep the hills we were climbing actually were. The front of the ‘mog was so high up compared to the back that we could barely see where we were going.

Luckily, our views out the side and back were great.

We were constantly turning our heads every which way and squinting off into the distance in the hopes of seeing a bear, but alas, nada.

We got so excited when we rounded a corner and saw sled dogs lined up!

They were excited to see us too, judging by all the barking that was going on.

We drove past them on the way to our parking spot.

And then we pulled over and were greeted by our sled mushers.

Since we were in the back row of the Unimog, we were the first ones off and had our choice of sleds. It was like Sophie’s Choice trying to pick one pack of dogs over the others, but we headed for the farthest away sled.

I’d mentioned before that our table mates, John and Candida, had given us a little advice about one of our Port Adventures. As it turned out, they were big dog people as well and had done this excursion on their first Alaska cruise. They let us know that if at all possible, we should try to sit in the front of our sled. Since the driver mushes from the back, they told us, we would have an unobstructed view of the dogs during our ride and could get some great pictures and videos.

Since we were first off the ‘mog, we were also the first ones to our sled.

So we had no problems grabbing the front seats (yay!!).

I could get used to this view.

Another family—two parents and a little boy—took the seats behind us, and our musher soon came back to take his spot at the rear of the sled.

 After a quick safety spiel about staying seated, the musher gave the command that started our dogs running.

It was honestly such a nutty experience to be pulled by dogs. We’d learned from our tour guide on the Unimog that the dogs here are all “Alaskan huskies.” That’s not a real breed, but it’s essentially a type of mutt that has been very specifically bred to have a number of characteristics. Most dogs have some Siberian husky or malamute in them to help give them the dual-layer coat that is so important for keeping them warm in the snow. But they have been mixed with breeds like hounds and pointers to be smart and agile.

We also learned a lot about the pack mentality and the composition of a sled dog team. The dogs at the back of the pack bear a huge bulk of the weight of the sled, whereas those at the front are pulling almost zero weight. Instead, the dogs at the front need to be alphas who are good leaders in addition to being very obedient to commands (which, not too surprisingly, means that all the girl dogs were up front). Speaking of the commands the sled dogs know, we learned that “gee” means turn right and “haw” means turn left. “Hike” is apparently used more commonly than “mush” to get the dogs going, but I can’t remember for sure what our musher said.

Apparently it’s pretty normal for the dogs to cross the center line between the two of them (like you can see happening in the picture above) because they all tend to have minds of their own and might decide that they would rather be on the other side of the rope.

I wanted to get some video, but I didn’t want to experience any of the run by staring at the camera’s LCD display, so I just put it onto video mode, set it on my knee, and hit record. Here are a few clips from our journey around the trail. I’d recommend listening to some of the narration you can hear from our musher (John) in the background while you watch.

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8i2dpRk8cM” ]

As you can see in the video, we stopped at the halfway point for the dogs to take a rest. Apparently, our “sled” was about four times as heavy as the ones they pull in the snow, and he compared it to the idea of a baseball player swinging a weighted bat as he practices. These summer sessions are really devoted to strength training for the dogs so that they are all ready to go when winter comes.

John offered to get out and take some pictures of us from outside the sled.

I like this one that shows our dogs in addition to the team that was stopped behind us.

We were seriously having so much fun, and we couldn’t wait for the second half of the run to get underway.

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