SPK Dog Log

Enjoy some pre-race atmosphere and see all three teams leaving the start chute in the Two Rives 200 and 100.

Woohoo! Congrats Aliy and her Red Team for their win in the Two Rivers 100 overnight with a time of 14 hours 3 minutes!

Red Team on the trail!

Chris and his Red & Black Team finished in 5th place with 14 hours, 47 minutes. That’s an awesome result for those yearlings!

Red & Black 100 Team ready to go

Thanks to handler extrodinaire Wes with support from Steve Parker, Padee and Mark. Thanks Team!

Aliy with Chris at the start line; Aliy and Wes

We will get more details once everyone is back at the kennel.

Congrats to Jack Johnston who is a fan of DUTCH.

Dutch is a sassy pants. His super successful past season has improved his confidence. There is nothing that he can’t do. This transformation is awesome because he believes in himself as much as we do now. He will run in lead, swing, team or anywhere we put him. He is sitting out the Two Rivers race in anticipation of potentially making Allen’s Yukon Quest team early next month.

Jack wins a Two Rivers 200/100 poster plus a photo print portrait of Dutch. We hope you enjoy your packet Jack!

We will be doing a Dog Fan Club draw Friday, February 3rd from Whitehorse. Everyone who has joined by then and hasn’t already won will be in the draw to win!

Click the button below for more information about how to join:

Click this button to take you directly to the Dog Fan Page.

We love racing in our local Two Rivers races. We’re fielding two teams in the TR100 and one in the TR200. The race starts today (Friday) at noon up at the Chatanika Lodge. SP Kennel’s entire kennel philosophy can be seen in these race rosters. Each team is looking to have ‘success’ in their own race. Let’s have some FUN out there!

Ruth will run the Red & Black 200 (R&B200) team in the 200 mile race while Aliy will run the Red Team and Chris a young Red & Black 100 (R&B100) Team in the 100 mile race.

The trails are mostly familiar and the checkpoints are local. The race started out at Chatanika Lodge with the first checkpoint at the Two Rivers Lodge, then a stop at the Pleasant Valley Store. The 100 mile race finishes there. The 200 mile competitors will then go out to Angel Creek Lodge and return back to the Pleasant Valley Store.

Ruth will be wearing bib number 14 and her team for the 200 mile race is Chena, Chemo, Olivia, Schmoe, Five, Bean, Sanka, Hotshot and Iron.

Ruth with her bib, Chris and his Dad Steve who is up to support the race

Chris is wearing number 4 and will run Waylon, Quito, Violet, Willie, Woody, Sandy, Bruno, Barista, Creamer, Decaf, Perky and McCaw 100 miles.

You will see a lot of yearlings on those teams so both Ruth and Chris will be running to give them experience, not to try to win the race.

Aliy, wearing bib number 3, has Amber, Junior, Lydia, Daisy, Nomex, Champ, Spark, Rodney, Scooter, Outlaw Scooby and QT. This is a ‘combo-team’ with some experienced and one yearling rookie. Aliy would like to speed some of the dogs up after the Copper Basin 300 march, but mainly have some fun.

Check out the full rosters here!

The Two Rivers Dog Mushers Association Facebook page and website has more details and will update during the race.

It’s going to be a fun weekend!

To close the 2017 Copper Basin 300 chapter, here are the team videos!

Black Team leaving the start chute, into Sourdough and crossing the finish line.

The Red Team leaving the start chute and crossing the finish line. Watch for Spark at the start line.

The R&B Team leaving the start chute.

Enjoy!

Here’s Aliy’s wrap up of her CB300 team.

Chemo is a perfect dog for this team. He was happy and confident to be in lead and he would go fast when the trail allowed yet slow and steady pace when the trail got really challenging. He is not a high maintenance dog. Also, he was really good with Spark; he put up with Spark’s goofy antics and was Mr Cool the whole way.

I really wanted this to be Spark’s moment as a lead dog, his time to prove himself. He was “the man” but Chemo held his hand up there. Everyone loves Spark because he is sincere and happy. He is somewhat emotional, sometimes his tail is wagging and other times he doubts himself. He is much like his Uncle Beemer in that respect, where you have to be positive around him all the time or he starts to doubt himself.

I had two cheerleading swing dogs who were ready to spur team on. Lydia probably has the most drive on the team. She would bark and lunge in the air when we stopped – a cranky bark “hey whats going on!”

Amber is a little more physically powerful. She is usually a loper but she sure got down and ground into a trot into this race. Both talented leaders but didn’t put them up these simply because of the snow conditions.

Violet and Nomex were together for much of the time. Violet is very vocal, she starts screaming, literally, when we either go too slow or up a hill – and there were some hills so there was some screaming going on. She’s a tough little munchkin. She has lightly longer legs that her sisters and she was solid gold on this race.

Nomex has a nice looking butt! Great muscles. He has an ugly gait but he is always 100 percent. He’s a sweetheart: when putting booties on either him or his running mate he always tries to french kiss you, especially if cameras are taking pictures! It was good that he had a hard race and got to the finish line. It was neat to have a lot of the Fire litter on the team

Sissy and Scooter: Scooter, phew, 100 percent kicked butt! She has not lost any of her energy for eating, running and yelling and is pretty much the same dog as she was as a two year old. It is nice to see her physically holding together, because in the past, as she has so much excess energy, she doesn’t always look where she’s going and can hurt herself. She is enjoyable to have in the team except when she’s yelling in your ear.

Sissy was just as strong except through musher error was carried for 25 miles. At beginning of the race with all the teams two minutes apart it is hard to stop because you will be in someones way. If you see you have a dog you think needs to be carried, often you put it into sled quickly so you don’t mess up anyone else. Once Sissy was in sled I saw the problem was snow in the booty but I kept her in there just in case. At the checkpoint I got her out, she had a rest, and I walked her round to find nothing wrong. I gambled and decided to take her and she was perfect for next two legs except for last five miles was just not Sissy-ish and a little stiff. Did very well up to that point.

Driver is a nice dog. He’s not fast but he tries really really hard all the time. He will never be a fast dog but he’s honest and a go-getter. He tends to eats really sloooooowly which was a problem when I ran him with Clyde – Clyde ate his food and got the poops. He was doing so well until about 30 miles left of race when he stepped into a hole and hurt his wrist. I carried him over the line and he laid in there pretty well. He’s a sweet guy, not super smart but sweet.

Clyde is a pretty cool dog. He is very polite, apart from eating Driver’s food. The funniest part of the race was that he ate two meals every time (don’t worry, I gave Driver a second helping). Clyde got the runs a little just because he ate so much. He was great, very steady and he slept well, and was a good, solid dog! It was not a hard race for him.

I had Iron in the back. He did really well and he’s agile so I like him in wheel position. He didn’t really eat as well as I wanted him to but he picked up later in the race. Like his brother Driver, he wants to please you. Iron is not really the brains of the operation but he has all good intentions and he has a nice athletic body. Driver big strong lug but Iron is a well built iron-man.

When I think of Sandy it’s a little like “Oh, its Sandy, she can do it.” I find I take her for granted as has her own special flair but is non-descript and not flamboyant. She’s just a little black dog with floppy ears who does her job and doesn’t make a lot of noise. She has the perfect gait, knows how to take care of herself and is a great little dog.

This team was very solid and sixth place in CB300 was great. We maybe could have been one or two places higher if the musher did not make errors! This dog team really performed spectacularly. There is a lot of dogs on that team that could not longer be considered 2nd string. They really stepped up!

In the truck on the way home from Glennallen I asked Allen about his team.

Lead dogs Kodiak and Commando – These are two of the best leaders that we have, among many that have gone before. I would put either of these two in lead in any race at any time. They both loped for the whole race and are a well matched pair. I couldn’t ask for any more out of those two.

Brother and sister Junior and Dutch ran in swing. They are two more excellent leaders, and could have been in lead at any time during the race. (I may say that about a lot about many dogs on this team, we have that many good leaders). This pair were energetic and happy.

Then came Mismo and Izzy – the two floppy eared goony dogs and another brother and sister combo. Mismo is one of the best dogs on the team because you can put him in any position, in lead, in team, even in single lead and he will know where to go when there’s no trail. When the going gets slow, like it did in this race for the final leg, he was pulling even harder when in lead. Izzy worked really well with Mismo when in lead they kept grinding away, even when we had to carry dogs in the bag.

Rodney and Champ – Rodney, tried so hard for so long that just near the end 5-6 miles he ran out of steam. Champ is talented and driven and his line is always tight. He runs very much like his Mother Nutmeg. These two will be main dogs very soon. It is easy to see that by how much energy they have, how much they like to eat and there was not a time when I got ready to go that they weren’t jumping ready to go. They had a few mental hurdles to get over as this was the longest and hardest race of their career but they got through it. It is exciting to see these traits in such youngsters.

Tinder and Daisy came next. Daisy likes left side and is almost obnoxious about it and pushes the other dog into the snow if they are on the left. Daisy hasn’t had much race experience as she missed the Iditarod last year but she is such high energy and when the going gets tough she bows her back and puts her nose to the ground pulling hard. This was her hardest race and she will be better for it.

Tinder is getting more and more more like his father Nacho. He has a half-lope gait and picks his legs up pretty high. We had no issues at all until I got the team up early in Mendeltna to stretch them out and noticed him favouring his leg. The vet said it was a good catch as there was no sign of it coming in to the checkpoint as he was warmed up. He was doing a fantastic job up until then.

Felix and Chipper ran in wheel. I like seeing Felix because its just like running Biscuit. He has the same gait and has filled out more as he has gotten older. Biscuit was best wheel/team dog we ever had so Felix is heading down the same trail.

Chipper is a fireball, just because she weighs 34 pounds don’t let that fool you. She has more attitude than any 70 pounder. She pulled all the way to Tolsona but when I picked her leg up to put booties on to leave she squeaked. Her tricep was sore. We missed her in the last couple of legs.

I believe we had a winning team however musher judgement on how we ran the race was in error. In this race if you make one judgement error there is little chance to make a significant correction. In other years we ran a similar plan and won but in these conditions it was not appropriate to do. We paid for that error in the last 60 miles. The dogs are top notch and they wanted to win!

We all learned something from this. These dogs were as good as we’ve ever had and we need to help them achieve greatness.

And you thought a lot happened in the first half of the race!

I will jump to the end first. Please excuse the wall of text, I haven’t got to the photos or videos yet.

As a kennel we are delighted with 4th and 6th positons. It was a tough race – it was the Copper Basin 300, “the Toughest 300 Miles in Alaska” so we always expect the unexpected. After every race Aliy and Allen strip the race down and take an honest look at all aspects and outcomes. This race is no different, Aliy and Allen are looking at why our dogs slowed down at the end. It isn’t just as simple as carrying a dog made them go 5 miles and hour. They will ask questions: How did the race / rest schedule work? What do we need to adjust if we ever have those trail / weather conditions again? Was the preparation appropriate? How could things be better? They ask these questions whatever the result – good or bad.

We are the first to admit it wasn’t a perfect race for any of our teams for a number of reasons and they will spend time dissecting it all. 4th and 6th is fantastic and Chemo, Scout and Kodiak still believe they are the winners even though they were in three different teams!

MEIERS LAKE – TOLSONA – MENDELTNA

So, let’s pick up where we left off – on the 70 mile trail from Meiers Lake to Tolsona then 60 miles on to Mendeltna. It seems like a lifetime ago!

The trail from Meiers Lake to Tolsana moves along the Alaska pipeline for a time then runs over Fish, Crosswind and Ewan lakes. At Tolsona we were much more sheltered from any wind that this checkpoint but the snow fell almost constantly.

The trail Tolsona to Mendeltna travels Tolsona, Moose and Louise later with BIG hills in between for 50-odd miles.

Mendeltna to the finish ran about 30 miles along the Richardson Highway – you can see the teams from the road and when Mark and I left we were able to see Aliy, Michelle, Paige, Allen then Ryne working hard next to the trail. One for the first rules of Fight Club – whoops – I mean “Handling” is to never never let the dog team see the dog truck until the finish line i.e. do not stop to take a picture else the team will think it’s time to get in the truck. It was hard to just drive by and try to ignore the fact your team is RIGHT THERE!

BLACK TEAM
The run from Meiers Lake to Tolsona was the Black Team’s run. When Aliy got off the trail she said “that’s an Allen Moore trail” and it certainly turned out that way with their run time through that section. The trail was “punchy” (punching through the soft snow) with lots of hills. Allen said the team did great through there and he was pleased with his run.

Own arrival the team enjoyed their snacks and settled quickly. Allen again slept outside with his team, deciding to forgo the trek to the Fire House (where they had camp stretchers set up for mushers to rest). He left Chippy with us as she had a sore tricep and needed some massage and rest. She was a bit put out that she had to leave the team but seemed happy enough to get into the truck and eat a few fish snacks.

They got out on time after five hours in the checkpoint ready to head 50 miles to Mendeltna.

Allen was pleased with their run through to Mendeltna. They came in strong and everyone was running well. With just two hours rest at the checkpoint everything needed to be precisely timed if we were to get the team out on time. We worked backwards from the leaving time to ensure Allen was able to fit everything in. Once he got his arrival routine completed Allen came inside for something to eat (meat lasagna) and a nap. We counted backward to allow time to get a meal for the dogs, get them dressed and ready plus time to get to the musher “check out” point – mushers needed to walk/run back to the check-in area to sign out of the checkpoint then fast walk/sprint back to their team to leave. A handler from another team sitting in the same room must have thought I was some sort of sergeant major barking orders at Allen – “so, allow x minutes to check out, you want x minutes to ready the team, x minutes to get your boots on and water thermos filled – if you go to sleep right now you have 17 minutes sleep. Go”. In such a short race even a couple of minutes over time and it COULD affect the placings. In a longer race such as the Quest or Iditarod it is not as critical, although in saying that, efficiency at a checkpoint is always desirable no matter how long the race is.

We got them out in time and for the first time all weekend handlers could just breath out a minute. We had now done all we can to help and support for the race – it was now all out of our hands.

RED TEAM
Aliy and the Red Team had also worked very hard on the Meiers to Tolsona leg. During the run Aliy decided to alter her rest plan and spend four hours at Tolsona with three in Mendeltna instead of the five and two scheduled. She left Sissy with us here with a sore wrist and mushed off into the night with Chemo and Spark leading the way in their green glow in the dark collars.

Into Mendeltna Aliy had an extra hour compared to Allen so was able to take a little longer with everything but was still super efficient getting it all done. The shorter the stop essentially just means fewer minutes of rest for the musher as most of the chores take the same amount of time whether you are staying two hours or six. We got her away on time ready for her run to the finish.

RED & BLACK TEAM
Boy those experienced dogs are great. Scout, Scruggs and Olivia are such pros, it was great for Chris to have such experience out front to help with the younger ones. Chris came in to Tolsona with icicles from his beard and was ready to head inside to thaw out after seeing to the team first. It was at this point on we didn’t see Chris again until the finish. I’ll get a team account from him later this week to fill in some details as I really didn’t get much chance to find out much about individual dogs or particular runs.

A SHOUT OUT

We’d like to say a word about the three checkpoints with hospitality.

Meiers Lake Lodge was a haven out of the shocking conditions outside. They happily made burgers and grilled cheese for us at 4am and were only too willing to help with whatever we needed. Free fudge or muffins? No problem! Thank you to the team out there who worked so very hard all night and all day.

Mendeltna Lodge was also amazing. All the food I saw being consumed looked to be very much enjoyed and my beef and vegetable stew with home made bread was to die for! There were so many treats and extras we could help ourselves to and for me, the best thing was the huge jug of water with fresh mint and lemon. I downed many many glasses of it. There was plenty of room for everyone to stretch out for some sleep and it was also a welcome haven. Thank you Mendeltna!

Old Paths Church at the finish line once again was fantastic. It feels like home, you know once you reach Old Paths you have made it. They had cook pots of chilli and about 4 different types of soup, exactly what everyone needed. Thanks to the hard working team there also.

We were also lucky to have along for part of the race some folks from Verizon, one of the kennel’s lead sponsors. William, Pepsi, her husband Larry and their two sons enthusiastically helped in every way they could. Goodness the gusto in which that team could rake up the straw was astounding and so very very appreciated by us. Raking straw to my mind is the worst part of the whole thing. Their positivity and interest was infectious and lifted our mood. Thanks team! Go Team “SPK Verizon”

Sincere thanks also to the CB300 Board and Volunteers. CB300 remains one of the kennels favourite races!