SPK Dog Log

In case anyone was wondering why we hadn’t given team line-ups or updates on the Sheep Mountain 150, the race was cancelled earlier this week due to a lack of snow.

Here’s the latest post from Zack Steer, the Race Director: “This last storm was too little, too late to save the Sheep Mountain 150 sled dog race. The 2012 race is cancelled, sorry to say. We needed at least a foot of snow and only picked up a couple of inches. Trails are fine for biking and skiing, but would not hold up for the safe travels of 60 dog teams. Last Fall’s wet weather saturated the ground with water. This winter we have seen much more glaciation and ice than normal along the creeks and valleys.”

So, our next scheduled race is the Two Rivers Solstice 100 on December 22 – we’ll update you about teams later next week.

Our “snow dance” worked and we’ve had a few inches of fresh snow with more still falling as we post this. We are very excited to finally have snow, it makes the trails not only much better for mushing but also very pretty!

Aliy took a video on Sunday around some home trails after the first inch or so of snow fell overnight.

Lead: Scout and Quito, Swing: Ranger and Chemo, Team: Boondocks and Rambler, Wheel: Tug and Pud

Aliy took the yearlings, along with Spicy, out for a run a couple of weeks ago. Here you can see the future of SP Kennel very early in their careers; it will be fun to look back at this in a few years time!

You will notice most of them are running with neck-lines – this is because youngsters sometimes just don’t know which way is forward and the neck-lines help to reduce the chaos that is a “yearling run”!

Allen has signed up to race in the 2013 Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race.

Allen has raced the CB300 for the last 10 years. He believes it is a phenomenal race in one of the most rugged yet beautiful spots in Alaska. The timing of the race is perfect for a Yukon Quest musher and dogs – three weeks separate the two races. As well, the mountainous trail is similar to that of the Yukon Quest.

As folks might remember, last season “the toughest 300 miles in Alaska” race was canceled after the race course was literally “un-raceable”. Teams were stranded between checkpoints 90 miles into the 300 mile course with no trail to follow. Whether this was due to Mother Nature, human error or a little bit of both is now irrelevant. It was a blow to all race teams, dedicated volunteers and the entire Copper basin community.

In mid November 2012, according to the newly formed CB300 board, volunteers and race officials … the 2013 race will go on! The race start is scheduled for January 12th and will begin in Glennallen, Alaska. This is exciting news for the mushing community as a whole.

The CB300 has been running since 1990. In 1996, the race was canceled due to severe cold weather and in 2012, the race was canceled due to trail conditions. For the remaining 21 years there has been a race. But, it is never easy! In 2005, two snow machines sank in Paxson Lake while trail breaking. Nearly half of the musher field scratched that year. In 2009, fifteen miles of trail were put in within minutes of the first musher reaching that section.

The CB300 always has a challenging trail with: incredible mountain summits, steep inclines, wet water crossings, waist deep overflow, ground blizzard conditions, wind swept lakes and often 30 to 50 below temperatures. Mushers should not sign up if they are looking for 300 miles of groomed trail.

The CB300 is the one of two 300 mile races in the north that covers 300 unique miles of trail. (The other is the Yukon Quest 300 that uses the first 300 miles of the Yukon Quest route.) This fact is awesome for a musher and dogs who get to see new and different trail through out the entire route. However, this fact is also an underlying problem with the race. Obviously, this means that 300 miles of trail through the Alaska Range Mountains, rivers and valleys must be maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers. Volunteers are just that … volunteers. They use their snow machines, time and effort. And a great deal of effort it is! There are no reality show cameras following the CB300 trail breakers and volunteers, but in this day and age of Alaska “rugged man shows” perhaps there should be.

See you at the CB300!

Back in late November, before the “deep freeze”, Aliy, Allen and Meghan took teams for a run to the top of the world! Aliy has captured the magnificent scenery of the Alaska Range and Denali along with some great footage of her team.

Lead: IV and Olivia; Swing: Chica and Rambler; Team: Beemer and Sissy; Wheel: Waylon and Ranger.

“Have I ever mentioned Biscuit has a lot of energy?”

Biscuit is definitely one of the kennel mainstays and now that he is seven years old he’s become the heart of the kennel. He is confident and reliable and the whole teams knows it.

He is also the proud poppa of a new generation of SP Kennel pups – have you seen how much they look like him? Watch out world!

We’re pretty excited to have Biscuit on the team – he’s an “All Star”.

We hope you enjoy this short video from the Firebreak training run last month. Check out all the wagging tails when Aliy stops for a quick break!

Tug is a pretty understated, sweet dog. She runs with her tail up, so you can always pick her out in the team and as you can see in the video she has a permanent smile on her lips!

She has recently moved house and is now between Beemer, Biscuit and Tatfish – she certainly has a fun filled life!

Tug has run the Iditarod twice and has three 300 mile races under her belt.

Aliy says “she’s a dynamite team dog” and she’s looking forward to Tug being on the team again this year.