Squid Acres News

The Copper Basin is on!

2012-01-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

So Paige pulled the hook at 12:58 today headed for the first checkpoint 59 miles throught the Alaska Range to Paxson AK.. Due to high winds and significan snowfall recently the trail is rumored to be deep and drifty. She will likely take a little longer to get to Paxson than a normal 59 mile run. So probably be in to Paxson no earlier than 8 pm and hopefully no later than 11 pm....

I will be updating along the way, but will do Facebook updates more than blog updates. I am also posting photos and video on Facebook.. anyone can tune into our fan page at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.234148386663695.56783.126734840738384&type=3#!/pages/Squid-Acres-Kennel/126734840738384

you can also get race updates at www.cb300.com and at their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.234148386663695.56783.126734840738384&type=3#!/pages/Copper-Basin-300-Sled-Dog-Race/113218608732801
stay tuned

The Solstice 100

2011-12-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

Well we finished our first race of the season, a local 100 mile race in Two Rivers, Alaska. It was just what we needed to get the dogs out on the trail and used to the race format. We have several dogs that are new to us this season and some 2 year olds that have never raced before so this was a great race to see how the training is progressing. We had enough dogs for 2, 11 dog teams. We tried to make two even teams and then we flipped a coin to see who got which team.
For those in the know:
Codys team
Stout, Okie, Ness, TJ Maxx, Berry, Solo, Big Mike, Lupine, Ursa, one eyed Mikey and Dorado
Paiges team
Elmer, Casper, Bleeker, ET, Brutus, Goober, Frenchy, Dundee, Smoke, Mystic and Dozer

Cody said his team did great, moving along nicely. It was Solo and Big Mike's first race as 2 year olds and they both worked really hard the whole time and camped well. He dropped Stout at the checkpoint because of some slight soreness in his shoulder that has been plaguing him recently. But other than that Cody had a flawless run.

My team also did great cruising along on the way to the Angel Creek Checkpoint. Some of the trail follows the Quest trail that I did as part of the Yukon Quest 300 a couple of years ago so it was in familiar territory. I remembered on that race, I put Bleeker in lead as we were getting closer to the Angel Creek Lodge. The trial goes onto some creeks and under two bridges. There is only about 5-6 feet of clearence in between the ice and the bottom of the bridge. In 2009, Bleeker did not think that was a good idea to go under the bridge so instead did a full circle bringing the whole team around and jumped into my sled bag! What the???? so on the ice I switched him out of lead and on we went under the bridge. Well I remembered that this time and did not have him in lead on the way out there and this time there was even less room under the bridge, I had to duck. Well, we went right under them and I watched Bleeker carefully and he just charged right under them from his swing position. Once we got the checkpoint, I happily exclaimed to Cody that Bleeker was over his fear of bridges! We had a mandatory 4 hour layover at the checkpoint and the dogs rested well at first but the teams all came in so close that when the teams started to get ready to go there was no chance of any rest happening!

I made some last minute changes before I left, putting Bleeker in lead and off we went, right on time. We go flying out of there and within a mile or so, down a steep slope, onto a thin plywood bridge out onto the creek ice ready to go under the bridge. As I was looking down at something on my sled, I looked up only to see Bleeker, pulling his bone head move again, right back to the sledbag he came, with the whole team. Dang:) The thing about ice is that it is slippery and you cant set a snow hook. Well luckily everyone was well behaved and I put Brutus in lead with Casper and off we went, under the bridge with Bleeker in swing driving hard under it as if he wasnt scared at all.

It was a super fun race and now we are looking forward to the Copper Basin in January and the Yukon Quest in February! Stay tuned:)

change of plans

2011-12-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

Well folks, as usual, plans have changed. We had a few too many dog on the injured list lately. Nothing very serious, just wrists and shoulders that weren't very happy but enough problems that we didn't have enough dogs for 2 full teams in the Sheep Mountain 150. The Sheep Mountain 150 is a fast paced race in very moutainous trerrain. That trail has the possiblilty of causing even more problems for our dogs so we decided we could put one team into that race or bring the whole gang out to Two Rivers for the Solstice 100 race and give them the chance to show us what they working with. We will be running two 11 dog teams instead here. The race starts later this morning and goes from the Pleasant Valley Store to the Angel Creek Lodge. Here we will have a 4 hour layover while enjoying a burger at the lodge. Then we will have a 50 mile run back to Pleasant Valley Store and should be done sometime after midnight. You can follow along on the Two Rivers Mushers Facebook Fan Page. It is open to the public to view.We will not have anyone updating the blog from the trail on this race, but we'll tell about it afterwards.
'

Winter in full swing

2011-11-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, almost December. Sorry about the lull in blog entries. I guess we have been slightly busy around here since we last wrote. Fall training has gone awesome. We started with 30 adult race dogs training and 12 yearlings that are also running in harness, but at lesser level. We ran them all together in 14 dog teams until we hit the 20 mile mark in training, sometime in October and then we decided that the young dogs would be split out since we did not plan to race them this year, but rather allow them to mature physically and mentally. Our yearlings are going to get another year to have fun before things get real serious. We'll train them up for 30 mile camping trips, so this spring they can get into a camping rhythm and then next year they'll be in the groove. They are looking good.

As for the race dogs, we are still training around 26 dogs for the upcoming races and at this point in the season they are doing runs in the range of 40 - 60 miles. We are both signed up for the Sheep Mountain 150 in December and the Copper Basin 300 in January. After these two races, we will have a good idea who is tough enough to make the cut for the Yukon Quest team. Paige will only be able to take 14 dogs on that race. So we will have to look closely at which dogs make the best fit for a long cold 1000 mile run.

The video below is from a mini hd helmet cam we are playing with, watch for more videos as the season progresses. This video is just playing with footage from a typical training run on our local trails.. pretty close to being there, except this video is a little shorter than the real runs by about 5 hours.. I did speed up the video a bit at times. we like our dogs slow.

We recently had our friend Dorothy Olmstead come by to help out for a week and see what handler life was all about. She did a great job with the dogs and got to see what running dogs and doing dog chores at -40 is all about. Hopefully we didn't scare her away. Hopefully, we can get Dorothy, who is a writer, to do a blog entry on her experience here. ;)

Cody's dad, Sterling is now here helping out in the shop and helping with some training runs. He got his reintroduction to the dogsled yesterday and did 18 miles of technical trail without spilling his sled, so I think he is ready to go camping. We plan to get out this week and do a camping trip from our place to Minto Flats. Sterling is also an auctioneer, so while he is here, he is going to be doing the Yukon Quest, Hawg and Dog benefit Auction . Yukon Quest mushers will be serving hors d'oeuvres at this event at Cold Spot Fees on December 3rd. Don't miss the chance to see Paige in a tux with tails.

So that is what is happening here, we'll try to keep this more up to date, but our FACEBOOK page is public, meaning you can look at it without being a facebook member, and usually kept up to date on a more day to day basis. During races, it will likely get more updates than this.

Norwegian Mushing Symposium

2011-10-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Our side business, DogPaddle Designs, is attemtpng to expand our sled sales to Norway and Sweden. Barry Siragusa of RoppHaugen Consulting in Norway agreed to help us try to import sleds to Norway. We decided that the Hakadal Sledhunklubb seminar would be a great place to debut our sleds. So one of the things we have been doing around here is getting sleds all ready to go to Norway. Above, are the two first sleds going to Norway. One was for Barry for all is hard work and the other was for demonstration purposes.

After the sleds were built, Cody to take them all apart and package them for riding along on the airplane. It proved to be semi difficult to get 9 feet long sleds packaged for a ride on a plane. But the sleds made it to Norway, happy and healthy. Cody stayed with Barry and Kaia at their kennel.

They are near Gausdal, Norway. The valley they live in was beautiful with watefalls and great trails just outside their door.

While here, Cody got to see how the folks are traininng dogs.. pretty much the same as a Alaskans... go figure. they even use harnesses and ganglines. ;)

Most mushers, however don't have the big gas guzzler dog trucks that most of us Alaskan mushers have. Most mushers seem to have vans or SUVs with trailers.

When it comes to dryland training, four wheelers aren't normally allowed here to go whereever you want like in Alaska, combine that with the fact that quads are about

124, 900 Norwegian kroner = 22, 132.77 U.S. dollars, and dang..

So most mushers either use Non-motorized carts or their vehicles. In Barry and Kaia's case, they use their SUV. I got the chance to tag along on a few runs and see how some of the Norwegian genetic lines look. Looking good!.

Barry, Per Vinding and I spent a couple leirurely days assembling the sleds for Hakadal and then spent the weekend at the symposium. The Hakadka Sledhundklubb puts on a great symposium, very similar in size to our own held in Fairbanks. They had many great vendors there. It was great to see some of the different brands of gear that are used here, some with very different solutions to the same old gear. It was a great chance to network and get to know more about how races and mushing is done. There are probably more mushers Norway then Alaska, but I guarantee there are more sled dogs in Alaska.

The symposium and trip were a success! Thanks to all of the hospitality while in Norway. We lookf forward to coming back more in the future. Hopefully with dogs one of these winters to try out the Femundlopet and Finnmarkslopet races. Thanks to Troll Hundefor for providing us with a good deal on a norwegian square dog cooker for this year's race season. Can't wait to get to melting snow!

It is finally fall!

2011-09-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

It's official, it is fall in the northlands again. The leaves turned yellow and a couple days later they are already stacking up on the ground. There is nothing like cruising through the birch forest while on a puppy walk or with the team and quad... The trail coated in leaves like a yellow brick road.

So Paige brought the dogs back from the glacier last week and introduced them to their new dogyard and the new pups and dogs that appeared here this summer. This week has been exciting running teams mixed with all our old and new favorites. They all look so good that it is hard not to contemplate 2 full Yukon Quest teams, but as the season progresses we will likely have only enough SOLID dogs for one good quest team. However we should have two really nice teams for all the mid-distance races this year and Cody may run the Quest 300 while Paige is running the full Quest. The dogs are strong, but here in the hills with our thicker coated dogs that have been running on ice all summer, it is still to dang warm to go more than 2-3 miles without them getting to hot., especially when doing some hill climbs. Colder temps, please come!

The pups are all doing great. Smoke's pups (grisman songs) have taken to the excercise wheel and love it. Lucy's pups are getting more active and are showing lots of personality these days. We are going to take Laurie's suggestiong and name them after lyrics from the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

Besides the running of the dogs and puppy walks, we have been having a multitude of friends helping us out with projects that must be finished before it snow and we forget about everything except running dogs. Cody will be taking some sleds to the Hakadal sleddog symposium in Norway on Tuesday and then the Willow symposium the week after, so he has been in the shop up to his elbows building dogsleds... with lots of help from Thomas, Tom and Paige of course. We also have been working on new 4 wheeler training trails and have a great new out trail, thanks to Jessie's help. The last big project is getting a roof on our rental/handler cabin. Megan and Thomas, who worked with our dogs on the glacier all summer will be staying there this winter. However there still is no roof, but the rafters are up and we are confident that they will have a warm home soon! Thanks for all the help! One more month of working hard and then we can just train hard! can't wait.

Extreme Doggy Home Makeover

2011-09-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

This summer has been the summer of extremes.. extreme projects that is.. One of these major projects was to take our pretty little forested hobbit dogyard, which was actually quite treacherous when covered in snow an ice, and turn it into something safe for dogs and mushers and efficient for hooking up and feeding the dogs.

Our yard is on a pretty good slope and used to be completely forested. This was great for providing shade for dogs in summer, but after a couple years the dogs had dug up the roots killing most of the trees and creating a very unsafe surface for mushers hooking up teams. Trees started to fall last winter and Paige had back surgery so we decided it was time to do something while the dogs were away on the glacier.

So we cut down all the pretty little trees and called in the dozer.

Yogi was the foreman as usual, but John from Heavy Horse construction, a fellow musher, made 3 terraces out of hour hillside with paths for trails to shoot through each level of dogs.

We then put down some small gravel to keep the yard from being mucky when wet.

Voila' ... the dogs enjoying their new level home. the treasure at the end of the rainbow and at the other end... the finished feed shed that used to be a wall tent platform that we lived in when working on the house.

Where does the time go?

2011-08-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

This summer is flying by as summers around here tend to do. Projects galore and puppies to boot. Here is a little doggie update to sedate you until the snow flies. Smoke's puppies are now weened and at 8 weeks old weigh in at a whopping 20lbs! They are really fun, darting everywhere, exploring trails, learning what all the berry fuss is about, these guys are a blast. Gypsy, the girl in the middle, is the ring leader, making sure everyone follows her everywhere and telling them off if they don't! Dogma, the boy on the far left, likes to stay close to his people during walks and doesn't much care for Gypsy's antics! Puppy TV is in full effect.

We have also had a second litter of puppies. These are Lucy's puppies. We bred her to Brent Sass' lead dog Silver. There are 2 boys and 3 girls in this bunch. They are now 9 days old and already opening their eyes.

One of the big projects we have been working on is the dog yard. Our land has a pretty steep grade to it and in the past we have learned to cope with sliding down hill all winter, finding all the dog bowls can be a challenge, but we liked having the dogs in a treed area so we dealt with it. Well this summer, while some of the dogs are on the glacier, we decided to make some drastic changes to the dog yard. After lots of tree cutting, dozing and a little bit of gravel to top it off, we now have a much more workable dog yard! My back is already haapy about not falling all winter...We still have spots in the trees for the summer time but since winter is approximately 9 months around here, we are excited for the ease that this change will bring us. Thanks to our friend John for helping us with this project!

In the midst of all these projects, Paige signed up for the Yukon Quest, 1000 mile dog sled race that starts Feb 4, 2012. We have started training the dogs with the ATV, getting them in shape so that when the others come back from the glacier, they will be up to speed. This happens in the wee hours of the morning before the August sun heats everything up again (sorry neighbors). The glacier dogs come back in 2 weeks and we cannot wait to see them again! Once they are home, it will be running dogs, full speed ahead!

New pups!!

2011-07-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

We had our first litter of puppies for the summer on June 16 to Smoke and Grisman. Smoke is a dog we just got from Lance Mackey and Grisman is a Seavey dog that Sebastian Schneulle has now. There are 5 pups in the litter, 3 boys and 2 girls, and Smoke is a great mom! Her are some photos of their first days...

We named them after David Grisman songs to honor the Dawg himself and also the dad of the litter. Here is an introductory video.

They are now 2 weeks old and have their eyes open. They are super chunkers weighing in at 5lbs each! Here is super fat Dawgma! He looks a little sharpee-ish:)

Summer camp for the dogs

2011-07-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

This summer we sent some of our dogs up to the Denver Glacier outside of Skagway, Alaska with our good friend and great dog driver, Megan. Here they will run a 2 mile loop for the tourists thoroughout the summer and will come back to us in early September. I just went down to Skagway to visit them for a couple of days to make sure they were happy and also because I missed them terribly:) Here is a picture of their summer home from the air. They are having the time of their life, doing what they love best, staying cool and away from the bugs!!

Here is Brutus, giving me hug before I took off again. I miss you buddy!!

Here are the dogs all hooked up and ready to go. Who says you can't have winter all year long!! I am jealous, really.

photos from the arctic 2011

2011-05-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

the dog line at our camp. we were set up on a lake and drilled hole in ice for dog water.

The team bringing in another load of dog food

there are 100's of caribou right over that ridge.. now what to do with 26 raging dogs.

the teams chillin while we stalk a small herd of caribou

Cody lost his bed to Stout during the windstorm

we rotated the pups through the tent to dry out and hang during the blizzard. Goober in bed with Paige, Stout warming her bed from below and Bleeker doing his sleep sit.

a panoramic of camp at start of blizzard. by morning, dogs had a foot of snow on their backs... it acted as insulation and kept them warm.

dogs waiting semi-patiently while we glass for caribou and a good route to the valley floor.

Paige and Stout chillin in camp.

YUM.. SPAM.. need I say more?

The gang hanging in the snowtrekker, Paige, Phoebe, Chris and Scott.

remnants of a nice caribou skull with our team in the distance.

taking a load back to the truck at the end of the trip. wind blew in our original trail we broke, so they had to break it all out again.

Days like this are just amazing.. what we dream of alllllll year!

Arctic Adventure 2011

2011-05-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hi all, We returned last weekend from another amazing trip to the artic north slope of the Brooks Range. We spent a little over a week living with the dogs out on the tundra, following the great caribou herds while we exploring the mountains and valleys. What a blast. We had several friends come out and share camp with us and had some amazing weather.. especially if you forget the 24 hour wind storm whiteout that kept us in the tent for a day. We came home with two lead dogs that stepped up to the challenge of breaking trail day after day and two caribou that gave themselves to us to feed our family for the year. Both were awesome gifts that make these trips so worth it. It is awesome to be able to get such wonderful, orgranic, free range meat and do the entire process from tundra to freezer by ourselves. Nothing goes to waste and the dogs get anything we can't use.. Happy dogs. As for the dogs, Stout and Okie have stepped up to take over the main duties of off-trail command leaders. They have shown that they have the skills to break trail day after day when there is nothing but white in front of them. The terrain in the area we traveled could be quite steep and sometimes hairy, but the dogs were awesome at listening and going the way we wanted...most of the time anyways.. a real bonus when you are 350 miles north of Fairbanks and help is far away. All 14 dogs we took were rock stars. The yearlings stepped up to show that they were great campers and great in harness for sometimes very long days. We sometime only ran a couple mile from camp and then they would have to sit and rest for long periods of time while we looked for caribou. This is awesome training for them and they acted like they have been doing it for years.

Breaking trail into camp the first night at about 11 pm.. still light out! We ran 14 dogs with two very loaded down freight tobbogan sleds. We found that a large team with 2 sleds works better for heavy loads to and from camp with no trail. We run smaller teams when we are just traveling from camp.

A picture of the crew minus Cody. Paige and dogs, Chris, Phoebe, and Scott.

I am having troubles loading photos, so will try again later.. check back to see the sites and also check back to see our next big adventure... Taking the dogs to Skagway next weekend and flying them up to the glacier for summer tours.

Migrating with the caribou herd - Headed to North Slope of Brooks Range

2011-04-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

It is time again! Time to pack the truck with our strongest dogs, a couple sleds, and gear for 10 days of living on the open tundra. This is what we live for each year, travelling with the dogs in the arctic while trying to procure the years worth of caribou meat for our freezer. We are headed to the North slope of the Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to intercept the migrations of caribou on their way to the coastal plain. Hunters are not allowed to use any motorized vehicles to hunt here. Only non-motorized transportation is allowed. So we will be doing what we love most, travelling by dog team. Stay tuned for stories and photos upon our return.

Valley Funale

2011-03-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Temperatures this past weekend were very warm and made it difficult to run dogs in the day time. Saturday we decided not to go out for a long run in the hot sun, but instead to head out to Two Rivers for the Valley Funale. We entered 2 teams in the 6 dog/ 10 mile race. The short distance is very doable without them overheating... of course we had no hope or chance of winning a sprint race like this, so we had a good time taking our time and doing some amazingly clean head on passes with all the teams.. Great race training for next year! The race was followed by a potluck grill out and kids 2 dog race that was very entertaining. Thanks to Two Rivers Mushers for putting on so many fun events that help get people started in this great sport.

the sleds getting set up and ready for the dogs

Macyn on her first solo run

Eureka!.. it's spring break in Eureka!

2011-03-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

So we decided to load up all the dogs and all of Thomas and Megan's dogs (~40) and head out for spring break. Since we had the old and the young we decided to base out of the Wild and Free Mushing camp in Eureka, AK. Thanks to Brent, Kyla and Casey for the Hospitality! Here we were able to do some great runs with all the yearling integrated into the teams to get them out on some longer days with some short race style camping. Here is a little abbreviated recap of spring break.

the view on Eureka Dome

On the first day at Eureka, Thomas, Cody and Paige took 3 teams and headed out for the trip to the village of Rampart. Rampart is located on the banks of the Yukon river and has only a handful of year round inhabitants. It is used mostly as a seasonal fish camp now adays. The run was 30 miles up over Eureka dome and down through the beautiful Minook valley. We ran into Rampart, took a quick look around as we scooped the loop and headed back out of town to let the dogs rest. Here we caught some zzzzs of our own. After a couple hours rest the dogs were ready to continue the 30 miles back. All the yearlings did great!

Thomas's team in Rampart on bank of Yukon River

the whole team is resting.. including Thomas in his sled. That blue thing is a person.

The next day we ran puppy teams on the extensive zig zagging mining trails in Eureka. It is great to get the pups out on new trails with lots of options so they learn to be excited to go anywhere! That night we hooked up 4 teams for a night expedition to Hutlinana hot springs. We had a great run into the hot springs under an almost full moon. We snacked and camped the dogs near the springs and enjoyed a nice soak and beverage.. now that is the way to train dogs to camp! After a couple hours at the springs, we loaded up the sleds and continued the loop back to Eureka. It was an awesome night all around.

hooking up 4 teams for blue bird run

We spent the next day recouperating and running puppy teams. The following day we did a nice loop toward Manley with 4 teams quick before M & T had to leave. Paige and Cody stayed around a couple more days to watch the Wild and Free dogs left bhind as the rest were running a large expedition in the Brooks Range. The temperatures warmed up.. way to warm to run dogs so we did lots of puppy runs and free runs before returning to normal life. I talked to dad after returning and mentioned that I was trying to adjust to normal life again... he said, "is your life ever normal?"... normal to us I guess.

Spring is springing in the Northlands!

2011-03-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Spring is coming fast. We have a little over a month left to run the dogs before the snow leaves so we are getting out there and making the most of it. The days are getting longer with about 11 hours of daylight now and it is getting quite warm in the afternoons.

This past weekend we finally got back out to Minto Flats since all the snowstorms. We took our tent to set up spring training camp. Here we can run the yearlings from home and get them dialed in to camping and doing multiple runs. Along the way, we ran into one of our neighbors that decided to come rest the dogs with us. You can see the three teams above and tent all set up in the photo above. On our way back home we ran into another neighbor who was on a little solo trip with his dogs.. he spent the night at the camp. We plan to do a few trips out here before the snow and ice melt next month. It is a great opportunity for the younger dogs to get used to the rest/run schedules of racing in a less stressful setting than an actual race.

We spent the rest of the weekend running the puppy teams and they are turning out to be some great dogs.. Thanks to Cim & Corrine, Aaron, and Brent for splitting these great litters with us.

On Monday we got a vist from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.. seems they are still after Paige.. not really, but we made friends with the RCMP officers in Pelly and one of them, Mitch and his wife Merl came for a visit and to bring us a cd of photos from the Quest.. We had a nice visit and took them out to see the country side by dog team. Thanks for stopping in to visit and thanks for the donation towards the kibble fund.. we and the dogs appreciate it! If your reading this Mitch, please send us your contact info so we can visit when we come through Whitehorse!

So spring has many possibilities ahead, we may run a race at the end of the month in the Yukon Flats, we may do the Denali Highway, we may be running to hot springs, and we definitely will be following the caribou herds up north. Check back to see what the next month brings... plenty of at our own pace adventure!

When motors fail.. drift busting the old fashioned way...

2011-03-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

All winter long we have been begging for snow.. and we finally got it. In fact, we got a whole winter of snow in less than a week. We received about 2 feet of snow in 3 different storms in less than a week. The first storm left some nice fluffy snow for the dogs to break through and was very enjoyable for all of us. The next storm left deep snow which was still passable, but also was quite windy leaving some challenging drifts. Cody decided to use the snowmachine to break through some of these drifts to make things easy on the dogs, but a mile into it, the dang thang broke down as motorized vehicles do. Dog teams however rarely completely break down if you take good care of them, so we broke out a bunch of trails, only to get them all filled in again by another substantial snowfall and 50+ mph winds. This last storm brought down many trees on the trails and has placed some human chest height drifts on our local trails. Armed with a chainsaw and some bad ass dogs, we have been slowly opening up the trails. Between the Karsten and Laurie's teams, Clint and Sarah's teams and ours, the trails are now back in order around here. The video below show a little of what the dogs have been doing...

Elizabeth Taylor (ET, the swing dog on right) is actually responsible for leading both teams through this in single lead with an assist from the free leader Stout. Elmer, the dog pictured in lead was just put their as a line holder because he does such a great job at that.. Good dogs!

After about a week and a half, most main trails are back to normal. Last night we decided to take a little side trail that wasn't broken. So there we are at 9:30pm with headlamps and the Husqvarna clearing trees off trail and then busting through drifts lke this again.. are we crazy? maybe so, but we sure love this life!

Recovered?

2011-02-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well maybe not fully recovered...We are still playing with a bug we managed to pick up in Pelly. But we are back to running dogs and happy to report that everyone is happy and healthy and running sound. The dogs that were dropped were dragging Cody around before I even finished the race so everyone is good. We have been running the yearlings with the race dogs and the teams are looking really good. This past weekend, we had almost 2 feet of snow which made for a fun weekend. We harness broke our 8 puppies and they did amazing. Here is a little video of one of the puppy teams...

We have many people to thank, without which, this race would not have happened, namely Clint and Sarah, who loaned me 2 incredible dogs that were happy and barking the entire way. Clint was running the 1000 mile race at the same time and I ended up at a couple of the checkpoints with him. As he would ready his team to leave, his dogs in my team were screaming to go too! They recognized their friends from afar and wondered why they weren't with them. Maybe that's why we were going so fast??

A huge thanks also goes to Jeff and Laura who took care of the house and the pooches who were left behind. They did a great job caring for the rowdy dogs left behind and even had dinner waiting for us when we got home. Man we are lucky people:) Also thanks to Springer and Lisa for exercising some of the ones left behind on a couple sled runs.

And lastly thanks to my greatest fan and best handler a person could ask for, my awesome husband Cody! He did a great job updating the blog and keeping everyone informed of our progress. He also sweated the whole time trying to get my form signed. Sorry babe, next time I will read all of the paperwork:)

Congrats to Paige.. finished in 6th place with 8 happy dogs!

2011-02-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Paige is in and the team looks great! We are proud of the dogs and all they have accomplished. Now is time for naps and dog care.. Paige will update us with some tails from the trail later as she recovers from her 4 hours of sleep since race started saturday.. stay tuned.

back at the truck! pups ae excited to get in the warm box.

Busted by the mounties for mushing without a license

2011-02-08T00:34:00.000-08:00

So we have had a little drama this week, that I haven't mentioned until we got it all cleared up.. Back in Whitehorse before the race we were late to the mushers meeting. Since we were late, Paige didn't get certain paperwork collected from her. Immediately after Paige left the starting chute on race day, I was rastled up by a race official who was a little peeved that Paige had not turned in her hold harmless release form. I found it in the truck and gave to them, but it turned out that it had to be notarized by a notary official. Since Paige was already a couple miles down the Yukon River at this point, they decided that if she could get it notarized somewhere down the trail it would be fine. Well I don't know if you have ever looked for a notary person at a dog race in northern Yukon Territory at odd hours of the night before, but it is about freaking impossible to find one. One of the officials thought that if we could get a mounty or RMCP officer to sign off that would be good enough.. Of course we didn't have an officer around at any of the checkpoints in the middle of the night either so Paige kept on moving and I kept on sweating it out trying to find a mounty to sign her off.

the RCMP officer looks hard to see if the girl in the passport photo is really the same stinky musher in front of him.

Finally at Pelly Crossing we hit the mother load... Mounties were running the checkpoint. So I got them all lined up to give her a little scare and tell her that she was getting her dog team comendeared for breaking canadian law of entering a dog race without proper release forms. Of course they wouldn't do it... but the officer did offer to take a bribe of a hefty sum to sign her sheet. How come canadian cops are so much cooler than us cops? By that grin in the picture I don't think Paige learned a lesson at all. :)

So anyways.. Paige moved back a little in position today while giving the dogs ample rest. She left Pelly Crossing in 6th. which is not a big deal at all since all teams in front of her are either veteran iditarod mushers or running veteran iditarod mushers' dogs..she pulled the hook at 10:46 pm. Actually the dogs pulled the hook on her and almost left without her at the start.. they were ready.

The trails are hard and fast and it is taking its toll on the dogs delicate shoulders and wrists. Bleeker has a pretty sore shoulder and she decided to spare him further damage and let him chill with me in the truck... he's pretty ecstatic. That brings the dog number to 8 for the last run.. not a problem for a quick 60 mile run at night. Paige said there are lots of snowshoe hares on the trail and it keeps the dogs excited and moving right along. She should be able to maintain a decent speed and should be back to the finish in under 8 hours, putting her back in Pelly sometime around 7 am.... check back to see what happened..

Paig is into the last checkpoint, Pelly Crossing, after a nice afternoon at McCabe Creek!

2011-02-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Paige is into Pelly Crossing with 9 happy excited dogs! She got in around 6 pm. She split this run into 2 sections with a camp and nap at McCabe Creek, being that it was warmer in the day time and the dogs often are little doggy. Lupine was experiencing some shoulder pain so was dropped at McCabe and is hanging with me and the other girls in the truck. Paige will be going out for the last leg tonight of a run to what is called Stepping stone which is 30 miles and then back another route from Stepping stone to Pelly, another 30 miles for the finish. Stay tuned tos ee what happens!

little doggies running on to McCabe Creek

2011-02-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Paige left Carmacks this morning at about 4:30 am with 10 screaming dogs. She decided to drop Ursa and TJ Maxx because they were not as amped to go as the others and were slowing the team down a bit. She left in 3rd place and hopefully she can maintain the position till the end. Gerry Willomitzer and Ed Hopkins, both Quest 1000 mile veterans, left several hours earlier and she likely will not even see them at checkpoints before the end. Her next stop is McCabe Creek which is a short 40ish mile run. She will stay there for a few hours and and then hit the trail again. McCabe Creek is not a true checpoint, but a rather a dog drop and hospitality stop at a farm where they provide meals and rest to the weary travelers. I won't be able to update again until we hit Pelly Crossing later today. I have lots of photos and video that we will post later, but internet signal strength has been low since the internet is satellite set up for the race and there are many official race and media uploads continuously going.

Paige into Carmacks in 3rd!

2011-02-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

Paige just rolled into Carmacks checkpoint before schedule. I thought she would be in around 10 and she pulled in at 9:30 while I was laying on the floor.. She came into the checkpoint in 3rd position. This checkpoint is their mandatory 6 hour layover. Paige is out doing chores, so will let you know her plan and time of departure as soon as I know.. The leaders are a couple hours ahead, so she likely can't move up anymore in this race, but hopefully she can hold this spot till the end.. Go big Squid!

Paige out of Braeburn and having a blue bird run to Carmacks

2011-02-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

Paige left Braeburn Checkpoint at 12:49 after a six hour rest. She still has 12 happy and healthy dogs. Here is a video of her taking off from the Checkpoint.

She moved up to 8 when she left, but had Yuka Honda right on her heels as she left. She planned to run straight through to Carmacks at just under 80 miles. As long as she stays on schedule she should be into Carmacks around midnight.. give or take an hour.. She can always camp along the way if the dogs need it.

a couple videos from Paige's start in Whitehorse yesterday

2011-02-06T17:14:00.000-08:00

Josh Horst took a couple videos of the start in Whitehorse yesterday. Thanks Josh!
Dogs leaving the truck

Here is a link to Paiges Start

A few pics from Braeburn

2011-02-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Paige and the dogs are napping and plan to head out after 6 hours of rest before hitting the trail for a 80 mile run to Carmacks. She should be leaving around 1 pm. Here are a few pics from the checkpoint this morning.

it was dark when she came in.. so just imagine a dog team with wagging tails and a smiley frosty Paige face.

She was truckin on the trail so she ordered the "Truckers" breakfast.

a big view of the teams parked at the checkpoint.. Paige's team right in front.

getting blankets on the dogs so they can get some sleep.

Paige into Braeburn!

2011-02-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

Paige rolled into Braeburn checkpoint at 7:09 am with 12 happy and excited dogs. She said she had a great run in on great trails with awesome northern lights. She moved up to 9th position currently. I will keep you posted more on her run here after she comes in to get some chow and a nap. She is currently getting the dogs fed and all rested for their stay here.

And the birthday girl is off and running!

2011-02-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

We started Paige's birthday off with a great 1000 mile Yukon Quest start. Helping our friends getting on their way was great and sometimes emotional. It was great to be able to whatch them all go and we will see them down the trail. Paige's only spoken birthday wish was that she wanted Pizza. not burgers, not vietnamese, and definitely not chinese.. so we got her some pizza and a little extra wrapped up for her sled. We then headed back to the starting chute and got her all ready to roll.. Paige is seen below doing what we have learned to do well this week..... wait. wait and wait some more. the dogs on the other hand have gotten impatient and by today were ready to get out and see some country.

we then pulled a group of bad ass helper/handlers together to help us wait. These great folks helped us get Paige's team all hooked up and safely into the starting chute. Thanks to Steve, Megan, Horst, and Sarah.

So with the help of our trusty helpers, we guided the freaknig crazy team into the starting chute. Paige walked up and down to say hi to all her dogs while I untangled the 12 harness banging pups. Josh and Megan have pictures and video of the actual start.. I on the other hand had my hands full making out with the birthday girl... not allowed to touch her on the race ;) so had to get it in now! but really, I will get some video and photos up soon as I get my hands on it. Paige pulled the hook and headed out at 5:40 pm Pacific time zone..

Trail report is good. Temperatures cooled down meaning that the swimming pools of yesterday are rough frozen ice today. Beyond this refrozen area in the first 14 miles, the trail is reported to be solid and fast.

Paige's personal spot tracker is currently working and shows her on her way. It is about a 100 mile run to Braeburn checkpoint. She plans to camp at about half way. This camp is scheduled for 4 hours to give the dogs a meal and a quick nap. We expect this entire run to Braeburn with rest to take approximately 14 - 15 hours on these fast trails as she moves about 9-10 mph. So we expect her to roll into Braeburn at about 8 am. I am getting some rest in Whitehorse tonight and will get on the road around 5 am to get out to Braeburn before she rolls in. She has a mandatory layover at Braebunrn and plans to stay for 6 hours. Stay tuned folks and I will try to update as soon as possible. follow the Quest 300 site for more official race updates.

Happy Birthday and Good Luck... we are so proud!

2011-02-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Bleeker gets a little love from 4 hot ladies.

Yesterday was spent at the vet checks making sure all the dogs were healthy and ready to run. All the dogs got the okay to go from the vets.. the only problem.. Bleeker is supposedly fat, but I imagine he'll loose a pound or two in the next 300 some miles. We then stumbled into the musher meeting a little late.. an hour to be exact. Somehow we go the time screwed up.. maybe we are getting old.. well Paige is anyway because today it is her birthday.. she will be celebrating out on the mighty Yukon River with the dogs today. Wish I could join her, but damn what a present! So after a slap on the wrist, we were released from the meeting.. shortest musher meeting in history for us at just under 5 minutes!.. Below is the roster and starting order for the Quest 300. Paige will go out 21st.

The 1000 mile race begins at 11 am this morning. The 300 mile race begins at 5. Paige will be leaving the starting shoot at 5:42 becasuse racers leave in 2 minute increments. There are no SPOT trackers for the Quest 300, but Paige has asked for permission to carry ours so that you can follow along and see her progress. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0YTXLnDPoJ0q6eDjMu6ABA8LrkbzpB3QN

It won't be as exciting as it will jsut be her on this map, but if used in conjunction with the tracking on the Quest site for the 1000 mile racers, you can figure out where she is this crazy race.

It is bound to get exciting so stay tuned here and on the Yukon Quest 300 website as well as the Yukno Quest facebook page.. Links provided in last entry..

Warming up in Whitehorse

2011-02-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

We made it to Whitehorse after an all night drive. Megan, Paige and Cody drove all night and reached Whitehorse at around 2 on Thursday. Temperatures here were above freezing. Felt nice walking down the street in Whitehorse in a T shirt, but won't be so great for the dogs with their thick coats. We heard rumors of swimming pools of water out there on the river, so should be an exciting race!

We went to the annual start banquet. Thanks to T Bear and Jenny Jaye for the tickets to the banquet. there were still 3! Here all the mushers for the 1000 mile race drew their starting positions. We had a great time hanging with our friends that will be racing. Below Mike Ellis and Kyla Durham are pretty proud of the teenage mutant ninja turtle t-shirt that Kyla just scored at value village to help her in her quest.

So today we are doing vet checks and mandatory meetings.. Then hopefully we can celebrage Paige's birthday a day early in Whitehorse. For the rest of the race Cody will be updating the Blog from checkpoints. You should follow race results on the YQ300 site at http://www.yukonquest.com/site/yq300-race-updates
or on their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6427726&id=245766914645#!/YukonQuest

Let the fun begin!

Last camping trip before the we hit the road.

2011-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

We had a great weekend in the White Mountains. Paige ran the race team and I ran the youngings with the freight sled loaded to the gills. We met our friends Scott, Molly, and Chris at Lee's Cabin. Paige ran on to Crowberry and stopping to wave through window at Lisa, Bob and their friends and then headed back. I took Scott for a ride back to his lonely snowmachine that couldn't seem to move... The next day Pagie ran on to Borealis cabin while the rest of us cut fire wood and hauled with dogs and then we loaded everyones gear on the freight dog sled and the yearlings pulled it all out. We found a snowmachiner who was nice enough to tow Scott's machine out.. otherwise Paige's team was going to have to tow it. I'm sure they could have done it, but it was hot out. We are now home and packing and getting ready for the road.

From Squid Biology and Archaeology to Sleddog Science

2011-01-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

Paige and Cody put their science hats back on for a day... but not to do squid or archaeological research.

Along with Paige's run in the Yukon Quest 300, our dogs are part of an experiment to see how the stresses of racing affect the physiology of sled dogs. Dr. Sarah Love ,a collaborator on the study, came out Friday to collect urine and blood samples from the 12 athletes that will be competing in this years race. Samples will then be collected again right after the race is completed to see how the body chemistry has changed under such adverse conditions.

Cody is collecting urine from Okie with the pee ladle.a very precise scientific collection tool. :) . nice stream Okie! This was a challenging job.. maybe harder than Doctor Love's job of finding the jugular vein to collect blood. :)

Okay, maybe drawing blood is more difficult. Lupine is getting her blood drawn above, while Paige whispers sweet nothings in her ear.

Dr. Love organizes all the samples and seperates the blood samples using a centrifuge on our kitchen table. The purpose of this study and others on sled dog athletes is to understand their physiology under stress and hopefully to learn how to lessen health problems that can occur during strenous activity such as long distance racing. We will post more on these studies as we learn more.

Puppy names

2011-01-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

We got one name suggestion for something cephlapod related, so we did! We named the boy Kraken after the mythical giant octopus/squid. We kept with the mythical creatures theme and named the girls Yeti, Nessy (Locness monster) and Nuk-luk. Here is what wikipedia has to say about Nuk-luk...

"The Nuk-luk ("Man of the Bush") is a cryptozoological hominid reported in the Nahanni National Park Reserve near Nahanni Butte, Northwest Territories, Canada, between April and June of 1964, by John Baptist, several men, and a boy named Jerry. Several Dene from Fort Liard who were trapping at a river reportedly came upon the creature in April of 1964. It appeared strong-looking, and appeared to have a long, dark beard, wore no clothes, and was 5 ft (1.5 m) tall.
In June 1964, near Fort Simpson around 9 p.m. a boy named Jerry reported a similar creature. It had black hair on its head, upper body, and legs, and a black head, slightly pointed at the back. It also had a long, brown beard that reached its waist, and wore ankle-high boots, a mooseskin loincloth, and had a stone club in its hand. These creatures have been reported for hundreds of years and are said to have bootlike footprints and whistling calls. They have been reported from the Northwest Territories to Yukon to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska."

We thought that was a funny enough description to keep the name in the kennel...

Quest 300 food drops done.. Paige makes the Fairbanks Sports Beat!

2011-01-23T20:41:00.000-08:00

Paige finished up her drop bags Saturday in the nick of time to get them all dropped off along with all the other racers in the Yukon Quest 300 and 1000 mile races.

We dropped off 500 pounds of dog food and gear for use at the start and 3 checkpoints along the race. Bags contained meat, kibble, booties, dog blankets, human food, clothing and spare runner plastic for the sled. Kate is sealing the dropped bags above and piling them so they can be shipped out to the checkpoints ahead of time.. Thanks to all the Volunteers that make this happen.

Paige was asked if she would give a little interview for the local news channel. They interviewed many mushers, but Paige must have had something special in her eyes, because she ended up in the sports beat.. check out the video below, after the hockey section. Stay tuned for more Quest madness!

Pickin puppy teams

2011-01-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

So the windsor / chicken pups came to town yesterday.. we did the old fashioned team picking like you do for kickball in elementary school.. Brent got the first pick as the momma was his.. we went back and forth till they were all picked up..

Team wild and free above.. team squid below

Below is a better shot of our new babies.

now we just have to come up with names! any ideas? go ahead and put your ideas under comments. Thanks!

Copper Basin Start Video

2011-01-16T22:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a little video taken by Lisa from the start.... Paige asked the lead dogs if they were ready to go.. and they were and almost drug me out early!

A Big Thanks!

2011-01-15T18:04:00.000-08:00

Well, we need to step back a little bit and thank some very important people for helping us. Thanks so much to Megan for staying at home and taking care of all the pooches that were left behind. It was awesome knowing they were so well cared for. Also, Megan did a great job of keeping the blog updated when we had cell reception and could tell her what was happening. I think we came home to a house that was cleaner than when we left it! You are awesome Megan! Also a big thanks to Thomas for keeping things rolling down the road while Paige was in a semi- delirious, lack of sleep state. My stomach is still hurting from laughing so much. And last but not least, we need to thank our parents who are super supportive of our wild adventures and crazy ideas of how to live this life.It is beyond awesome to have parents who know that living happily can take many forms and they recognize how this life makes us so happy and fulfilled. So to our parents especially and also the rest of our families and friends, thanks so much for your support and for being there for us! We are now focusing on the next race that Paige is running, the Yukon Quest 300. Giddy up!

Nice Pictures from Carol Falcetta

2011-01-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple pictures taken by Carol Falcetta at the start of the Copper Basin.

You can check out her work at http://www.athousandwords.us/

Puppy Preview

2011-01-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

Thats right.. a couple more pups are coming this way next week. We have split a litter with the Wild and Free Kennel. These pups are from Brent's dog Chicken and our dog Windsor.. can't wait to get them here and get to know them soon.. Stay tuned for more pics once we get them home.

Strong Finish!

2011-01-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

We made it! Cody here, just dropping in to let you all know that we came into Paxson in 28th place.. not bad for our first attempt. I'm super happy with the performance of the team and can't wait to see how they do in the next race. I will have more stories about the race soon. Today we are home and giving all the dogs a little house time and spending time with those we left behind.

Here is a little video of the first run of the race. Thomas has a ton of pics and video that I will try to get up soon with some stories..

CB300 - 1:23pm Tuesday

2011-01-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

Cody finished early this morning at 2:36am with 9 dogs and in 28th place!!!! He had a really awesome rookie run, and we are definitely proud of him and his dogs. They did awesome!!

Cody, Paige, and Thomas were all finally able to get some sleep, it had been a long crazy weekend. They are all on their way home now, and I expect to see them around 5 or 6 tonight! They will be able to give an update of how the race was for them, and more details when they get home.

A big huge 'THANK YOU' the crew down at race central who did an awesome job keeping the Facebook page updated, especially Helen Hegener, who kept us all posted while communication was down from Sourdough, as well as providing extra information for all the fans to follow. The spottracker was super addicting! It was great to be able to follow the race from here! Also, thanks to all the volunteers and race officials! It was an awesome year, and a really fun race to follow and be part of!

CB300 Update - 8:30pm Saturday

2011-01-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Cody got into Wolverine tonight around 7:40pm! The dogs were still screaming and ready to run! They flew through Tolsona this afternoon around 4:15, for a run time of just over 3 hours!! It was just a quick stop at Tolsona, to put on an extra layer of clothes, before heading off to Wolverine.

From the handlers :

we saw cody scream through tolsona. in fact he was there early and the dogs were screaming to go. unfortunately the handlers were slacking and someone else had to do our job of holding the dogs while he checked in. rockin, the cb300!

They were running fast on their way to Wolverine, covering the distance in 3 hours. Once to Wolverine, he fed them, and all the dogs ate like horses! They are looking happy, and definitely having a good time. Cody is massaging them now and getting them ready for their long rest. With his time differential added on to his 8 hour layover, they will be there for about 9.5 hours.

CB300 Update - 2:10pm Saturday

2011-01-09T15:12:00.001-08:00

Cody arrived at Glennallen this morning at 7:19, after a smooth run in from Chistochina. The trail has been good, and he has been really pleased with how the dogs are doing. He is definitely tired, he has been up with the dogs most the of time, only getting an hour of sleep for himself during this last rest. On these shorter first two rests at Chistochina and Glennallen, the main priorities are getting the dogs fed and bedded down, and making sure they are looking good- checking for any injuries or soreness, leaving little time for anyone to get much rest. Cody has been taken great care of his team, and they are certainly showing it!

Cody and the team left Glennallen this afternoon at 1:20. His dogs were screaming to go! All 12 of his dogs are looking good, and running great. As they left the checkpoint they were going crazy, barking, jumping, and harness banging! They are totally pumped and looking awesome. His run into Wolverine will mostly be in the daylight today, which will help keep Cody awake, and he will take his mandatory 8 hour layover tonight, and hopefully catch up on sleep and get refreshed for the rest of the race.

Paige and Thomas haven't gotten much sleep either, these are crazy weekends and everything is constantly moving. Paige is on 0 hours of sleep, and Thomas was able to sneak in 2 hours. But, they are all really pumped with how everything is going! They just arrived in Tolsona. It is a 25 mile run for Cody to get to Tolsana, so they will see him later this afternoon, and he is planning at this point to continue through Tolsona and then onto Wolverine.

CB300!

2011-01-08T23:25:00.000-08:00

Cody took off from Glenallen today with 12 dogs, wearing bib #10! They left the start at 1:18 this afternoon. They had a smooth run, and the team got in tonight to Chistochina at 8:29pm, for a run time of 7 hours and 11 minutes!! According to the Spottracker, their average run time was just over 6 mph. They had some overflow to contend with, but his awesome leaders Windsor and Oakie were perfect, and they hardly got wet. I just got off the phone with Paige and Thomas, who are handling for Cody , and he is doing amazing! The dogs are doing looking really good, and Cody is really happy with how they ran. He gave them some extra attention tonight as they bedded down in the straw, just to make sure they continue to do well. They still have 242 miles to go, but for now they are sleeping. Cody probably won't get much sleep tonight because it is always really exciting at the start of the race; they are all definitely excited to have a great first run behind them. They are going to rest 5-6 hours, and then take off in the early hours of the morning.

I will keep updating as I hear from Paige and Thomas, and if Paige gets internet, she will try to post too. But, definitely watch the team from the CB300.com website, the spottracker is rather addicting, and their facebook page keeps things updated too!

Here is Cody's Spottracker: http://trackleaders.com/copperi.php?name=Strathe__Cody
And search them of Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Copper-Basin-300-Sled-Dog-Race/113218608732801

copper basin

2011-01-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

We are all packed up and ready to roll. Codys team lineup is....
windsor okie
bleeker stout
lupine tj maxx
dundee horstein
dozer ursa
berry goober

we are really happy with how the dogs have been running up to this point and are sure they are going to do a great job. go team squid!!

Copper Basin 300 live tracker by trackleaders.com

2011-01-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the SPOT tracker site for the race. It sounds like they might not have enough for all mushers, but you can look here to see where those mushers with SPOT trackers are on the trail during the race. Copper Basin 300 live tracker by trackleaders.com

Follow along on FACEBOOK

2011-01-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the Copper Basin 300 Facebook page. They will have updates here as well, so if you are a facebooker, then check it out.. Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race (12)

Copper Basin Bound!

2011-01-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

Training has been going well. Last week we had a great run in the White Mountains with Mike Ellis. Our plan was to run out to the divide, a little over 50 miles, camp for a couple hours and then run back to the truck. Plans changed when we hit nasty wind blown conditions that were a little punchy for the dogs about 38 miles into the run. At that point we decided to spare the dogs the difficult travel conditions that could injure them and head back to the truck. Instead, we had glorious 76 mile run and the dogs felt stronger with every mile we passed.. just the momentum we needed to make Cody go ahead and bite the bullet and sign up for the toughest 300 miles in Alaska!...

Cody and the dogs will be running the Copper Basin 300 on January 8th. This race starts in Paxson in the Alaska range and does big loop south through the Copper River Basin and Lake Louise Areas before heading back north to Paxson for the finish.

This week will be spent getting drop bags all ready for each checkpoint. You can see below that there is a big pile of stuff that needs to be organized which includes, booties, dog food, human food, hand warmers, extra gloves, sled runner plastic, cooker fuel, headlamp batteries, dog blankets, and the list goes on and on.. will be a busy week getting organized and doing our last training runs.

The race can be followed on their website at http://www.cb300.com/ . The race start will also be on the local radio which can be heard online at http://www.kcam.org/ . Thomas Robertson will be handling along with Paige on the race, so they will try to update the blog.. that is if Paige can figure out how to use that new smart phone and can find a hot spot in the small communties along the trail. We heard the race may have GPS SPOT trackers on all the racers, so you can follow team Squid's progress in real time.

Hard to find good Handlers these days.

2010-12-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

That is what I hear from other mushers, but we are lucky enough to have had some great help this fall. Thanks to the generous help from Uli Stroetz, Thomas Robertson and Sterling Strathe. It has been a hectic fall and the help we have received from these hard working guys has been a real asset to team squid. Thanks so much.

Uli Stroetz is from Germany and is an intern for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, doing Forestry work. He came to Fairbanks with a goal of seeing real sled dog team and has been running teams with us all fall. He has learned all the fun things that go with running dogs. like bouncing around for hours on a 4 wheeler, scooping poop, walking pups, and organizing poop covered booties. I think he likes riding the sled best.

Thomas Robertson, has been helping out in the shop and with dogs when needed. He has handled for several Iditarod mushers, so we can let him loose with the dogs, but he also has been a big help prepping parts for sleds in the shop. Thomas will be testing some new sled designs this spring that we are working on with his own dogs, so check out his sled if you see him on the trail.

Papa Sterling hung up his spurs and auctioneer outfit for 2 weeks to come help as a handler and sled builder in the shop. He went for a training run his seond day here in the White mountains. We took two teams and the snowmachine out. I ran the race team out to Crowberry and then back to Moose creek to rest. Paige and Dad went straight to moose creek cabin with the yearlings and snowmachine. We had an exciting night of cutting firewood at midnight in order to get the cabin warm as it was -35 and windy.

The next morning Paige left with the race team for a long run and dad and I packed up and headed to the road. Dad experienced one of the natural wonders of living in fairbanks... frosty eyelashes and beards... I didn't want to embarass him with his world record snot sickle picture from later in the day. :)

Back at the truck Lance Mackey and the comeback kennel crew were getting ready for a training run, so I introduced dad to Lance. He got to see what it is like when you hook up 4 teams 16 dogs long of the worlds best distance dogs..... lots and lots of excitement and noise.

The rest of dads trip was spent mostly in the shop, prepping sleds parts and assembling sleds. Dad took over the shop and home responsibilities so that Paige and I could do some longer training runs.. Thanks Again to for all the help!

So race time is fast approaching. We are currently training 13 dogs for the race team. We had a couple dogs we had to drop from the longer runs. Cholula was experiencing some soreness for a while and is now running again with the yearlings. Poncho, had some funny neck spasms, but is back running with the yearlings and Lucy has a bad cough and is undergoing treatment and laying on the couch.. Cody is currently planning to run the Copper Basin 300 on January 8th as long as all dogs are happy and healthy. It is a 12 dog race, so if any more dogs have injuries, it may not happen, but we are optimistic and taking it easy on the dogs. Paige is signed up for the Yukon Quest 300 in February which starts in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. We will also likely do some spring races so that we can get the yearlings through a race or two before next year... There might be a team in the 1000 mile Yukon Quest and the Kobuk 440 next year, so we want to expose them to as much as possible, but we'll see what happens. We'll keep you posted on the copper basin 300 and have updates here during the next two races.

Follow Squid Acres Teams while on the Trail with SPOT

2010-12-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

Dad got us a SPOT tracker for christmas so we can keep track of each other on the long training runs we are doing solo. You can also follow along with the training runs, camping trips and spring expeditions by going to the following page. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0YTXLnDPoJ0q6eDjMu6ABA8LrkbzpB3QN

Winter is a coming fast..

2010-10-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Winter is finally upon us. Snow is slowly starting to accumulate and we are itching to get off the bumpy, noisey 4 wheeler and onto a smooth, quiet, peaceful ride. The big dogs are looking good, super strong and ecstatic to be out there. The following is a little video from our training run yesterday.

Today with help from our part-time helper Uli, we will start running a larger team 14 - 16 dogs and rotate them around so that each dog runs 2 days and get one day off. It will be great to try out a bunch of new leader combinations. Be sure to check back in December and see what races we have signed up for. These dogs are going to rock this winter.

Pups are doing great. The oldest pups from Lucy and Ruger are more like dogs now and are enjoying romps in the free run pen. Kanuti and Coldfoot are loving the dogwheel and are really opening up like races horses at the kentucky derby. Unfortunately for us, these two are going to Aaron soon, but they are all awesome, so we can't lose. Here is a picture of them trying on their future wardrobe of harnesses.

The medium pups (the mustelids), Fisher, Marten and Sable are free most of the time and help us with all our daily duties and hang in the house most nights with us. They are fitting right in here and they are going to be superstars for sure.

The smallest pups have just started to get out of their house and show some personality. We finally sprung some names on these guys this week and being that I sometimes pretend to be an archaeologist, Paige decided to let me classify the pups after different archeaological traditions from the arctic. We have Ipiutak or "Ippy", Thule, Denbigh, Choris, and Norton. These are all hearty groups of people that knew how to survive in a harsh arctic land so hopefully the pups will live up to their names. Some even used the ancestors of these dogs for travel.

Thanks for checking in.. For family this is the time of the year where you might not be able to find us besides on here... we only come inside to eat and sleep and when we do, there are usually between 3 and 8 dogs in the house with us...

hang in there, i am new at this

2010-09-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

So cody usually posts the blogs but since I am somewhat laid up due to a recent back surgery, I have taken on the blog role. However, the last post posted before I put all of the puppy pictures up so here are some more for your viewing pleasure. Here she is at 4 days old compared to her sibling on the same day. Holy canoli batman! She is tiny.

Here is a super dark picture of her tiny self next to her huge brother! His head is almost bigger than her whole body. If you can think of a good name for this pint size creature, let us know!

2010-09-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well Labor day proved to be very laborious here at squid acres this year. The long awaited puppy babies arrived on labor day with a great job laboring them by Stumpy:) There are three girls and two boys in this litter. One of the girls is super tiny but is full of life so we are sure she will catch up to the others in no time. In the first photo, she is the small brown one next to the big brown one.

One monster hamster wheel

2010-08-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Susie and Don helped us get the dog wheel all finished up today. Yogi, our team mascot black lab was happy to walk on it as long as we gave her a treat every so many seconds. Bleeker needs a little more work and the pups are getting on it and getting the hang of it, I'm sure they'll all be up and running in a week or two. Here is a video of Yogi showing how the wheel works.

Leader gone Frisbee dog

2010-08-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

Bleeker, the up and coming all star leader is also an amazing frisbee dog. He catches it every time that I can throw it properly. He goes long and he even knows how to read the wind.. what a dog.. here is a little frisbee video.

Paige's parents are visiting, so we sent Don out on the 4 wheeler with Paige this morning.. he got to see what fall training is all about.

You stay classy San Diego...

Fall Training Camp is open..

2010-08-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Today fall training started at squid acres.. temperatures have finally dipped below 50 at night so early morning runs are now possible before work. This first run was a typical first run with both us and the dogs being a bit unorganized and out of rythm at the start.. Hookup was a little crazy, but as soon as those words, "lets go" hit the air, the old familiar feel was back and the dogs looked great. I forgot the camera for the run, just a bunch of wiggling rear ends anyway.. but here are the dogs after a short jounce through the yellowing birch forest. Tired and happy dogs!

Solo and Bleeker share a sip of water.

We are excited to start another season of running dogs. Squid acres will be running a few mid-distance races this winter so keep posted to see which ones and follow along.

The pups are doing great and getting big at 3 months now.. all sitting and laying down now before their meals. Wiseman even got to go to Eagle, AK with Paige and spent time on the Yukon River at fish camps sampling salmon... you know he is going be an all star with that extra training. here he is on the boat.

Stumpy is due around the beginning of September with a big ole belly hanging low, so we'll have new puppy pics up soon! Thanks for stopping in.

Summer with the Dalton Highway Gang

2010-07-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since our last update. The pups have been named after places on the Dalton Highway or the "Haul Road" as many folks call it. This is the highway that goes from Fairbanks all the way to the Arctic Ocean and oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. It is also the road that we make a pilgrimage on each spring to run dogs on the north side of the Brooks Range and hunt for caribou. So we have the two girls, Kanuti, after the Kanuti River and Atigun, after Atigun Pass, River and Gorge. The boys are Wiseman, for the old mining town, Coldfoot for the truck stop that Dick Mackey started and the start of the old dogsled race the "coldfoot classic" and Galbraith, for Galbraith Lake where we head out from for our mushing/hunting expeditions.

Pups from left to right, Galbraith, Atigun, Kanuti, Wiseman, Coldfoot.

The video shows their energy level when they aren't sleeping. This is the fun time with the pups as we get to take them out for walks and see what they are made of. They seem tough for 14 lb animals and they sure talk the talk and walk the walk. We'll see what they are made mid winter when they get harness broke. These photos show how they take out aggression in the house.. thanks for the puppy toys Su Su!

The pups have graduated from the whelping kennel to the bigger free run pen that attaches to our deck.. They are loving the exploring the large pen with all its trees and vegetation. Momma Lucy is just a visitor now and then and the pups are hanging with some of the other dogs in the pen and learning their place in the squid acres hierarchy.

One more month at least until temperatures will be cool enough to start training with the 4 wheeler.. The dogs are ready and we can't wait to get ready for another season of running dogs. We would like to thank Chef Billy for helping us feed our dogs with fabulous beef stew that makes their summer meals more interesting than dry kibble. Tune in soon for more... Stumpy is pregnant and will be having a litter around memorial day.. check back for fall puppy fun!

pups and pens

2010-05-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks, the big news is that Lucy finally popped.. she had her pups! 5 Healthy little bundles of fun. 3 boys and 2 girls. Lucy is super whooped after that and enjoying some rest in the house.
The other dogs are enjoying their new pen. we got the first of two free run pens finished and the dogs have all had their chance to run and pee on all the trees. They are super excited to have this space. Our plan is to rotate dogs through in groups so they can all play and burn some summer time steam. We are working on another large pen and the doggie wheel.. stay tuned for doggie wheel video footage.

Ursa got some r and r after her spay surgery. Thanks Natalie for the sweet bed. this dog is actually huge... the dog bed is even huger..:)

Dog Days of Summer

2010-05-04T08:27:00.001-07:00

Things are pretty chill around here as far the dogs go. The days are getting very long and pretty warm. That means that the dogs lay around all day in the sun and get crazy all night when it is cooler. Above Lead Dog Windsor enjoys a rub down in the house... Below, Solo likes the cold tile.

Stout enjoys talking on the phone... We have some big projects for the dog right now. The Squid Acres Dog Park is in construction. We are working on making some large pens so they can run around more and get more exercise and play with each other. We also are working on making a large dog wheel, so they can get in and blow off some steam if they like.. kinda like a doggy gym. These large hamster wheels are used by a lot of top mushers to allow dogs to run at their own pace in the off season. We'll post videos of it when it is up and running.

The month of spring mushing is over.. summer is here.

2010-04-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

Well folks Spring came and went quickly this year and provided us with an amazing month of mushing and camping. In the end of March, Cody's dad Sterling came to visit. He got a taste of what our winter was like when on the second day we put him on a sled with his own team and we headed out to Minto Flats for an overnight. We camped out in the flats and then took down our training camp that we had used all winter for race training. Dad can be seen to the left with his 6 dog team. We did about 50 miles in those 2 days. Previous dog experience was about 2 miles with 4 dogs about 2 years ago.. cowboy to musher.. overnight.

We then headed to the White Mountains for a 3 day trip staying at the Colorado Creek Cabin. We took the entire kennel except Stout, who was recuperating from a shoulder injury. Dad ran the same six dog team, Paige Ran the pups and I ran all the rest with the freight sled full of goodies for our time at the cabin. We had a great stay filled with hikes, firewood cutting, good food and drinks and games.

The next day after returning from the whites we had a goofy little event to celebrate our anniversary known as the Old Ridge Retro Rondy where folks dressed up in retro winter clothes and brought their dogs out for a short fun race. What a blast.

The last chapter in our spring of mushing was our annual trip to the north slope of the Brooks Range to test ourselves and dogs in some real wilderness and to find caribou to fill the freezer.

We spent an amazing week exploring areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Gates of the Arctic National Preserve. There is nothing quite like a day of watching your team in awe as they break trail through shoulder deep snow for miles, nothing like gliding along a river with dall sheep on the cliffs above, nothing like paralelling a lone wolf for several miles on the open tundra and then hearing the entire valley go off with howls and nothing like the feeling of providing for the family with fresh caribou meat...This is what we live for.. spending time in the wilderness living with our dogs...... can't wait until next fall when we can do it all again.

Thanks for watching during the 2009 - 2010 mushing season. Stay tuned this summer for the arrival of our new team member puppies from Stumpy and Lucy.

Dinner Guests the Old Alaskan Way!

2010-03-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

The great thing about living in the Fairbanks area is that there are trails virtually everywhere. We often run the dogs to local bars and other peoples houses for visits. Last night our friends Nita and Josh came by with a 10 dog team for dinner. One of the pups that we raised "Chaos" is now part of their team and looking like she fits right in. It is only about 12 miles or so by dogsled, but at least 45 by car... an hour drive or an hour dogsled ride... dogsled is an easy choice. here is a video of them leaving after dinner.

the aftermath

2010-03-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a day for the athletes to relax. The dogs were filtered though the house in groups of 4 -5 at at time to get massages and get the complete checkup for injuries. A few stiff puppies, but everyone seemed happy to roll around togeher in the warm house. I looked worse than the dogs as you can see...

Pictures from the checkpoints

2010-03-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

The race went great. thanks to all the volunteers that made this possible. The trail was marked perfectly, the businesses running checkpoints were super helpful and the mushers were happy and fun to compete with. thanks to all involved!

Our race went something like this.... we'll see if I can remember the details.

We started on Friday from the Chatanika Lodge on the Steese Highway at 12:24 pm. From there we wound around the Cleary summit area, home to the Aurora Skiland, "the farthest north ski area". The team had to climb over severeal major hills and domes here in the 2000 eleveation range, with the sun beating down on us, it was a bit slow, but the views were amazing. We ran for about 55 miles which was the halfway point to the first checkpoint and then stopped at sunset for a 4 hour rest. The dogs ate well and got a nap. At this point we were in almost last place as we started back there. at 10 pm I pulled the hook and with the cool night temps approaching -25 F we flew towards angel creek. Along the way passed 7 - 8 teams camping. We pulled into the Pleasant Valley Store Checkpoint around 4 am and I was a little frozen and very tired. The dogs were taken care of and bedded down and I headed into the store stock room for a one hour nap... its amazing that one hour can change a tired grumpy man into one that is ready to race again.

Cody after a one hour nap and getting ready to head out for the next leg. Trying to remember what I need from my drop bags? Any snickers in there?

The next run was also slow in the heat of day, but spectacular views of the Chena River Valley. We rolled into Angel Creek around 3 pm and stayed for our 3 hour layover

Several teams all rolled into Angel Creek within in an hour of each other and we all had either 3 or 4 hours of mandatory time to stay there. It was clear that whomever left first would probably get to the finish in fifth place.... just forgot that one musher had done all her time at the last checkpoint and ran straight through while I was in the bar eating a burger. When it was our time to check out, we pulled the hook and tried our best to catch that musher to get into the last payin position of fifth, instead we came in about a half hour behind at 12:01 am and got sixth.... which was awesome. the dogs did great once again and we are thrilled with their finish. The leaders of the race didn't camp on the first run and were about 6 hours ahead of me in the end. The difference between first and second place turned out to be just seconds. What fun!

Thanks to my devoted fans.. I won't embarass all two of you, you know who you were, for coming out and supporting team squid. I think they got more photos of the dogs actually moving, Paige was busy doing her job of handling and couldn't get any of those, so will post them later as they come in..

And he's home

2010-03-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

We'll we did it! We rolled into the finish at 12:01 am this morning and clinched 6th place. The dogs did amazing despite hot day time temps in the sun.. the minus 20 temps at night made them run faster then. Was an amazing trip with some amazing bluebird views from the trail and great company along the way from a great group of mushers. Well I'm delirious and headed back to bed for a nap. Handler Paige has some photos she is going to put up later.. thanks for stopping in.
cody and the team.

And he's off!

2010-03-12T16:40:00.000-08:00

Cody left the starting line at 12:26pm will 11 dogs raring to go. They looked great leaving, unfortunately this lame handler forgot the camera:( so you will just have to take my word for it. I will get pictures the rest of the way and will hopefully be able to post while on the trail. GO CODY and TEAM SQUID!

Bib draw Two Rivers 200!

2010-03-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

We just got back from the bib draw for the next addition in the Squid Acres racing season. This time Cody is racing and he drew bib number 12. He will be at the starting line with 11 dogs. The line up will be....Windsor, Okie, Bleeker, TJ Maxx, Dundee, Mikey, Dozer, Poncho Ramirez ( we are not really sure how to spell his last name:) he is from mexico)) Berry, Goober and last but not least Lucy. Lucy is still aquestion mark though because she just came into heat today and Cody is a little bit leary of bringing her along. But I think she will be an asset if she does go along. The race starts at 12 noon. The first checkpoint is 105 miles from the start so we don't expect to see Cody until 2-5 am on Saturday. The trail report sounds good, there is some overflow and lots of hills but overall it sounds good. There are 13 mushers signed up for the 200. We are excited to get back out on the trail! I will try to keep you updated along the race. GO CODY and team SQUID!!

Two Rivers 200 Website

2010-03-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

The race updates should be posted here at the Two Rivers Mushers Association Home Page. If you can't find them on this page, then click on "Races and Events" and then Click on "Two Rivers 200 & 100" links. Thanks for watching,
Cody and the Dogs

whats happening?

2010-03-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends and Family,

Things are still good around here. Paige has gone back to work and now Cody has taken overwith the race team. It has been extremely warm around here, which makes running dogs difficult. We have been getting the dogs out for some good runs in the White Mountains, Minto Flats and around our valley. Some pics from the whites..

Cody will be running the Chatanika 200 race starting March 12th at noon. This race goes from the Chatanika lodge out towards Chena Hot Springs and then back to Pleasant Valley Store in Two Rivers, AK. The dogs look good and Cody is excited. You can follow at http://www.trdma.org/ and click on the events and chatanika 200 links. Paige will be handling and may have access to update blog so check in if you have a chance.

Squid Acres

Page 74

2010-02-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a video of a fellow mushers run over eagle summit. Page 74 Paige went over in the dark so had no video to share.

5th Place Finish!

2010-02-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Paige is in! The team rolled in at 10:45 am AK time looking good! Cain came in around 9:30 so Paige has Clinched 5th place. Good job. Now it is time to get the team home and rest. Check back later for stories from Paige. thanks.

Circle City Chef fuels Paiges fire.

2010-02-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a story about the chef at the Circle City Checkpoint. I don't think 5 minutes went by without her asking if I wanted another burger... for 7 hours straight.. She shoved a double cheeseburger in Paige's hands and well, she had to eat it.. The volunteers in these communities are amazing and make this race so much fun. Thanks to all of them. Read here about the circle city chef... Yukon Quest

Who will come in first?

2010-02-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sean Williams came in to the finish in Central in 3rd. Congrats! Cain left Circle a few minutes before Paige around midnight. They both had a 9 hour run into Circle. If they both have a similar run back, then we will have 4th and 5th place finishers in around 9 am. Check the Yukon Quest Facebook Page for more up - to - date info than the actual website. If you like following this race but thought that the official quest website was poorly done, please let the Yukon Quest know so it will be better in the future.

Paige in Circle City Checkpoint .. for now anyway :)

2010-02-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

What a run folks. Paige and the pups did a 74 mile run from Central to Circle and got in just at dark around 6 pm. The run took her approximately 9 hours and the dogs were super happy and waggy. This stretch of trail followed Birch Creek for the entire route and was a fast nice trail all the way in. A few miles outside Circle she had great head on Passes with Sven who was already headed back towards Central. She dropped her Ipod that keeps her boogieing somewhere on the river so she put Sven on the task to find it on his way into his first place finish. A couple more miles down the trail she had another great head on pass with Magnus and gave him a high five and told him to catch Sven. Paige said the dogs have stepped it up a level and at this point she wishes she was signed up for the 1000 mile race and continuing down the Yukon River. Instead she'll get the dogs up around midnight and head back the 74 miles to Central to the finish line. Sven has just finished in first place and Magnus is expected in second. Way to go guys. Sean Williams left about an hour ago and is likely to get third although he has a broken runner and has been suffering on it since mile 101. The race is now on for 4th place. Cain came in 1 hour and 25 minutes before Paige, putting him currently in 4th. Throughout this race they have been moving at the same pace.. If that trend continues the 4th place finish will go to whomever leaves first.... who will it be? Lets hope it is Paige.

The race has been going great. All 4 teams in front of her come from Large Iditarod Racing Kennels. If Squid Acres can hang right behind with this low level of experience than good things are to come.

As for the rest of the 300 mushers, Harvey is on his way and due in Circle soon and Mike King and Travis I believe are still in Central for their mandatory layover. Check back around 9 am alaska time tommorow to see if Paige has finished and find out what place.

Central Checkpoint

2010-02-08T09:49:00.001-08:00

Hi all, Paige and the pups rolled in in 5th place to Central last night about midnight after a succesful run over Eagle Summit. Sounds like the trail over the summit was great. In past years some bad things have happened to folks up there, but this year the conditions on the down side were awesome and everyone had a good run. Trail was a bit rough from the base of Eagle to Central, but the dogs came in looking like they could have continued forever. Paige had to stay for a mandatory 6 hour layover and decided to give the dogs a little extra rest.

The dogs were camped out in the park in Central and Paige was able to catch some sleep in the tight little musher cabin... she was lucky as the truck was mighty cold for this handler.

She pulled out around 8 am for her 75 mile run to Circle. At Circle she will rest the dogs and head on back to Central for the finish. Paige should be into Circle sometime around 4 or 5 pm this afternoon. Check back to see how she is doing.

Paige on the Quest Website

2010-02-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a story about Paige on the Yukon Quest website.. enjoy.

Mile 101 Checkpoint

2010-02-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

Paige rolled into Mile 101 at 1:24 pm today in 5th place with a strong and happy team. Turned out she didn't wake up to her alarm this morning and woke up to two teams passing her.. she would have been here earlier if she had, but no big deal. The run over from Twin bears was great with a good sunny run over rosebud summit. the only hitch was that she did have one little swim as all mushers have experienced before Rosebud, but she is smiling here now eating bacon with her clothes drying by a wood stove. The dogs will get some good rest here before heading over Eagle later this afternoon.. tune in later for more.

I just added a few photos from the checkpoint. sorry they were late.

5th into Twin Bears 4th out.

2010-02-07T01:55:00.000-08:00

Paige did her first 54 miles and rolled into Twin Bears around 10 pm. She came in in 5th place behind Sean, Magnus, Sven, and Cain. The dogs were happy and ready to move on, so she pulled a few bags of dog snacks and meat for the next leg. Strapped on a big bale of straw and headed off into the darkness to find a camping spot somewhere closer to Rosebud summit. The team will attack that mighty mountain in the early morning on her way to the next checkpoint called "Mile 101" another 68 miles down the trail. I led the team off to the outrail, got a quick kiss from my lovely lady and she left in 4th place as someone who came in before her stayed at the checkpoint. I ran home to get more supplies, take a nap and then I will head up to Mile 101. She should be into Mile 101 around noon tommorow. Check back to see how it is going. I may not have internet until sometime Sunday night if at all.. so check the quest 300 site for updates.. it is currently not updated.

And Their Off!

2010-02-07T01:36:00.000-08:00

Well folks, the race start went well without a hitch.. At 5:02 Paige started her first 300 mile race. Thanks to Tom Ruskowski, Natalie Monacci and Steve Martz who were Paige's extra special handler helpers at the start and thanks to all those who stopped by to wish her good luck.... and thanks to Lisa's extra good countdown.. ;) And I heard a rumor that there were nice folks on the trail handing off beverages and flashing humorous parts of their body.. these people are what make this all possible... thanks all. You can see some photos from the start from Tom's Picasa site. Link below.
Picasa Web Albums - Thomas - Yukon Quest 300 Paige Drobny

More soon from Twin Bears Checkpoint,

Handler Cody

YQ300 Home Page

2010-02-05T22:25:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone here is the Yukon Quest 300 website.. You can get up to date race results here.. YQ300 Home Page

Happy Trails To Paige and the Pups! YQ300 Starts Saturday!

2010-02-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Training has conitinued this week and Paige had to make final decisions on the 12 dogs she would run in this race. It is a bummer for us to have to leave dogs home that have been training so hard all season, but they will get their turn later this spring in other races with Cody. All the dogs are so dialed in now and are like a well oiled machine. You can see how calm they are at hook up. They just sit and wait for all the dogs to get hooked up and bootied. Once We put on our coats, the dogs get the picture and go nuts like the video from the last posting.

This week was full of gear maintenance, careful packing, and dog care as always. Paige can be seen below changing her runner plastic and drying her harnesses out for the big day.

Thursday night was what they call "Meet the Mushers" where the public comes to meet all the mushers from the 300 and 1000 mile races. This is where Paige drew her starting position for the race. She drew the second starting position and will be leaving the starting block at 5:02 pm Alaskan time Saturday.

The final Roster and their positions for this race is as follows;

Lucy (leader)

Stout (leader)

Okie (leader)

Bleeker (leader)

Valley (swing, team, leader)

Poncho Ramirez (swing, team, leader)

TJ Maxx (Swing, team)

Donald (team)

Dozer (team, wheel)

Dundeer (team, wheel)

Berry (team, wheel)

Goober (team, wheel)

I will update with photos after the start and will attempt to update along the course of the race, but do not know if I will have internet access. For up to date race results please follow the Yukon Quest 300 website. Thanks for tuning in!

Squid Acres crew

Winner of Minto Flats 150 - If there was such a thing

2010-02-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

Paige Drobny- winner of the Minto Flats 150 coming in at 22 hours total time...... Does it matter that she was the only racer in this mock training race? Nahh, the team did great!

With the Quest 300 one week away, we did one last big training run with the dogs Saturday from our house out to Minto Flats, near Nenana Alaska. Paige took the race team with a plan of running the dogs on a race schedule and covering around 150 miles in less than 24 hour period with 2 rests built in out at a mock checkpoint camp. To make it more like a race, Tom Ruskowski and Cody ran teams to the mock checkpoint and supplied doggy distractions like those at a real checkpoint. Tom and Cody also supplied a warm tent, warm pizza, warm cookies, and warm little smokies and eggs to the passing mushers... ah..Paige that is.

To the left is Tom's team learning to sleep on the line. No eaten harnesses or lines... good dogs!

Below, Checkpoint volunteer Tom, makes his famous little smoky, egg, and hasbrown burritos.... a very filling morning treat.

Paige did one long run, rested dogs at camp, ate dinner, then headed out for another run until the wee hours of the morning and came back, took a nap and ate breakfast and then saddled up for the last run home. Below is video of the dogs in the morning. 100 miles down, 50 to go on the way home.. Looking good.

The team looks amazing, check back for more info soon,

Squid acres

Quest 300 Prep - Food Drops and Training

2010-01-26T13:06:00.000-08:00

With the Yukon Quest 300 being two weeks away things have been very busy for Paige, team squid and the Handler (Cody). Paige spent countless hours cutting big blocks of meat up for the dogs during the race. Shown at left. The dogs get a mix of chicken, chicken skins, beef, liver, salmon, whitefish, tripe, salmon oil, and kibble.

All of this meat is bagged up and sent off to the different checkpoints.

During the drop bag preparation the dogs still have to be run to keep physically fit. we run the dogs to Minto Flats and Nenana area from our house. Sometimes we set up our wall tent and get warm while resting the dogs on these runs. Paige is seen warming by the woodstove below.

Once the drop bags containing, dog food, Paige food and other spare supples were finished they were dropped off to be sent ahead of race to the checkpoints.

Now that the drop bags were finished. Paige is focusing on the dogs. Sunday we took the dogs to the white mountains for an 80 mile run with a break in the middle at Cache Mountain cabin. The following are a few pictures and video from that trip.

Stay tuned for more information the Yukon Quest 300 starting of February 6th....

Thanks for stopping in,

Squid Acres Crew

Quick blast from this winters past.

2010-01-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the quick and dirty history of our winter to get you all caught up to where Team Squid is.

Due to a lack of snow in the Fairbanks Area we moved the whole family to Eureka, AK to train out of Brent Sass's camp. Here we were able to do longer runs on good snow. Including runs to the local villages of Rampart and Manley Hot Springs. The photo to left is Paige's team on the trail to Rampart. Thanks to Brent for allowing us and our 32 dogs to crash his party.

We came back to Fairbanks on Christmas day to pack and head out for the Gin Gin 200 Sled Dog Race. This was our first distance race and we entered 2 teams in the race. Brent supplied a few extra dogs to fill out our teams.. Thanks Again Brent! The pic to the left is Paige hooking her team up for the womens division mass start. Stout and Lucy are in lead and the whole team is fired up and excited. The video below is the mens mass start and shows how exciting it is.. Cody started late because he was trying to catch it on film!

The race started at the Wolverene Lodge on Lake Louise and then the trail went 109 miles across lakes and rivers to the Maclaren Lodge in the Alaska Range. We camped halfway for a few hours to rest and then got back on the trail which included some open water sections with crazy little ice bridges. The dogs did great and we pulled into Maclaren around 6 am for our 8 hour mandatory layover.

The picture to the left is Cody's team camped at Maclaren and enjoying their rest at sunrise.. 10 am. the photo below is the view of all the teams camped out at the checkpoint.

At Maclaren we decided that Paige's leader Stout's shoulder was sore and so he got a doggie limousine ride on the snowmachine sled back to our truck at the start. seen at left. We don't want to run our dogs when they are hurting so they get "dropped" from the race meaning that they get to rest and heal and we have to carry on with less dogs.

The race then returns from Maclaren on the same path, 109 miles. We pulled out of Maclaren that afternoon around 3 and had a good run back to the halfway point. There we camped the dogs for a few hours and had a fire with fellow mushers Caleb Hathaway, Peter Fleck, and Terry Williams. A great little party on the Susitna River. about 3 am we packed our sleds, pulled our hooks and headed back to Wolverene Lodge. Finishing the race around mid morning. We were met at the finish line by Mike Ellis and Brent Sass who were holding beers for us... it was definitely time for a cold one after 220 miles in about 48 hours. The dogs did awesome and it was a great Time....

So that brings us to the here and now. We are home training on local trails and getting Paige all set for her next race, the Yukon Quest 300 which starts on February 6th. Check back for more details on that race.

Cheers for now,

Team Squid

Squid Acres News

2010-01-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

We are starting a blog to share race and tip info with friends and family. dont' expect it to be up to date.. but we'll try!