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.
