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!
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.
