Alaska bound!

After years of waiting, our house in Montana finally sold, and we are now in Alaska!

We left Montana in the wee hours of the morning on December 1st, 2011. We stopped at a hotel in Livingston for a few hours of sleep before continuing on. After spending a night in Helena while waiting for the USDA permit for our goats, we were on to the border.

It took us five hours at the border. The goats took about an hour to get checked and sealed, and the dogs (as usual) took hardly any time at all. My method with the sled dogs is to have their papers so nicely organized and displayed inside a three-ring binder as to overwhelm the vet. It worked, and he went through about ten records before giving up and handing the book back to me. Once we finally got out of there, we spent the night in Fort Macleod. 

From Fort Macleod, we made it to Innisfail. The road past Calgary was a solid sheet of ice. As we were pulling out of Fort Macleod, it started to rain hard, and by the time we got to Calgary, the temperature was around 0 (Fahrenheit). We had to go about 30 m.p.h. past Calgary, and we got to watch lots of cars slide off the road. There were probably 50 or so of them from Calgary to Innisfail. We were going to try to push on to Edmonton, but I nearly lost control on the ice once (it's never good when you can see into your dog boxes out of the driver's window), so we decided to stop short. 

For the rest of the nights, we stopped in Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Teslin, Haines Junction, Destruction Bay, and now Tok. 

Watson Lake was fun. I had three flat tires on my trailer that day, so we just had a whole new set put on. Well, the guys at the tire shop out-of-their-minds drunk. To the point where Jon had to help them put the lug nuts on the tires because the guy couldn't figure out how to get them on. At one point he slurred something to the affect of, "Maybe I shouldn't have come into work today." 

From Haines Junction we were going to go straight to Tok, but 70 miles out of Haines Junction, the U-Haul blew a tire, and we were right near to Destruction Bay, so we stopped there, but we had to stay the night to wait for the mechanic to get back to change it. 

 

But now we're in Tok, Alaska, having crossed back into the U.S. just a few hours ago. The dogs have been cared for, and I'm off to bed. Can't wait to see what the coming weeks bring! 

The 2010/11 season

The 2010/11 Season is officially upon us.

We had the first run of the season today, a 3 mile run with 12 dogs. The dogs did GREAT! No major tangles or problems, everybody behaved well, and the dogs returned to the lot looking energetic and happy.

What does the '10/'11 season hold for us?

As far as races go, we are going to try to run the West Yellowstone race, the Jr. Race to the Sky again, and make another (and final) bid at the Jr. Iditarod. If we do make it to Alaska to run the Jr. Iditarod, there is a good chance that we will stay to run the Jr. Yukon Quest as well.

The Pirates are now 3 years old, which means that they are in the beginning of their prime. This year we should be able to put in longer runs, and do them faster and more efficiently. I've already noticed that the dogs are MUCH stronger than they were last year. I look forward to seeing what kind of incredible performances we will put out this year! I hope you all will come along for the ride as well!

Check out this video from our first run of the season!

A Farewell to Rodeo

Yesterday, November 30th, the mushing world suffered a great loss.

Rodger "Rodeo" Vincent passed away.

I've been told that Rodeo had suffered a heart attack several days earlier, and was told by his doctor to take it easy, and stay laying down. Those who knew him find the idea of Rodeo "taking it easy" to be laughable. Rodeo was out with his sled dogs, and it is believed that he suffered another heart attack.

Rodeo was a great man who gave me my start in the sport nearly 9 years ago. 9 years ago, before I was even a teenager, I called Rodeo about a team of tour dogs he had advertised in the paper. He ended up giving me 17 dogs, and all the equipment I needed. He was a great man, but will live on at least in spirit as long as he is remembered. He loved sled dogs more than any other person I know.

Charlotte, his business partner, will continue on and have the race this weekend. I know this has to be very tough on her, and I can only imagine what she is going through. I admire her bravery in doing it though. Everyone would have understood if she called the race off, but she decided to make it happen.

PUPPIES!!!!

Lizzy was bred to JoJo a couple of months ago, and the results are here! 8 beautiful, healthy Alaskan husky pups. Born 3/10/10. 5 males, 3 females.View the pictures below.

{Great-Grandpa, Badger}

Green River Classic

Green River classic is a race held in Pinedale, Wyoming. It has been going on for quite a few years now. i chose this race mostly because it was the next closest thing to me, and I thought that my dogs could use more practice under race conditions before we headed for the Jr. Iditarod. It was another sprint race, but at 28 miles was slightly longer than the West Yellowstone Race. I drew bib number 12, but being as there was no bib number 10 (I still don't understand that), i took off in 11th place. Which still put me taking off very last since there was only 11 mushers in my class. I have horrible luck drawing numbers. I always draw either very last or close to the very last number. I'm not complaining though: my team is slow at these sprint races so I stay more out of everyones way by starting at the back.

The race was cold. The first day we had highs of 10 degrees. That's actually not too bad. i was happy with that temperature. The race went relatively well. It's always fun to get out on new trails. the dogs were happy and running well also. I finished 11th, just under 9 minutes behind John Bunderson.

On the second day, they sent me out first which if I'm running slower than everyone else I don't like much because I tend to get a little disheartened at being passed by every single other musher. But Rob Greger convinced me that it wouldn't be so bad; with other teams passing, that would give my team something to chase and hopefully help make us somewhat faster. It was -25 out according to the truck's thermometer, and to tell you the truth, I really didn't want to get out of the truck. I got the dogs hooked up and ready, and I may have looked ridiculous, but i put on a pair of ski goggles and ski mask on also. I don't like when my eyelashes freeze together. Bit

of a pet peeve of mine. After about a mile down the trail I got annoyed with the goggles because they kept fogging up. I took them off and shoved them in my glove bag. It really wasn't cold enough to need them.

Another couple of miles down the trail though, the trail crossed over a bridge. The water under the bridge must have been heated by a hot spring because it was still open, even at these temperatures, and was sending a lot of fog up. I didn't think much about it until another 10 minutes went by, and it was getting hard to breathe. I tapped the front of the ski mask and it was completely frozen solid from the water dropplets in the fog. Everything was uneventful after that, except during the lollipop. We took the turn around in the opposite dirrection that day, and we were most of the way around it when I remembered that there was abig pothole int he middle of it somewhere. I was so busy pay attention to that that I didn't slow the team down for the hard 90 degree left we were about to make. I tried to slam on the brake to slow us down, but we still took it too fast and I lost my balance and flipped the sled. got it back upright quickly though and we were back down the trail in under 20 seconds. This time when we crossed the bridge I remembered to pull my hood with the fur ruff up to keep the frost off of my face.

I still came in last place, although this time I was just over 5 minutes slower than John Bunderson. I pedaled as much as i could going back to help speed us up.

{Even though there are mushers behind me, I still came in last place as placement is based on time.}}

The downside as I found out, is that I usually stand on my left runner and use my left foot to pedal. so when I got back to the trailer, because I had been standing with all of my weight on that leg for the last half hour and not moving it, I couldn't feel my right leg from about the knee down. After walking on it for 2 or 3 minutes, I suddenly got a horrible, intense pain in my foot that felt like my whole foot was on fire, or I had dipped it in a pot of hot oil. I managed, with a lot of assistance, to get the harnesses off of my dogs and get them back in their boxes. Rob Greger then instructed me to go get in the truck, start the heater up, and take my boots and socks off. God was my foot cold and hurting. It was still a fun time however.

West Yellowstone Race

Wow! Charlotte and Rodeo got the West Yellowstone Race going again! It was a blast. I ran 10 dogs in the 12 dog class, and even though I had some issues, it was great fun.

First day: I took off 13th. Of course, the fast guys all passed me quickly and stayed ahead of me. I was doing pretty good, until about 5 miles into the there was a downhill, it wasn't the only on the trail, not by a long shot, but it was the only problem one. It wasn't very steep, and was in fact a nice, gradual mostly straight downhill. It looked innocent enough, so I let the dogs do a slow lope down it. Not hard enough that they would hurt themselves, but a decent pace since it was in fact a sprint race.

I was having to ride the brake a lot because the dogs were really fired up. I was standing on my left runner, using my right foot to brake because that is my dominant foot and I'm a lot better at braking with that foot, so when I'm in unfamiliar places, esp. on downhills, I use that foot because I'm more reliable with it. All was going well, I was keeping the dogs at the pace I wanted, when suddenly... the brake hit a large rock under the snow, giving me a hard jolt which bounced my foot off of the brake. I tried to catch myself with my left foot, but since I was already off balance, I stumbled and fell. I kept a hold of the handlebar. I'm always amazingly calm in situations such as these. First I attempted to do a pull up and get myself up enough I could get my feet back on the runners. I could have possibly done it, even though I can't do pullups (one of those adrenalin surges), but going down the trail at about 12 mph with my knees dragging was too much pull down and back on me. Next I tried to remove my right hand from the handlebar and push down on my brake with it while coaxing them to stop. They slowed down dramatically, and I thought I might have it, but as I tried to pull myself up I found that my muscles were all shaking and were now almost useless. The dogs picked up speed again, going faster than ever now. I returned my hand to the handlebar so I could hang on as long as possible. Then I tried to flip my sled.

Now, most of the time, if I'm just standing next to my sled, I swear it will fall over if I just look at it sideways. But that day, no matter how much I yanked and jerked, the sled just would not flip. I couldn't get enough leverage.

I knew there was supposed to be a turn coming up soon that had race volunteers at it. Hopefully it would be quickly and they would help get the dogs stopped. I drug for a little ways further, and then reached what I call the critical point of my strength. The longer I could hold on, the closer we got to the volunteers, and thus help. But say they were still another half mile off; I couldn't hang on that long, and if I tried I wouldn't have enough strength left to get up and run after my team. I made a very difficult decision, and let go of the sled. I scrambled to my feet, yanked my hat off to prepare to start running. I could see the team ahead of me down the hill. My team dogs were starting to overrun my leaders, so now they would be a big mess. That would help as they might possibly tangle up enough they couldn't run, but on the other hand a dog can get seriously hurt like that. I started to run and then saw something that made me happy and mad at myself all at the same time. Just 100 yards or so ahead were the volunteers. I hadn't been able to see them dragging because all I could see was the back of my sled bag. They were giving me a look like I was totally stupid for letting go. "Catch that team!" I yelled, praying they could somehow do it.

Folks, I have to say it. Race volunteers are most caring, helpful, people out there. Without thinking about their own safety, the 2 men waded into my string of dogs, bringing them to a stop. I sprinted to them as fast as I could and set the hook and began straightening out dogs. I asked one man to stand on my sled brake as I wasn't sure how well the hooks would hold here. I watched as musher after musher helped me. I finally got going again, after probably 15 minutes of straightening them out. Soon afterwards I was in a big wreck with another musher. We still have a disagreement about what happened out there, but in the end everything worked out fine. That was definitely not my day.

The next day was going smoothly, but once again on the hill I lost my footing as my brake caught a rock. This time I managed to get my knees on one of the runners and get back up. Not even a minute later I started to shake again. That day went much smoother, even though I was now only running 9 dogs in the 12 dog class because one of my girls came into heat.

I ended up finishing next to last, but it was a great learning experience for both me and the dogs. Until next time...

Training Blog

Hello to everyone!
I just got by training & kennel life blog up. I'll try my best to keep it updated with what goes on around the kennel and in training.
The URL for this blog is: http://www.LHRacing.blogspot.com The whole name of our kennel is Lacey Hart Racing, shortened to LHR. We have our reasons for not using either of these. We wanted to use LHR, but it was already taken. We were also concerned that there would be many typos with the name. Most people spell "Lacey" as "Lacy", and we did want people to be able to read the blog after all! I do think that LHRacing with suffice though. Let it be known that the LH is for Lacey Hart. Hope you enjoy the blog, and be sure to check back periodically.