What a diffrence a day makes, Thursday Oct 29th. Weather wearning from Enviorment Canada- Extreme snowfall for the Yellowknife region!
Approximatley 6-8 " of snowfall!  Temp's of -20 Celcius..!
Lakes are freezing, and the snow will be here for good.
News that makes a musher very happy!

So the next cutline trip will be with snow on the ground,  and training will continue to progress as per usual. We'll be continuing the 20 mile runs for the next couple wekks, then will extend to 35 miles, and 50, ending up with 140 mile runs- 70 miles 4 hour rest and 70 miles.
We did this last season and the dogs were in great shape, We'll be doing the milage earlier in the season however compared to last year as Our first major race- The Yukon Quest  is in February .

Knowing that the team is very comfortable running in the mountians doing 140 miles in 14 hours run time, I will expect doing the same her in Yellowknife in about 12 hours - 16 total including the rest.
This will be the ultimate test for the dogs seeing who is ready to go after the 140 miles( I will hook them up again after a couple hours rest to see who is ready) 
My sceduale for both races will be based on approx 70 mile runs consistantly so  those who do it best will be the main crew.
I already know some of the veterns, the young guns will have to prove their place on the team.


Happy trails!!!

Warren 

October 27th 2008 -10 celsius for the last 3 days and still no snow on the ground.
That has not stopped the training but it is a little disheartening , 4 wheeler training is somewhat boring , cold and the only thing to look forward to ,or be grateful for is SNOW!
So when there is no snow at all, well it can get a little depressing.

However, things are going well with training in spite of the lack of snow. A three day stint at the cut line with a total cumulative run of 56 miles , with 32 dogs  things went well. They are getting somewhat cross trained as they are only pulling the ATV with two people, and the terrain being somewhat hilly, the speed varies from 8 mph to 20 at the start  averaging just around 11 mph - 20 mile run in about 1:50 minutes.
The trail was really quite Shi__tty with broken ice, frozen mud etc.. Just like the trail out of Rohn on the way to Nikolai! Good training I figured!

I suppose the only down fall is that I can for see cutting dogs will be challenging , Those that run dogs out there can appreciate the fact the little of no snow on gravel/sand at - temps can be hard on feet as well as joints etc. but all the dogs came through fine.
I would ideally like to get down to a more manageable number of 28 , at which time I will break the team into 3 groups of 9 and run 18 dog teams, running everyday myself but the dogs running on a 2 on 1 off schedule.


The dogs handled the mileage very well and were quite animated after the runs. We did not take any pictures but will do on the next trip, hopefully with some snow on the ground!

Warren
 Here is a picture from last year, Nov 9 2007! close to 10 inches of snow..
Look at those smiles! Happy dogs!

Pictured is our new handler , painting our dog trailer I also made room for a few more dogs so our capacity is now 35 dogs.

Annie has been hard at work  getting things organized for the season, alwasys looking at the glass half full, the weather has been super nice to get the rest of our outside chores down before the weather really turns.. Its a matter of days!


We have been running dogs every day, with  a 1 on 1 off secduale, all are doing really well. The pups are really learning the ropes, and get better every run.