Happy birthday Nora!!!

Today is Nora's 3rd birthday! I can't believe it has been so long. And, as I always have to say, they are growing up so fast! :)

Happy birthday my beauty queen! I love you!

God Made a Dog

This is so sweet! It is so true, and it shows how lucky we are to have dogs as our companions. :)

No Snow? No Problem!

Something that I had been wanting for a long time came a couple of days ago. A training cart for my team!

Now that I have three dogs, it gets a bit intense trying to run them via bikejouring, so I started looking around for a cart. I found one all the way up in Cut Bank MT and decided to buy it. The only problem was getting all the way up to Cut Bank. Then some of our friends said they were going up there for Easter and could pick it up for us! (Thank you SO much Edens family!!) It's a lightweight, fold able, Risdon Rig that is in really good condition.

This evening I decided to take it out for a little spin. It is SO much fun! 

The pups did GREAT!

Also, since we brought Loki along with us, and I had an extra harness that would fit him, I put the pieces together and thought "I wonder how he'll do pulling the cart..." So I hooked the dogs up for a second time... with Loki.

"Uhm... what ARE you doing!?"

"Really? You  mean I have to PULL that thing?!"

Good job Loki!!

Loki did better than I expected  He didn't pull a lot but I think he liked just coming along for the ride. I think we are going to have a LOT of fun with our new cart. :)

2013 Stanley Sled Dog Rendezvous

This weekend we went over to Stanley ID with Nicki to race in Stanley Sled Dog Rendezvous. I had to leave Nora home because she didn't quite make it to my "A" team. So I ran Thor and Shilah, and borrowed two dogs from Aiyana and ran in the 4 dog, 8 mile class (4 miles/day). The course was VERY technical. All of the mushers, except Terry Adkins, :) were dumped and dragged multiple times. There were some points where we were running on solid dirt. (in normal races, usually only one musher gets dragged) I seriously thought I was going to die. Though in all, it was SO fun! My team ended up getting 2nd place out of three teams. I was just happy I didn't get last! We ran the first day with a time of 22:30 on the first day, and the second day in 20:06! I am SO proud of my team! 

                         

Since Shilah has had some problems with overheating lately, and we were going to be racing in 45+ degree weather, my mom, Nicki and I got creative and made some sun repelling coats for Thor and Shilah out of  old white T-shirts. Nicki tested them out on one of her dogs since she was racing before me. When she got back, she said it worked wonders! So I put them on Thor and Shilah and it did the same for them! They didn't dip as much, and their backs were actually cool when they finished. I just thought I should share that idea with any dog owners out there. :) 

Thor and Shilah ready to roll with their coats on! Thor says he wants a Superman symbol on his. :) 

One of the reasons mushers love this race is you usually have to drive to the race start from your hotel. This race, you walk out your door and can see the starting chute. Also the fact that there are hot springs there. :) Those two things were VERY nice. 

The starting chute is to the left of the hotel... trust me, it's there...

here, I put some arrows on it so you can see them better :)

The view from our hotel 

"If you don't let me run pretty soon I'll go crazy!"

One of Nicki's dogs has the coolest eyes!

The pups resting after a fun weekend :)

This weekend was SO much fun! I love going to this race so much. But the only thing I wasn't looking forward to this the whole weekend was the Tuesday after the race (yesterday), I got oral surgery. Yuck! So I'm sitting here with a purple mouth eating ice cream and popsicles. But I guess you can't feel too sorry for me once you heard my diet for the week :). Oh well, at least it's done. Though I can't seem to get enough dog sledding movies to watch... 

8 dog team!!

A couple of weeks ago I got an offer from Aiyana Ferraro saying she wasn't using all of her A team dogs for Stanley Sled Dog Rendezvous, and asked if I wanted to use two so I could run in the four dog class. (herself and her dogs have raced in the Jr. Iditarod before) So of course, I said yes.

So on Saturday the dogs and I went up to Skalkaho to try some of her dogs out. She had six dogs I could use and I couldn't decide between running them in two teams of four, or one team of eight. I had never ran eight dogs before so I wanted to do that. My team consisted of:

Thor Rainbow (or just bow)

(I forgot these guys' names)

Dingo Shilah

(I forgot their names too)

As you can tell I'm not very good with names! 

Once we started off it was SO AMAZING!!! I couldn't believe it! There was SO much power and speed. I didn't have to work one bit, which is pretty rare :). We ran 5 miles in about 20 minutes, and everybody else up there said the snow was slow. When we came to the turn around, I said "gee" and Thor and Rainbow turned gee perfectly (okay not perfectly, I had to say it a couple of times and point to the right, but I didn't have to anchor down and drag them to the turn). That was the only "big" thing during the run. 

It was one of the best runs I have ever done! Thank you Aiyana! 

If the video doesn't work, you can also see it here www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0KIaUjRUS0.

2013 Race to the Sky

On Sunday, we went up to watch the start of Race to the Sky. There are three classes, the 350 mile adult race, the 100 mile adult and 100 mile Jr. There were 10 teams in the 350 mile race, 5 in the 100 mile adult, and 2 in the 100 mile Jr. It was so much fun! Aiyana Ferraro, a fellow Bitterroot musher was racing in the 100 mile Jr. So I got to help handle her team at the start. My big dream is to someday race in Race to the Sky. I just need 5 more dogs...and then get them to the point to where they can run 100 miles. :) So I guess it won't happen for a while. *sigh*  Anyways, here are some pictures I took.

A team in the 350 mile class

Aiyana Ferraro getting ready

Some of her dogs. :)

Jenny Greger, 100 mile jr.

Aiyana Ferraro, 100 mile jr.

A team in the 100 mile adult class

And I can't leave out the arch :)

Darby Dog Derby picture

Well, I FINALLY got around to posting this, but here's a picture of my team at Darby.

Copyright Patrick J Chaplin