Why limit the stress of the holidays to taking finals, driving to Ohio, and moving on Christmas Eve, when you can also throw in three days of dogsledding?
I recently joined the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) because I wanted to take some of their mountaineering seminars. I just happened to see a dogsledding trip being offered 26 – 29 December. Since my holiday plans had changed, I decided to sign up for the 26 December trip. On 22 December.
Just a note to those of you who are not familiar with the AMC, signing up late for a trip may not work out in your favor. Although there was space on the trip I didn’t get my information packet until the day I was leaving. I had planned to read it but didn’t get around to looking at it because I was busy trying to, due to my move, unpack the boxes that had my trip gear in them. Also, I had to get my new iPod set up. I didn’t think it was necessary to read the Directions section of my information packet as I had gotten directions to Redfield, NY from Mapquest and, at noon on 26 December, I left for New York.
Traffic crawled along 95 North and the Jersey turnpike. There were times when I would sit for 10 minutes without moving. A trip to NYC should take three hours at the most, instead of the 6 it was taking me. Because traffic was so bad I hit NYC at rush hour, a most unpleasant time to be in the city. My directions said something about veering off onto 80West but then they also mentioned continuing on 95 North. I followed the signs for 95 North instead of getting off on 80 West and found myself going through tunnels, over bridges, and around the most discombobulating traffic scenarios imaginable including one situation where my little Subaru was forced by some traffic cones to merge simultaneously with five pissed off semi trucks into one lane. I survived thanks to all wheel drive and the mushiness of those stupid cones.
Once the traffic and the city were behind me I started speeding a little. The next thing I knew I was in New Haven, Connecticut. That didn’t seem right at all. I looked at my Mapquest map to see if I was supposed to be in Connecticut. That’s when I noticed that it didn’t show Lake Ontario, which is where the town of Redfield is located, about 5 miles from the shore. It also didn’t show Connecticut, at least not on the highlighted route.
I stopped at a gas station on 95N to ask directions. They laughed at me. They said I was 2 hours away from NYC and 80 West. They had no idea where Redfield New York was. They wished me good luck.
I managed to make it back to NYC in an hour, speeding dangerously while also fiddling around with my iPod and smoking many cigarettes. I took the 80 West exit and then was unceremoniously dumped back on to the New Jersey Turnpike because, coming from the north, you have to take about 4 exits to actually get on 80 West. Sneaky. I finally pulled into the Vince Lombardi rest stop, my favorite on the turnpike. I looked at my directions, which indicated that I should only be an hour away from my destination, which was a relief because I had been driving since noon and it was now 8:30.
While some Jersey guy filled my car with gas I looked at the AMC packet. Under the heading Directions it said “It will take you approximately 6 hours to get to Redfield from NYC so plan accordingly”. I also noticed the zip code of the place in the AMC packet was different than the zip code on my Mapquest directions. And the directions did not match at all.
Panicking I called the Crossroads Inn, where I was supposed to be staying for the trip. Mitch, the proprietor of the inn, answered the phone. At this point it was 845 and he sounded kind of sleepy. I explained to Mitch that my Mapquest directions to his inn seemed to be wrong, that I was at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, that I kept trying to get on the 80 West exit but couldn’t, and that I had no idea where I was going. Mitch informed me that my directions were wrong, the area where my directions sent me was across the state from Redfield, and that he wasn’t expecting any more people for the dog sledding trip, and that I might be confusing his Crossroads Inn with another. He stated “There must be at least 250 Crossroads Inns in New York”. Before he could hang up on me I started throwing out names, reservation numbers, my AMC number, and any other information I could think of. I stressed to him that I HAD to go on this dogsledding trip no matter what it was going to take to get to the inn. Mitch then offered to give me directions.
He told me to first take 80 West to the Delaware Water Gap, then take some route (380?) to Scranton, PA, then get off at 81 North and drive until I hit a town called Mexico, where I was to exit and then down a series of county roads that I had to navigate by landmark rather than signage, to the inn.
Oh great, I thought. This guy is an even bigger idiot than I am. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Mexico? Wasn’t I going to upstate New York? Why was he sending me through all these other places? Were they even CLOSE to where I was going? Why couldn’t I be one of those people who knew where all the states are? I silently cursed my 5th grade geography teacher, who was a drunk with shaky hands and who never managed to get past the location of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana on our plastic school maps. She later had a nervous breakdown and was replaced by a nun who apparently took her vow of silence seriously. We spent the rest of the year coloring pictures of state flags and I never did get to learn any of the state capitols much less the locations of the states.
So, I decided to fly straight into the dark void of 80 west, trusting Mitch, as I had no other choice. He had warned me that I probably would not get to Redfield until 3 in the morning[1] and that he would leave a cabin open for me. I was kind of psyched about that as the AMC trip cost included lodging and involved me sharing a room with a person I didn’t know and sharing a bathroom with 3 people. I don’t particularly like to share so having my own cabin made the pain of the trip worth it.
Cruising down 80 West I decided it was time for a little snack so I started opening a bag of wheat chex, possibly the best food on earth. Of course, simultaneous to this I was also smoking a cigarette and trying to get my iPod to move to the next song while also not knocking my hastily scribbled directions onto the floor, or worse, out the window. To accomplish these many tasks I was handling the wheat chex bag opening with my teeth. I had somehow forgotten about those tricky vertical seamed bags that the cereal comes in. As I started pulling on the little hole I had made with my teeth to make it bigger the bag exploded on the seam and wheat chex flew everywhere. It was like having a ticker tape parade for myself.
Busy cursing I barely registered a car headed straight towards my driver’s side door. In fact, I didn’t notice it at all until the party lights came on. Looking down at the dash I realized that I was doing close to ninety[2]. I had no idea what the speed limit was, but realized I was about to find out.
Before the officer had completely reached my car and before he could even speak I had the window rolled down and started explaining to him the whole story of what had happened to me that day. He shone his flashlight on my Mapquest directions as well as my new, scribbled directions. I also showed him my new iPod, the FM Transmitter that went with it, my new shoes that I had purchased for the trip that were sitting on the passenger seat because I like to drive in my socks[3], my very puffy orange down jacket which was brand new and unworn, and my dog sledding packet. As I paused for a breath he immediately interjected with “Do you know how fast you were going?”
“No” I said, shaking my head to add conviction to an obviously bald faced lie. A wheat chex fell out of my hair.
“Do you know what the speed limit is?” he asked me.
“I was actually speeding up to see what it was so I wouldn’t be speeding.” That will throw him for a little loop, I thought.
“But ma’am, you just passed a sign right back there.” He pointed his flashlight in the direction of a sign that was around the place where he pulled out.
“Oh. Well I didn’t see THAT sign because of the explosion.”
“Explosion?”
“In my car.”
“In your CAR?”
“The bag seam blew.” I held up my almost empty wheat chex bag. I noticed that I had accumulated a pile of wheat chex in my lap.
“What IS that?”
“A wheat chex. Try one.” I held the bag out to him.
He put one in his mouth. “Tasty.”
“They have lots of vitamins. And minerals. And low sodium.”
I saw him staring back at his car. He wore the resigned look of one defeated by the blonde Jedi mind control trick. He sighed.
“Okay, I’m going to give you a warning. No more speeding. And you have some of that wheat stuff in your hair. Have a safe trip.”
He walked away shaking his head. They always do.
A scant 3 hours later I was on I-81 North. For a moment I thought I was going to make it to Redfield in another hour. I had to get off on exit 36 and I was at exit 139. I started to get excited about arriving at my destination when I noticed that the exit numbers were going up instead of down. I was still in Pennsylvania. I cursed New York for being so far away.
Eventually I did cross the state line and then a new worry hit me. Where was the snow? Through bleary eyes I looked around at the black fields, hills, trees, lakes, roads, houses, bushes, and grass. No snow. It was as if some malevolent force was trying to sabotage my trip. Then my iPod battery died. So on top of all my other neurotic car fidgeting I had to now add scanning for a station. The two songs I heard for the next hour and a half were the milkshake song and Here Without You. Here Without You made me a little weepy at first because it reminded me of a recent breakup. But after the 18th time I heard it, I wanted to cry because I was so sick of it and nothing else was on the radio.
Finally, I reached the exit before Mexico, which is Central Square. Literally at the exit, there was snow in an almost perfect straight dividing line. This is called “the lake effect”. Wind blows off the lake causing the temperature to drop and snow to fall. Or at least that’s what Larry, the guy who ran the dog sled trip told me. Of course, he also told me, when my lead dog was misbehaving, to bite her on the nose[4].
At 2 AM, I rolled up to the Crossroads Inn and settled into my cabin. Four hours later I was up and at breakfast with the group I would be sledding with. Janet is a bond analyst from Boston and I felt like she was a kindred spirit. Her outfit matched perfectly. She had much cooler shoes and gloves than I did. I was a little jealous. Eleanor is an English professor at Columbia, whose specialty is ancient Greek, and she happened to be reading an obscure book about the plays of Archimedes. Well, she carried the book around, but I can’t say that she really was reading it. I read the book cover and decided life was too precious to waste on such academic drivel. Mark and Alina are dentally inclined people. Alina is a dentist, who was very impressed with my veneers, and Mark is an orthodontist, who yelled at me for not wearing my retainer until I was 25. Their two kids, Chris and Marissa, were on their third dog sledding trip.
After not eating breakfast, which consisted of a fried, thick, pink piece of ham bigger than my face, and instead having some cookies that were sitting on the counter that I was not supposed to touch because they were for another group, we headed off to what I came to think of as the dog farm.
I wasn’t sure what to expect but no amount of web research could have prepared me. Imagine entering an outdoor area that contains about 60 semi-wild sled dogs. Each dog is chained to a thick metal pole. At the base of the pole is a plastic barrel filled with straw and a flattened path of snow surrounds the barrel because the dogs constantly run in a circle. Some hop over their barrels, others lunge out only to be snapped back by the chain. Urine and feces abound, as well as pink snow from bloodied paws. The howling, screeching, barking, and baying never ceases for an instant. It could have been an insane asylum for dogs, but it was in fact the place where I would be hanging out for the next three days.
Larry owns the farm and has been raising dogs his whole life. He used to race but quit because of the cost and the amount of work. Morgan was his helper, and though he has a normal job he goes on these trips because he loves to sled. Dave was the cook, but none of us got to meet him. He lives in Larry’s house but he stays in the basement, which is dark, wearing sunglasses. Dave has “multiple chemical sensitivity” as well as sensitivity to electricity. Turning a fluorescent light on over his head would send him straight to the emergency room. Larry had to move his computer and TV to another building on his farm because Dave can’t tolerate them. He does put up with the phone, although Larry said when the phone rings it hurts Dave[5]. I found out about Dave’s allergies when Larry informed me that my carefully compiled list of food allergies that I turned in to the AMC did not make it into his hands. “Is there something major that you are allergic to that might be in the food?” he asked me.
“Honey.” I said.
“Oh yeah. I’d better let Dave know about that one.”
“Well, I don’t want to be a bother.”
“It’s okay, he understands. He’s allergic to electricity.”
We were told, upon arriving at the farm, to mingle with the dogs to get to know them. As I said before, they are semi-wild. Though smaller than I expected (most were around 50 pounds) they were still big. And mean looking. And lunging at me. And peeing all over the place. And tearing up the straw and the barrels and driving deep ruts into the snow. And occasionally vomiting[6]. I decided to get to know the dogs by staying as far away from them as possible.
After about a half hour of mingling it was time to load up the dog truck so we could go sledding. The dog truck was kind of cool. It had compartments built into it for each dog and then bars across the top for the sleds. Larry had a list of dogs that got to go sledding, and what team the dogs would be on. We followed him through the farm, and he would grab a barking, squirming, jumping beast, unchain it, point it in the direction of one of us hapless sledders, and say something like “You, take Blaster to the truck.” The dog would come tearing at us full speed. Since they are trained as sled dogs, they like to run, even when there’s no place to go.
Everyone else was busy wrestling with one of the little demons so I grabbed a dog as it came racing past me. He jerked me off my feet and started dragging me towards the yellow snow. Larry yelled at me to yank him up on his hind legs and to walk him to the truck or risk being towed through the woods. Even when I pulled the dog up by his collar[7], he was still such a wriggly mass of energy that he almost toppled me twice. Then, once I got the unmanageable beast to the truck, I theoretically was supposed to lift him up into a compartment that he did not seem particularly interested in entering.
“Nice doggy.” I said, trying to pet him to calm him down.
“GRRRRR.” He responded, snapping his teeth as if he were getting paid to bite the air.
Morgan came over to me and shoveled my dog unceremoniously in the compartment. I managed to drag two more dogs to the truck, a major accomplishment. My hands had started to swell and get a rash[8] and I was feeling a little worn out from my journey up the day before. The barking and yapping of the dog farm rose into a mournful howl as the dogs not in the truck realized that they were not going to run today. As these dogs live to run this realization made them so sad that the air was soon overwhelmed with their ululating and cacophonic yowling. This better be fun dammit, I thought to myself, slipping on a patch of ice and dropping my hand warmer into a pile of poop.
We drove for about 15 minutes to the park where we would be running the dogs. Two other dog trucks were in the parking lot when we got there. One was made out of an ambulance, the other made out of an RV. Both had big husky looking dogs that looked like they would be eating small children for their mid-morning snack. It turns out some very famous sledder was there that day running his dogs. He had done the Iditarod and other races. I can’t remember his name but his pack was an impressive sight as they took off running into the woods.
“When he comes down the path, you need to get your sled out of the way” Larry warned us. I imagined that with a simple voice command to the dogs and a little steering there wouldn’t be a problem. In another hour, I would not be so naïve.
The first thing we did was unpack the dogs from their dog truck compartments and chain them to the dog truck. This is not as simple as it sounds because the chains were sometimes under the truck, now mired in mud and poop. Then, after the dogs were chained, we had to rearrange them because they fight with each other. Two dogs can stand side by side for ten minutes without a single problem and then one will suddenly launch itself at the other’s head with super-canine force. I was usually the arbitrator of these little tussles, stepping amongst snapping jaws and scratching paws, grabbing the two combatants by the collar and screaming, “You guys better knock that off NOW or you’re really going to GET IT!” I found sometimes that I could stop the fighting just by yelling. I yelled at Sarge so many times that by the end of the trip he would cower under the truck if I walked by him.
After the dogs were secured we pulled the sleds down from the truck roof and tethered them to the front of the truck. We then ran lines that would be used to tether the dogs to the front of the sleds. A snow brake was attached below the sled handle. We then rounded up for our lesson in sledding.
“You stand here,” said Larry, pointing at two very VERY thin pieces of wood jutting out the back of the sled. For my sled the rails were only about two inches wide, although on other sleds the rails were almost three inches and covered with a piece of plastic to increase friction. Considering how fat my feet are, and how much fatter they were with fleece socks and my monstrous new boots, it seemed highly unlikely I would be able to balance.
“Here’s your brake,” he said, pointing to a metal contraption hanging down from the back of the sled. It looked like an inverted U with the ends sharpened to points. “The important thing about sledding is to not brake at all. If you need to slow down, drag your foot in the snow.” I envisioned what remained of the tendons in my knee separating like rotted rope strands as I tried to stop a sled with my foot. “You can also throw this anchor.” He held up the anchor and I tried to picture myself throwing it into the snow without accidentally slipping and impaling myself on it first. Not going to use the anchor, I decided.
“Okay, any questions?” he asked.
“What are the voice commands for controlling the dogs?” I asked.
“Hike, gee, and haw. But they don’t work. The dogs just run where ever they want. Just let them go. Try not to brake. They don’t like it. And the dogs are just like kids. If you keep yelling at them they aren’t going to listen to you at all.”
“And what’s the command to stop them?”
“You can yell anything you want at them. They’ll stop when they’re ready to stop.”
“But…”
“Look. There’s only two rules you need to know about sledding. The first is never let go of the sled. The second is don’t forget the first rule.”
Janet piped up. “But won’t the dogs stop if you fall off the sled?”
“Eventually. But you could be in for a three-mile walk back to the truck.” Larry looked at the dogs, straining against the chains on the truck. “Once I had a state trooper help me track down a team that dumped me here. They were almost to Lake Ontario.” Lake Ontario was 8 miles away. He sounded so proud.
It was time to attach the dogs to the sleds so that we could start our adventure.
Since there were four sleds, half the group would go on the sleds and the other half would walk to a meeting point in the woods. The first group would ride for 5 or 6 miles, get to the meeting point, and switch with the other group. Larry suggested that Janet and I go on the sleds first because the dogs would be “fresh”, and we were the only ones who had not been sledding before. The non-riders held the lead dogs’ collars as we boarded the sled to keep the dogs from biting each other.
I climbed on the skinny rails of the sled cursing my fat blue boots, more functional, apparently, in the shoe department at Bloomingdales than in the field. The dogs were so excited that they were pulling the sled off the ground in an attempt to run forward even though the sled was still tethered to the truck. A cacophony of yowling, snapping, barking, grunting, and growling filled the air as I tried to maintain balance.
My lead dogs were Maya and Jake. Not surprisingly, female dogs make better lead dogs than males, and they are better at training other dogs to become leads. Maya was training Jake, a white husky with strange black patches on his face and colorless eyes. Jake had made quite a stir getting into the truck, and he had been continually fighting with the other dogs. At the time, I didn’t think anything of his behavior, though. To me he was just another dog, even when he peed on my leg as I put his harness on.
Larry explained that we were to follow the trail and he would ride ahead to guide us. He mentioned again that we were not to, under any circumstance, let go of the sled. Giving a final warning, which was to watch out for the first turn, he headed out, the dogs shrieking with joy as the sled was untethered from the truck. I looked up the trail and saw, about 200 yards ahead, a 90° turn lined on either side with trees. Contemplating the ease of steering my sled I failed to notice I was being untethered from the truck and I felt a sudden jolt as the dogs galloped right into the turn at warp speed. I had obviously under-estimated the strength of the little mutts because it felt as though we were going at least 60 miles an hour.
Jake began rounding the corner in tight formation. My sled swung wide and I lost my footing. The sled spilled over sideways into the snow, scraping along at a furious clip until we crashed into a tree. “STOP!!! STOP!!!” I screamed. The dogs did, but only because they couldn’t run forward anymore with the sled wedged against a huge pine.
I stood up shakily, not releasing the sled. Jake stared at me, his bratty little tongue lazing out of the side of his mouth. The whiskers on his nose twitched with delight in a silent doggy “ha ha”. “Bastard,” I said, under my breath, knowing dogs can hear really well. “GRRR,” he said back.
Just then I looked up to see other members of my party taking pictures of my wreck. Make sure you send that to AMC for next year’s catalog I thought to myself.
I got back on the sled as Larry congratulated me for not letting go. But before I was completely settled, Jake took off again, dragging me through a huge snowdrift, over some rather large rocks, and finally through a not quite frozen creek. After each obstacle Jake would slightly turn his head to see how I was faring. The little nitwitted mutt was really pissing me off.
“Knock it off Jake!” I yelled. “I can have you thrown off this team! I’ll make sure you never lead again! You’re days of racing are over buddy! One more little stunt like that…” Looking up from Jake’s bouncing behind I realized we were now headed straight for a tree. Maya went left. Jake went right. The back two dogs followed Maya, sending me into the tree.
I heard a sickening cracking noise and could not tell if it had come from the sled or me. All the dogs on my team roiled in a collective biting fur pile. Larry heard the crash and headed back my way and began untangling the dogs as soon as he arrived on the scene. He discovered that Jake had chewed through the leather strap that held his collar to Maya’s collar. That little strap of leather is highly important because it forces the two lead dogs to go in the same direction. We jerry rigged the strap with duct tape that I happened to have in my pack.
“Sorry about the sled,” I said to Larry as we got everyone straightened out and ready to go again.
“No problem. I gave you the worst one anyway.” He said, grinning. “Just a hint. You have a brake on that thing.”
As we headed along the course I started using the U shaped brake on the down hills. It seemed to irritate Jake so I was immensely pleased, and would sometimes put on the brake just to see him turn around with bared teeth.
On the uphill part of the course Larry suggested we run behind our sleds to save the energy of the dogs. I did try this but noticed as soon as my weight was off the sled rails Jake would surge forward. Figuring I was safer staying on the sled I watched him put on a big act, huffing and puffing like a doggy drama queen at having to bear my weight up the hill.
I had finally mastered the basic points of sledding when we came to the meeting place where we would switch riders. My dogs ran up to another dog team and started tussling with them while I attempted to stop my sled. I accidentally ran over the back of Alina’s sled before I finally came to a stop.
I dug in the snow anchor as a dog team belonging to one of the racing teams ran by. All of our dogs, that moments before had been laying in the snow as if on the verge of total exhaustion, jumped up and tried to run after them. A dog on Alina’s team did manage to get loose, so Morgan and Larry had to chase him around in the snow, finally catching him with a piece of granola bar.
Alina, Janet, and I started walking back to the cars as everyone else took off on the sleds. By the time we reached the cars the team was headed into the final stretch of the trail so we watched them as they came around the 90° turn where I had had my earlier wreck. No one fell.
When the snow anchors were firmly dug in Larry and Morgan got out doggy bowls and fed the dogs a soup that looked like chicken with rice. Some dogs ate the soup right out of the bowl, whereas others, like Jake, knocked it into the dirty snow before consuming it. We had lunch as well, but we were served pasta with vegetables and gingerbread. Morgan had set up a bunch of camp chairs and we sat in a circle listening to racing stories, as well as stories about Larry’s trials buying meat for the dogs. Apparently the one meat packing plant that he used to buy chicken heads and whatever else it is that he feeds the dogs went out of business and other wholesalers were wary of selling meat to him. I guess they didn’t believe that he was feeding it to dogs. My suggestion that he take the phone into the dog yard while making the call appeared to go unnoticed but not unappreciated.
After lunch we got the dogs back in their little bins and began to take the sleds apart. I got to climb up on top of the truck and bungee cord the sleds to the roof, the best cleanup job to have. Had I been on the ground I would have had to help clean up the poop.
That night I slept extremely well and woke up at 6 a.m. At first I couldn’t figure out why I was awake at such an ungodly hour, and then I heard the ear splitting whine of a snow mobile driving down the road. It sounded like a monster weed whacker. Though I have been snowmobiling before and have nothing against them in certain areas, and at certain times, I found them to be as annoying as mosquitoes in the summer on this trip. They would drive on the road going slowly so you had to drive behind them in all their ugly day-glo glory. Also, they would tear around at all hours of the night and hog the pumps at the gas stations. Larry and Morgan said they had become more of a nuisance over the years, and perhaps Redfield will be eventually over-run by them.
I decided, since I was awake, to head up to the house for breakfast. I went in and found bowls with half a grapefruit sitting on every table mat. The sections of the grapefruit were sliced out so all I had to do was add sugar to the top of the grapefruit to make it edible. The syrup was out on the table so I poured half the bottle into my thermos so I could make some syrup tea, an invention of mine that is useful on any trip involving the cold. Around that time the rest of the crew showed up and began to eat their grapefruit.
Suddenly the kitchen door swung open to reveal Mitch’s wife Brenda bearing a giant basket full of the worst food ever. I’m talking, of course, about waffles. Though I have on occasion pretended to be allergic to waffles that excuse doesn’t usually fly so I tried to think up a reason why I had to make an immediate departure from the dining room just as she was placing a big waffle on my plate. Why people enjoy eating food that is, for all intents and purposes, crust with cesspools of foamy butter and dried up gelatinous syrup I have no idea. My method for handling the scenario was to continually cut my waffle into smaller and smaller pieces, figuring it would eventually dissolve away in the 1-inch pool of syrup on my plate. This scheme seemed to work, but as I was leaving Brenda pulled me aside.
“Do you not like my cooking?” she asked sadly. “You haven’t eaten anything I’ve made other than cookies. What can I make that you’ll eat?” I felt like a jerk. What could I say?
“Well, the cookies would work.” I replied.
“No, I’m talking about breakfast.”
So was I, but apparently these upstate New Yorkers aren’t as quick at picking up on these things.
“I know! I’ll make you some muffins! That’s just like having cookies for breakfast, only better!” She smiled and gave me a hug, walking back to the kitchen. I headed out glumly to my car. I hate muffins as much as I hate waffles. There’s a reason I travel with my own personal stash of breakfast cereal.
At Larry’s place we got the truck loaded with dogs and sleds as if we were old hands at sledding. Janet and I were in the second group of sledders, so we spent the morning leisurely walking to the meeting point. Jake seemed better behaved at the beginning of the run, but as we were making that same 90 degree turn, this time from the other direction, Jake lunged into a snow bank. My sled hit the packed snow and I was almost impaled on the handle. Then he took off running in the opposite direction, knocking my sled on the side. Snow jammed behind my sunglasses so that I couldn’t see a thing and my face was dragged along the icy path, causing my ears to feel as if they were being sawed off the side of my head.
I went sliding by Larry, holding onto the sled for dear life, screaming. Larry yelled, “Hey, you’re going the wrong way!” as I flew past. I would have yelled something in return to him but by then the wind had been knocked out of me and I was unable to speak.
Maya somehow managed to wrest control from Jake, and I arrived at the clearing just as the other dogs were getting their chicken soup. Larry got bowls for my team as Jake sampled some feces left over from another sled team. After everyone had eaten we piled the dogs back into the truck and headed back to the Inn for some dinner.
The next morning was the same as the previous, except that Jake seemed to be even more wound up than the previous days. I was in the first group to sled and Jake was hopping around terrorizing the other dogs as we all waited to start sledding. Larry asked Chris to hold the strap connecting Maya and Jake’s collars together to keep Jake in line. Jake kept yanking Chris off his feet, and then chewed through Chris’ shoelace. Alina tried to help control Jake. Larry’s sled took off, and then Janet’s sled pulled away at warp speed. Around the same time Chris’ hand slipped off the strap and he fell over as Jake lunged towards Janet’s speeding sled. He was hit in the head as it flew by, and he rolled along the snow in a little ball, carrying the other dogs with him. It was like watching him get hit by a car.
I yelled that he had been hit but Morgan said, “Oh, he’s alright,” and untethered me from the truck. Maya took off but Jake was having a hard time keeping up. He kept shaking his head and running into Maya as if he had had one drink too many and was ready to call it a night. I felt horrible watching him struggle up the hills and I got off my sled and pushed it along, shouting little encouragements to him.
When we stopped at the clearing I told Larry about the accident. I felt terrible but there was nothing I could do. Larry checked and said that Jake did not have a concussion, and it looked like he had just damaged his ear. I stroked Jake’s head as foul smelling globules of saliva spilled off the sides of his mouth onto my pants. And then he licked my hand. I took it as a truce, and decided he would have done it even if I hadn’t spilled syrup on my glove earlier that morning.
I did a second ride that day with another sled team and on a better sled. Morgan was testing out a new route so it was just three teams sliding through the woods. The sensation was like skiing without the effort. The sound of the dog’s fur pads hitting the packed snow was hypnotizing and all the trees looked beautiful with the snow piled on the branches. It was thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing. But somehow it just wasn’t the same without Jake.
We had our final lunch in the clearing and began saying our goodbyes. Elinor was driving to New York, Janet to Boston, and Alina, Mark and family were headed to Pennsylvania. I stripped off my top layer of sledding clothes and tossed my jacket into my car, intending to leave as well. Somehow, though, I had managed to hook my keys onto my jacket as I was tossing it into my car, noticing only after I had locked the door. Two hours later, a mechanic showed up on snowmobile and broke into my car. Poor Morgan and Larry had stayed around to make sure I was okay (some of the dog sledders are as scary as their dogs) and we hovered around while the mechanic worked on my car.
It took 45 minutes but he was finally able to break in. I asked him what the fee was and he told me $60. At the time the only cash I had was a $20. “How about a $20 and a hug?” I asked. He stared at the ground for a minute, and then agreed. Larry laughed while I suffered a huge bear hug that practically broke my ribs, and then we watched the mechanic ride away.
Larry and Morgan walked me to my car, holding onto my keys until I was safely inside the car. “Thanks for everything guys. I learned a lot. Sorry about wrecking the sled into a tree.”
“No problem,” Larry said. I drove over to the truck and waited while they got in so I could follow them out to the highway. A dog tail was hanging out one of the bins, whipping around like a flag.
Jake. I guess it was his way of saying goodbye.
[1] The next morning at breakfast everyone told me they thought initially that I was a complete moron for waiting until 830 PM to get directions for the trip.
[2] For the sake of my parents, I will not reveal the REAL speed I was going when I was pulled over.
[3] This, by the way, is illegal. Apparently, you have to drive with shoes on.
[4] When I pointed out to him that she had just bitten through a rather thick rope with one snap of her canines and that her head was flailing around uncontrollably, he said, “Well, you have to TIME the bite just right.”
[5] So, no more making fun of my allergies…
[6] I found out from Larry they vomit from eating their own, or another dog’s, feces, or from running too much after breakfast.
[7] The first time I saw this being done, I thought it would strangle the dogs. But it doesn’t seem to bother them and they hop along on their hind legs pretty easily. They can still breathe because their collars are so loose.
[8] I have an allergy to dogs, which begs the question why I was on a dog sledding trip.
.JPG)
