Tuesday, October 25, 2011

At Last - A Training Road

I think I have finally found my mushing training place. Weyerhaeuser has an old, abandoned, haul road that runs from Springfield to south of Cottage Grove. I love the Cottage Grove end (where we did the tracking seminar). No one is there and the road runs beside a beautiful lake but the drive is over 60 miles. A friend told where to access the end starting in Springfield. I called the Weyerhaeuser lands office and got permission to run the road.

This morning I went to check it out. From the city street it looked like I could not make it by the main gate so I drove to another entrance I had spotted on google earth. It was at the end of a narrow street and blocked by huge boulders and a "no parking" sign. Determined to check the road out, I unloaded Ferrari (my rig) and wrestled her through the boulders; took the trailer off the van: turned them around: re-hooked; drove down the road to where I could park; unloaded and harnessed the dogs and hiked them back up to the rig.
Our run was fantastic. With easy hills and frequent turns, the road is not boring for the dogs. We quickly went the 1/2 mile back to the gate (where there actually is plenty of room to get the rig by) turned around and ran back to the boulder blocked entrance. Once there, the dogs headed right through the boulders. Other than some paint chipped because I was not being fast enough lifting Ferrari over the really tight spots, the trip was a success - well almost. When I had taken the trailer off to turn around, I noticed that the pin on the trailer stinger on was missing. The drag chain was the only thing holding the trailer to the van. Not good. Fortunately part of the cable and a locking beener I use to hold Ferrari as I am hooking up the dogs just fit between the trailer and the van tie down. When I get a new stinger pin, we are heading back to the main gate.

Temperatures cool enough to run the dogs are too cold for fuchsias and plants in pots. This afternoon everything was moved into the green house, including the last of the transparent green tomatoes.