If you’re a sled dog that lives on a glacier and can run on snow all year long, the first heavy snow isn’t such a big deal. For the rest of us, as fall turns to winter, we are plenty anxious to park the 4-wheeler and get the sled out. In Wisconsin, we begin to look for snow around Thanksgiving. We anxiously listen to the weather report at least three times a day. There was no mention of snow until the second week of December when winter storm watches and warnings were issued for our area. We didn’t get too excited – you know how it is – storms can take different paths and a storm forecast to bring many inches of snow might only deliver a trace or maybe the precipitation turns out to be rain. With the watches and warnings in mind, we settled into our houses after supper hoping we’d get enough snow for the snow hook to hold. That’s the determining factor between using the 4-wheeler or the sled. During the night, the wind blew fiercely and the snow sometimes fell at the rate of two inches an hour. Little peeks out of my house during the night revealed a white out. At dawn I could wait no longer, I leaped out of my warm house and found myself BELLY DEEP in snow! We were not disappointed this time – the watches and warnings produced a BLIZZARD. In just one night we got 14 inches of snow complete with even deeper hard packed drifts created by dangerous winds! I was so excited I howled the good news to the other dogs as well as our handlers and mushers.

The storm that brought our sled out originated in northern Texas. It gained strength and crossed 14 states before dumping all that snow in Wisconsin and neighboring states. These storms are called “Panhandle Hooks” because they start brewing out near the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas then as they gain strength they hook around and head to the northeast. You can do an Internet search like I did to learn more about this type of storm. The other type of winter storm that hits the Great Lakes Region is an Alberta Clipper. Sounds like a ship – but it’s not. Alberta Clippers are fast moving storms that deliver sleet and freezing rain or a few inches of snow. The precipitation is always followed by frigid arctic air and bitter winds. Have you checked into the type of storms or weather systems that typically affect your hometown? It’s very interesting and while you’re at it, you might want to check into the meaning of weather “watch” and weather “warning.” The science of meteorology is very interesting especially for we sled dogs who live and work in the elements.

After all the snow, one might think our humans would rush to round up the mushing equipment, rig the sled, transfer the gang-line from the 4-wheeler and off we’d go for our first sled run of the season. Well, that didn’t happen. Remember, I said the snow was up to my belly and some of my teammates aren’t even as tall as I am. Before we can pull the sled down the trail, we need to have a trail. Even a large team of very strong huskies can’t go very fast or get very far in belly deep fresh snow so just like in the Iditarod where trail breakers go out ahead of the teams we needed trail breakers. Iditarod trail breakers on snow machines stay just ahead of the lead mushers to establish, mark and pack the trail. Trail breaking at Just Guts Kennel isn’t quite like that – our trail breakers do it the old fashioned way – snowshoes! While you might think that mushers and handlers have it pretty easy riding the runners of the sled while we do all the work, such is NOT the case. Mushers and Handlers do a tremendous amount of work to open trails for us to run on. They can break trail at the rate of about 2 miles an hour and we have MANY miles of local trails.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to my trail breakers and to Iditarod trail breakers who open 1049 miles of trail for the Last Great Race. We couldn’t do it with out you! This is what team work is all about.

Born to run,
Sanka