GoPro Footage of Hannah Mushing on a Sled with Sled Dogs!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a happy new year! 2024 was full of adventure and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2025!

Now that we’re through the holidays, I finally had time to edit some of the GoPro footage I recorded while mushing up in Michigan a couple weeks ago. I used a GoPro bike mount around the handle of the sled, to give you an idea of the point of view.

It was hard to pare 40 minutes of video down into a more reasonable amount of time, but I think I captured most of the highlights. I did not add any sound to the video so you can experience it like you’re riding along in the sled with me! You’ll hear the sled moving around on the snow, the dogs excitedly barking and jumping at stops, and a quick note of encouragement from Blair!

Without further ado…check it out!

For those who may be visually impaired, or want to hear more about what is happening in the video clips, I’m going to try and narrate for you:

When the video begins, I had just taken off with my team of 3: Blizzard, Boo, and Pence. Riley and Blair are riding close by on the snowmobile to make sure I get the hang of things. We were on more of a snow covered road initially, so the dogs had less resistance with the sled and were moving faster than some other portions of the video. You’ll hear some scraping sounds, which is me using the drag mat to control the speed while I get my bearings.

We then turn on to a more narrow, slightly less groomed trail in the woods. It may be hard to tell, but this part of the trail was definitely more technical than the straight, flat road. Several hills, bumps, and turns. That’s what makes it fun though! The sled is surprisingly forgiving and handled it with no problem. (Side note - the GoPro has built-in stabilization, so the video is inherently smoother than what I actually experienced in real life. But if I didn’t have that feature turned on, you’d be dizzy watching the run.)

I was surprised to learn how many different muscle groups one uses while driving a dog sled. My knees were always slightly bent, to help ride out the bumps, and be ready to hit the brake/drag mat if necessary. On the turns, I had to squat down a bit more with my legs, shift my weight to one leg or the other, and use my upper body to lean in to the turns.

After maybe a half mile or ¾ of a mile or so, we stopped. Blair and Riley were curious how I was feeling on the sled and if I thought I could handle a fourth dog. Of course I was having a blast and wanted to add another dog! While Blair is hooking Jelly up in lead with Blizzard, Pence and Boo are screaming and jumping for joy, wanting to keep running. It made my heart so happy to see them in their element and still enjoying it!

Once Jelly was hooked up, we had a quick photo op. If you listen closely after the photos, Blair runs by and says “you’re doing great!”.

We took off again, this time with four dogs, and it was definitely more power and speed, which felt awesome. As we’re running along, you’ll see Boo reach out to the right and grab mouthfuls of snow along the way. I thought it was adorable and funny to see him doing that.

Eventually, we come to an intersection with multiple ways to travel. I gave the dogs a “haw” (left) command, and you’ll see them quickly and sharply turn left and traverse a snowbank that was a couple feet high. I was fully prepared to get off the sled and walk over the snowbank, but the dogs kept going and I stayed on the runners. We made it over surprisingly easy!

About 3.5 minutes in the video, we come up on a fairly steep uphill. I used one foot to kick in the snow to try and help the dogs up the hill similar to how I do on the scooter in dryland races.

As the video continues, it’s getting darker outside, and you can see my headlamp light bouncing around. You’ll also see and hear sticks/branches hitting the camera. Those are the types of branches we were cutting out of the way of the trail the days prior. I know it’s impossible to get all of them, but if you get a few each time you pass by, eventually you won’t have to duck around them.

Toward the end of the video, we get back on the road and I tell the dogs we’re going “home”, so they know they don’t have to reserve energy. I let them pull as fast as they wanted on that last little stretch, and it was so much fun! I have no idea how fast we were actually going but it felt fast lol.

That’s all we have for you today! It looks like some snow is in the forecast for us here in Indiana this weekend. I’m excited for it as usual, but even if we get a decent amount, we have not gotten our sled handle fixed yet so we won’t be able to use it this weekend. As of now, it doesn’t look like our musher friends in northern Indiana will get enough to get their sleds out, but we’ll see.

Talk to you all soon!

-Hannah, Riley, Boo, and Pence