Mushing with the BraverMountain Team, Part 1

Hey everyone! A few days ago we told you we were headed north for an adventure. We typically send these newsletters on Fridays, but we couldn’t wait to tell you all about our trip!

There’s so much to tell and soooo many adorable dog photos to share, that we’ll probably have to split this up into at least a couple parts. Not kidding, I probably took a few hundred photos at least. It’s going to be so hard to pick which ones to share!

So what was our adventure? We traveled to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to run dogs with Blair and Q, our friends from BraverMountain mushing! If you hadn’t heard the news, Q recently signed up to run the Iditarod in March! Although we aren’t able to go to Alaska for Iditarod, we were blessed with the opportunity to join them for some training runs and learn more about winter mushing and sled dog care over the last several days.

First of all, we stayed in the cutest little cabin! We were warned ahead of time that there was not really any running water in the cabin, however, there was an outhouse available less than 50 yards away. And we kept warm with a fire inside the cabin. Honestly, this is probably the most “rustic” circumstances I’ve stayed in, but it was not as challenging as I thought it would be! Also, there was surprisingly great internet which allowed us to somewhat stay connected to the world.

Boo and Pence were excited to see the snow! When we let them out of the car, Boo took off exploring. After a few minutes, he came around the cabin running full speed, nearly sliding around the corner on his side.

Pence immediately ran over to the nicest, warmest dog house and claimed it as hers for the weekend.

Now onto the adventures…

When we arrived at the cabin, Q was already there. Immediately, he tossed some snow suits to us and asked us to try them on. We wasted absolutely not time getting busy, which is what we were hoping for! Had to make the most out of the time we had.

Once we had our snow suits on, Q introduced us to TOE WARMERS. Most of you are probably familiar with the hand warmer packs. But did you know the same company also makes toe warmers?! We did not, but they are an absolute god send. They’re basically little oval-like shaped warmers that stick to the bottom of your sock inside your boot and keep your toes warm! I will definitely be investing in more of those.

We bundled up with multiple layers, snow suits, warmers, hats, gloves, and boots, and headed to the dog yard. The dog yard is an area where the dogs stay. Each dog has an area of their own, with a house full of straw to keep warm. That night, temperatures were in the single digits and forecast to drop just below zero.

We jumped right in and started scooping poop. You’re probably thinking, why would she tell us this? Because folks, I learned a lot from this. When it’s this cold outside, the poop freezes into the snow. On one hand, it seemed easier when it was frozen. Less messy, less smelly. We used little hoes to more or less chisel out the poop. However, this occasionally sent poop flying through the air, if you caught it just right. This is where I learned to keep my mouth shut while chiseling lol.

While scooping poop, I had a little conversation with each dog. Like “hi doggo, I’m Hannah, I’m just here to steal your poops but I’ll be back for pets later”. Most of the dogs would stay out of the way and let me do my thing, but some dogs are just chaotic and had other plans. While scooping, sometimes I would get tackled from behind. I was prepared for that though.

What I was not prepared for was Jules’ tongue going in my mouth every time I bent down to scoop his area. Jules is quite the kisser. He’s so fast at it too, you never see it coming.

Ok enough about scooping poop.

After some of the dog chores were done, it was time to run the dogs! It was dark at this point. Q had a couple different teams planned for runs that evening. We harnessed up the first team and attached the gangline to a snowmobile, or snowmachine as the northerners call them.

Especially for bigger teams and when you’re alone, a snowmobile is a great option to use for running dogs. If you need to stop, the snowmobile has brakes that are plenty strong enough to hold the dogs back. The snowmobile also had features to keep the humans warmer such as a windshield and hand warmers.

Q also used this opportunity to allow Riley and me to get our feet wet into mushing, but with lower pressure and risk. We tied a dog sled to the back of the snowmobile. So the dogs were out in front of the snowmobile running, and the sled was being drug behind. This allowed us to learn how to better ride a sled, learn how to steer, how to drift around turns, and how to control the speed and keep the leads tight.

Riley rode on the snowmobile with Q while I tried out the sled first.

I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly! I figured out how to apply pressure with my feet to make the sled shift different directions. I used the drag mat brake to keep the line tight between me and the snowmobile.

After a while, we went back to the dog yard to get the second round of dogs harnessed up and give them a nice little run. Riley and I switched places, and he tested out the sled.

Riley took this time to shift his weight around and try different things out around the turns and straightaways. At one point, he lost the team! Basically, he took a corner a little too sharp and fell off the sled. Luckily, it was a low pressure situation and didn’t matter! The dogs weren’t tied to him, after all. We stopped the dogs to let Riley get back on the sled before we continued the run. It was a great learning experience!

While I was on the snowmobile, I got to watch 10 happy doggos trotting along in the snow. It was so cool to watch them do their thing.

When we returned from the second run, we gave all the dogs a meal and scooped poop again. At that point, the temperature was nearing zero and we headed back to the cabin.

The fire had warmed the cabin up to around 50 degrees by this point, which felt great compared to outside. Because Boo and Pence have been indoor dogs for a while, they have not grown out thick winter coats. Because of how cold it was, we had them sleep inside the cabin that night.

One quick, kind of funny story though. I mentioned there was no bathroom in the cabin, but we were told there was an outhouse within 50 yards. We should not have waited until midnight, in the dark, to try and find it lol. We walked all over the property, opening up various sheds and other small cabins trying to find the facilities. We gave up and made a call to ask where it was. We finally found the little outhouse tucked away in the trees. Note to self - find the facilities while it is still daylight next time lol.

Before bed, we set out meat to begin to thaw for the dogs’ breakfast in the morning. After that, the dogs curled up in front of the fire and we went to bed to rest up for a busy weekend.

This newsletter is already getting pretty long, so we’ll end it there for now! We’ll be back with part 2 on Friday, where we’ll talk about our snowmobiling adventures and more runs with the dogs, where we encountered some unexpected obstacles.

-Hannah, Riley, Boo, and Pence