Our First Time Mushing with Sled Dogs on a Sled and on Snow

Hey everyone! Hannah here to talk about our first ever experience running sled dogs on SNOW on a SLED.

Back in late January 2022, I was working for the National Weather Service and part of my job included posting and engaging with content on the local office’s social media accounts. One day, a man named Keith commented on the office’s Facebook account saying he was hoping for more snow so he could run his huskies. Immediately, I was like…WHAT?! There’s mushers in Indiana?!

After shift, and on my own Facebook account, I decided to message the guy to find out more. It turns out, he has several Siberian Huskies and has trail systems to run them on his property, about 15 minutes from my office. We exchanged numerous messages about people we know in the community and experiences we’ve had with mushing. He told me if we received enough snow, he would invite Riley and me out to his place to run his dogs on a sled.

A couple weeks later, we received several inches of snow, and Keith messaged saying the trails were groomed and ready for mushing! Riley and I had never mushed on a sled or been around sled dogs on snow before, so of course we jumped at the opportunity. We were told there would be a few other mushers and dog teams out there as well.

When we arrived, there were several trucks with dogs and sleds. Some Siberian Huskies and some Alaskan Malamutes. Being rookies, we watched other teams take off and return back to the dog lot.

Keith hooked up a small sled with two of his Siberian Huskies and told us we had to give it a try. Of course, I hopped on right away. And folks, it was AMAZING.

This was unlike any other dog sport I had ever experienced. Gliding across the snow with two beautiful dogs, pure joy. I was afraid my feet would slip off the runners, but surprisingly I had a really good grip. The sled was harder to turn than a bike, of course. I was not skilled enough to drift around the turns lol.

Riley and Keith followed me on a four wheeler around the trail. We did about a mile long loop and headed back to the dog lot.

Now, it was Riley’s turn.

I (Riley) honestly had no idea what to expect when it was my turn. I was nervous that it was going to be so fast I wouldn’t be able to hang on. But I was watching other mushers and it didn’t look THAT fast. But still, it was a rush stepping on to the sled for the first time.

When I stepped off the brakes, the dogs bolted! The power was beyond what I expected. Thankfully, I was holding on tight. After the quick start, I realized we weren’t moving as fast as I initially thought, it was only the initial power/jerk of them taking off that really yanked the sled.

Once we were moving along, it was such a smooth ride. It felt effortless for the dogs and myself. We took the turns with ease and the dogs followed all my voice commands, which I thought was impressive since I was still relatively new to mushing and these weren’t our dogs.

I really thought it was going to be harder to control the sled and the dogs, but it wasn’t. I don’t want to discredit mushing saying it’s easy by any means. Maybe because it was only two dogs and they were well-trained. With a full team, we would’ve been moving much faster and I’m sure it’s a lot more chaos with eight or more dogs than it is with only two. And I hate to say it, but… they were slow-berians after all. 😉 

While it was only a couple of short runs for Hannah and I, we fell even more in love with mushing (if it was even possible). Being able to run on snow made us feel fully engrained in the mushing world, an experience unlike any other.

Sadly, this has been our only experience to date running dogs on snow. If you’ve been following along with our stories, you’ve probably heard us say we’re dying to get out on the snow with Boo and Pence this winter. We haven’t had the chance yet, but fingers crossed for the next month or so. We might even make a trip up north to squeeze in some running with our new sled.

More to come on that, if it happens, down the road!

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Until next time, stay safe out there with all the ice storms moving across the country.