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Mark & Karen
Ramstead
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North Wapiti Siberian Husky Kennels
Iditarod 2001 - Tales from the Trail

November 13, 2000 

What a weekend! We did a series of runs with the dogs from Friday night to Sunday morning, totally around 100 miles. They were terrific! I’m so pleased. Everyone still had lots of spunk and energy after!

I had Surge and Orion in lead for all but the last 17-mile leg. I decided I didn’t want to stress young Surge too much, so Grover got to go up front with Orion for that last bit.  I need to do some ground work with Orion and work on the “HIKE’ command with him. He really doesn’t seem to understand what it means and waits for everyone else to start moving before he goes. Not a good thing for a leader and something I will work on this week.

Mark had Gus and Smiley in lead for his whole run. Gus actually had his tug line break on the second leg of the weekend and took off into the dark. Luckily, when he realized the rest of the team wasn’t with him, he turned around and came back – what a good guy!!

The weather has been cool, which is nice for the dogs, but we had to get a lot of our winter clothing out of storage! The moon was full and Saturday night on the trail was spectacular. Both of us came into the yard at 1am with our headlights off, as it was so bright the dogs were throwing shadows on the snow! I love running at night when it is like that. 

My root canal on Thursday went pretty well. One down, one to go. I’m in to town this Thursday and again the following Monday for the rest of the work. Teach me to stall off on those dentist appointments for years and years! 

Well, I need to run. Mark’s car was in for an oil change on the weekend and I need to drive him into town to pick it up.

Karen's 2001 Diary


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