Those of you who have known me for a while know that I keep a list in my Google drive of all the things I want to do in my life. Like any good list, it continues to grow. While in Utah last week on a trip with Columbia Sportswear, I got to cross one of those things off this list, which was pretty spectacular considering I thought I was just going to be snowboarding. The life list item I speak of is dog sledding. For years I have had a desire to try this activity but never found myself presented with the opportunity until now. I always thought I would have cross this one off my list in Maine or Alaska, but I never considered Utah.
It was snowy day in Utah that day, which I thought would be a perfect setting for the experience. The dogs were jumping with excitement!(literally) All they wanted to do was pull, and pull they did. The musher strapped my Teammate, Jon and I into the sled and away we went. I found it quite interesting that the Mushers don’t actually yell mush to get the dogs going, our musher said that that was just a thing of Hollywood imagination.
We raced across the snow further into the mountains, dogs barking and bickering amongst themselves. The musher yells gee as we approach a right turn and the dogs obey. We reach a left turn and the musher yells haw. Again the dogs obey, this time they vere left. We continue to cruise along at what I estimate to be a 10-12 mile an hour pace. With the fresh snow falling I couldn’t help but feel relaxed. This really was quite an experience. It is hard to believe that these dogs can cover roughly 100 miles a day when competing in an iditarod.
We rounded the final turn and made our way back to where we began. The other group of dogs began to howl with excitement upon our arrival. This certainly was an experience of a lifetime, and one I soon won’t forget. All I know is I want to do it again!
http://youtu.be/EEQKD8UUaPI
Loved your story. Brought it to life once again. Hard to believe it was almost a week ago!