mi//outdoors

Fun Sled Dog Ride with Emelia

2012-01-29T21:04:00.001-05:00

Took Emelia for her first longer distance sled dog ride in the sled basket today. She had lots of fun and helped take care of the dogs before and after the run.

Half-Fat Bike Experiment - Success

2012-01-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

Finally got a chance to try out my new studded rear tire from 45NRTH. Part of the goal my half-fat bike experiment was to come up with a solution that would allow me to train sled dogs when trail conditions deteriorated. This is exactly what we had over the last week. Lost most of our snow, trails where a mix of ice and bare spots with a little fresh accumulation added this AM. I took three dogs out with the goal of a 12-14mph run. The bike performed really well, especially on the straight aways. I was still a little overly cautious on the tighter turns, but I stayed upright for the entire ride. The rear tire handled really well with little to no slipping. These conditions (where a sled and especially skis aren't possible) is exactly the void I was hopping to fill with the bike....and as of today I think it is a success!

2012 MUSH Clear Lake State Park Sled Dog Race: Videos and Results

2012-01-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

13th Overall 5-dog team. Borrowed three dogs. Kenai and Cello in lead on day 1. Cello in single lead day 2 w/ Kenai in point, seemed to solve the issues Kenai was having.

Half-Fat Bike Experiment: Dog Trial Run #1

2012-01-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

Went out for my first dog powered run on my newly modified half-fat bike. Pretty mixed results. My existing back tire, isn't made for any type of sandy or snowy surface, so this resulted in a nearly unrideable first run. I don't think I traveled in a straight line for more than a few hundered yards over the 6 miles. And I was litrealy standing still, spinning the back tire when trying go up hill. So I need a more aggressive tire for the back. I knew that, but wasn't sure if I should go with a studded tire or not. Still not sure, but am leaning towards studded .

Next step, upgrade the back tire. This will hopefully give me enough traction to stay safely upright. I took one big spill, but was able to adhere to the first rule of mushing - never let go of the sled, or in this case bike.

Half-fat Bike

2012-01-13T20:28:00.001-05:00

Turned my Mtn. Bike into a half-fat snow bike with help from Ted at Ada bike shop. Test runs have been promising. Maiden dog powered voyage to come tomorrow hopefully!Surly Pugsley Fork and Surly "Nate" tire up front at a whopping 5psi. Back tire still needs some work. More to come...

Bikejor: Fort Custer

2012-01-05T15:10:00.001-05:00

Training on a Fat Bike

2012-01-05T12:18:00.003-05:00

Don't run dogs on paved trails

2012-01-05T12:13:00.002-05:00

Quote

2012-01-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

You will not rise to the occasion, you will fall to your lowest level of training.

On the wall of the Alaska State Troopers Training Center

Douglas Valley Vineyards Dryland Sled Dog Race

2011-11-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

Flat River Fall Steelhead

2011-11-06T12:08:00.000-05:00

A small Jack ~16"

A 27" hen

Pictured Rocks

2011-09-20T14:14:00.000-04:00

3-dog Bikejor at the VASA Trail

2011-09-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

Early Kings on the PM

2011-08-28T14:10:00.000-04:00

Emelia at Sleeping Bear Dunes

2011-08-21T13:29:00.000-04:00

Dock Dive Fail

2011-05-09T12:48:00.000-04:00

King Salmon on the Pere Marquette

2010-10-04T12:20:00.000-04:00

Tahquamenon Country Sled Dog Race

2010-01-13T13:37:00.001-05:00

Here's my "race" team getting ready for the big event -

7-dog & 3-dog Loops at Fort Custer

2009-12-13T16:03:00.005-05:00

Looking for another opportunity to run more than ten miles we headed to Fort Custer Saturday afternoon. My goal was to run the 7-dog trail (~6.5 miles) twice and then try for either the 3-dog or 5-dog loop. Never having once seen a snowmobile at Fort Custer I figured we'd have the place pretty much to ourselves Wrong...I could hear the whine of snowmobiles flying through the woods the minute I stepped out of my car at the campground trailhead.

We still had some light so I hit the trail. I was testing out a new bridle I'd put on my sled a well as the short pulka ManMat harnesses I'd just gotten from Howling Dog. We ended up just doing the 7-dog loop once and then the 3-dog loop once (total GPS mileage of 10.6 miles). We could hear snowmobiles the whole time, but we only crossed paths with one group of riders, taking a break at the intersection of where the 5 and 7 dog loops dump into the 3-dog loop. We weaved through them and their sleds easily and continued on our way.

We had a great run. The new bridle system worked awesome and I absolutely love the pulka harnesses. The heavy snow on the trees along the 7-dog trail made for a beautiful run.

First 10mile+ run sled run

2009-12-10T23:00:00.053-05:00

We've gotten a lot of snow over the past few days and in a effort to go on a longer than normal (4-6mile) run I loaded the dogs in blizzard conditions and headed to the White Pine Trail. This is an old state managed rail-trail that runs from near Grand Rapids to Cadillac. Never having really been on this trail my thought was to try to run from Rockford to Cedar Springs ~ 14 miles round trip. The trail in Rockford looked sketchy as it had been plowed earlier in the day, so I headed a few miles north to my plan B access spot - the Russell Street parking area. I found the parking area despite near whiteout conditions. As I turned into the lot my headlights hit the kiosk at the trailhead and a sign reading "SNOWMOBILES ALLOWED NORTH OF RUSSELL STREET" Oh man...I had though much of this trail was closed to snowmobiles. Oh well, the weather was deteriorating quickly and I've found most Michigan snowmobile riders don't like to come out when things are this bad. I was right...in our ten and a half mile run from Russell Street to just north of 19 mile and back we only encountered about half a dozen snowmobilers. 99% of snowmobile riders I've run across while on a dog sled are real courteous slow down to a near idle when they pass us. This was exactly what we encountered on this run except for one group of two riders who got within about 10 feet of us (hooked down and pulled off the trail) and the gunned it passing us at near 30-40 mph and about a foot from where we were pulled off the trail.

Another use for my steel snowhook comes to mind in situations like that.

In any case the dogs did really good... after they slowdown from their initial 15+mph sprint pace for the first couple miles and settle into a 9-12 mph lope I feel like they could go on forever at that pace.

MiDD Cart Training Run

2009-11-27T15:05:00.001-05:00

Brigid and I took the dogs out on a ~ 4mile cart run on Friday. We were able to use a cart that was donated to the MiDD group. The resources and trail system that Rick and Linda Lange and the MiDD group have up here in awesome...and it's just over an hour from our house!
http://www.michigandogdrivers.org/
http://lastchanceretreatandtrails.blogspot.com/

New Dog Houses

2009-11-15T14:56:00.000-05:00

Put together a couple of new dog houses using the 1 house from 1 sheet of plywood design on John Little's website (http://kasilofkennel.bravehost.com/doghouse/doghouse.html ). Worked out really well...I made a couple of small mods and found a thing or two I'll change for next time.

Porcupine Mountains

2009-09-13T14:35:00.005-04:00

We parked at the Government Peak Trailhead, road walked to the Lake Superior Trail and took that to just past the Big Carp River Trail for day one. ~14 miles

We made camp on the “beach” as every campsite was taken.

We found a 6′x’6 area of gravel that was almost sand on the beach and set up there.

Made the decision that due to the injuries on the dogs feet that we needed to take the quickest route back. So we took the Big Carp River trail to the Lake of the Clouds visitor center and then I caught a ride from some nice folks back to our car. ~10 miles

Lessons Learned:

Always Bring Dog Booties!

The Lake Superior Trail kicked our butts and our dogs had some injuries on their feet as a result of the rocky trail.

So we bailed out early and headed home.

We did have a great time, but I was feeling really irresponsible for putting our dogs in a position to get hurt like that.

Mackinaw Mush

2009-02-09T14:08:00.001-05:00

Last weekend Brigid and I had the opportunity to handle (help out) for Rex and Krista Jones at the Mackinaw Mush, a sprint race in Mackinaw City, MI.

Rex and Krista just moved back to Michigan from Alaska, where they lived for a number of years. Rex has established a real high quality sled dog kennel, focusing on European sprint and skijor lines.

His dogs are awesome, he brought mostly "scandinavian" hounds with him many of which where out of Egil Ellis's famous dog "Mike". He let me run my dogs with a couple of these guys after the race events wrapped up on Saturday - great experience.

However, for me the highlight was getting to mess around with his "Vorstehs", which are essentially German Short haired Pointers (GSP) out of European sled dog lines. These dogs are bigger than the more typical sprint dogs used in N. America. These big dogs are solid muscle, much different than my lean and lanky huskies. Getting to work with these guys over the weekend, has been a real eye opening experience.

I'm really thinking that I'd want to try out a couple of these GSP's. These are the type of dogs most people who are competing successfully in 1-2 dog events are using (i.e. skijor and bikejor).

You can't really tell from the video, but I'm doing all I can to hold these two guys back with out falling over. One of these dogs easily has the strength of two of my guys...

Llamas and Sled Dogs - Allegan SGA

2008-11-23T21:30:00.005-05:00

From Allegan State Game Area

We've been sledding at Allegan State Game Area a few more times over the last week

From Allegan State Game Area

I've found two places that seem pretty good, for us. The first couple runs we went on we parked near 115th Ave off of 44th St. We ran north down a powerline corridor that parallels 44th St for about 1/4 mile then east on 115th Ave (on both the snowmobile "trail" and road) for about 4 miles turning around near a llama farm

From Allegan State Game Area

(which made turning my dogs around really challenging).

On Saturday I also ran them north of 115th Ave. and 44th St. on a two-track that heads north on the west side of 44th St for about 2 miles. Much of these trails were either sand or leaves churned up by snowmobiles - hard work, but still fun.

We also went back today and did about an 8 mile run on the trails around Ely Lake and the campground coming out onto a snowmobile trail along 116th Ave for awhile. A lot of the trail around Ely Lake was flooded out and frozen over

From Allegan State Game Area

which made for real interesting going.

First Sled Run!

2008-11-18T23:01:00.010-05:00

After work I loaded up the dogs and sled and went looking for some snow.

From Allegan State Game Area

We headed to the Allegan State Game Area. The Lake Shore got the first heavy snow yesterday, when we arrived in Allegan there were about 8"-10" on the ground!

This was also Cello's first time actually pulling a sled.

We ran a little over 5 miles down some snowmobile trail and two-tracks. The off-road trail was really soft and hard going. The on-road sections were fast but rough and added some more damage to my runner plastic - which is in pretty bad shape from last year.

The dogs ran great. I started out with them all in single file Cello in lead Paikea in point and Jasper in wheel.

From Allegan State Game Area

This worked pretty well, but Pai was spreading the line out across the road and this made me kind of nervous in case we had to pass a snowmobiler or hunters.

From Allegan State Game Area

I moved Paikea back to wheel with Jasper and this worked out well.

From Allegan State Game Area

Cello kept the line straight and tight the whole way back to the car. Paikea seems to really like the slightly slower speed of the sled vs. bikejoring - she ran really well. It's nice having her out on the trail because she knows commands the best and helps to turn the other dogs around, etc. Jasper was perfect as usual running hard and steady. Cello, the natural ran great her first time pulling a sled and in solo lead in the dark no less. She took all the turns I called out and followed our trail back to the car exactly.

Fort Custer Rig Session

2008-11-08T09:44:00.001-05:00

Today we went to our first dog sledding event - a rig training session at Fort Custer State Park. The event was put on by the Mid-Union Sled Haulers (MUSH)

We were helped out by Mary, one of the organizers of the event. She let me take her three dogs and Cello out on her training rig. We made it about half way down the short run when her dog Hanna decided, she wasn't into this and sat down. We ended up in a big tangle with dog teams coming at us from both directions. I pulled the dogs off the trail and untangled the team - which wasn't easy. Not really sure what to do (Hanna wasn't moving) I decided to put cello, who was really wanting to run up front next to Mary's Alaskan Husky Naabo. I turned the team around and headed back. The other two dogs decided to follow and we made it back with out incident. I guess this was about the best training experience I could have had. I'm looking forward to running my dogs some more with this group, especially over the winter.

Sturgeon Bay

2008-11-04T22:19:00.002-05:00

Oh Sturgeon Bay! Covered completely in sand and covered in sun...

From Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

Wilderness State Park

2008-11-04T20:31:00.002-05:00

Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

From Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

Brigid and I camped overnight and went on a short hike

From Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

in Wilderness State Park this weekend. The sky was clear and the stars were out,

From Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

a cold wind off of Lake Michigan helped keep our fire stoked.

From Wilderness State Park - 10/31/2008

Hawk Island Dog Park - Lansing, MI

2008-11-02T19:06:00.000-05:00

Group trip to the Lansing dog park for Jane's early B-day party.
photos by Eric from Man at Arms

North Country Trail - Manistee River Trail Segment

2008-10-31T12:49:00.001-04:00

Map of my GPS'd route and photos from my recent hike on the MRT...

View Larger Map

6 mile bikejoring run

2008-10-06T23:01:00.000-04:00

I took Jasper and Cello for their first "big" run today - 6 miles.
Cello's pretty amazing, she really out ran Jasper - but he did his best to hang with her.

Bikejoring

2008-09-28T21:31:00.001-04:00

Brigid and I bought two used Mountain Bikes from a bike co-op in Grand Rapids.
This is what we're gonna do with them:

From Bikejoring

foggy morning at the dog park

2008-09-27T23:14:00.000-04:00

Lowell dog park...sled dog style.

Muskegon State Park

2008-08-30T22:52:00.000-04:00

Hung out with Jeremy at Muskegon State Park - hiking, swimming and fishing. It's a real nice place, found a huge blueberry patch, but the berries were mostly dried up.

From (mi)outdoors

Lake Leelanau

2008-08-17T21:38:00.000-04:00

Hanging out with the Kewin Family (minus Brendan).
Brigid's parents rented a cottage and pontoon boat on Lake Leelanau.
We camped with Tim and Brigette across the lake.

Got in some fishing and some swimming. Tim (senior) showed me how to catch some (one) walleye.

New York - NCTA Conference

2008-08-09T21:44:00.000-04:00

We spent a week in central New York (land of Donna the Buffalo) for the annual North Country Trail Association Conference. Most of my time (and Brigid's) was spent working, but we did get out on one hike.

Spiritualized

2008-08-06T22:57:00.000-04:00

Happened to run into Spiritualized at a rest area along the Ohio turnpike!

From (mi)outdoors

'07-08 Dog Sledding Re-cap

2008-04-09T17:37:00.000-04:00

November:
My first sled run this season was on November 30th. This was also my first run with Jasper full grown. We did a couple of miles of trail in the Lowell State Game Area. I was blown away by the faster speed Jasper brought us up to. I also quickly remembered why I didn't really do much skijoring or sledding in the game area last year, to many hills with sharp turns and big trees at the bottom! We finished the run with a pretty big wipe-out, on a long steep downhill, that left me with a nice bruise on my hip. Perfect Start!

We Continued to run almost daily at the Wittenbach Center with a couple nice runs at Ionia Rec. area and Aman park.

December:
In December we headed north! We were in the UP from December 17th - 23rd. Our first stop was at Tahquamenon Falls SP. We arrived really late at night (which seems to be our custom), found a camping spot easy enough, as we were the only people in the park. The temps got down around 15 deg. which allowed us to try out our new Marmot 0 deg. Sleeping Bags. Combined with two huskies they worked great, I woke up in the middle of the night sweating.

Shortly after starting down a
unbroken trail with Brigid in front of us on skis, I decided the dogs and I should go in front, as I was having trouble holding them back. We shot off ahead of Brigid, down hills and around curves, then snap - I twisted up over something and broke the runner on our kicksled! I was bummed, I had hopped to do a lot of sledding on this trip (which had just really started), but we both had skis and skijoring equipment, so we were ok.

After Tahquamenon we headed west stopping in Newberry for lunch. We had reserved a cabin in the west unit of the Hiawatha Nation Forest at the Hiawatha Resort and Country Store near Wetmore/Munising.

In Wetmore our goal was to meet up with Fred Powers and Jennifer Lackie who run Wilderness Trail Outfitters. Their place is located in the middle of the Hiawatha National Forest. Our first day there we met Jennifer and she let us access their grommed trails and set us up with a route we could skijour on. It was real hard going - they had at least two feet of snow on the ground. They had used snowmobiles to groom the trails, so we were in and out of the ruts created by the runners. Besides the difficult trail I was on a little on edge, as I knew Fred had three teams of dogs out on the trail and he had no idea that we where out there! The day ended well, we had alot of fun and never ran into any other dog teams on the trail.
For the next couple of day we bummed around Munising and Marquette. We checked out Pictured Rocks, looked at a couple sections of the North Country Trial as well as the Valley Spur and Bay de Noc - Grand Island Trails. Eventually, we got a chance to meet up with Fred, he showed us around his dog yard and shared some of his insights on life, dogs and mushing with us. Fred and Jenifer live a really interesting life, we were real glad to have met them. Aditionally, Fred came through for us by letting us borrow an old sled to run the dogs on. We ended up buying this from him for $50 (which I had won the majority of the night before at a casino in the town of Christmas Michigan).

So ended 2007...

New Puppy

2008-03-01T21:42:00.001-05:00

Cello, our new female Alaskan husky from Nature's Kennel in McMillan, Michigan.

Cello was born December 23, 2007 from (Ladybird (Mother) x Ero (Father))

Cello's father, Ero finished this years (2008) Iditarod on the Nature's Kennel "B-team". The dogs were driven by Jake Berkowitz (21 year old, rookie) and finsihed 65th.