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.
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