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Learning to Drive in Vermont
By Ken Haggett
Learning to drive a six dog team is a big move up from a four dog team. With a four dog team there is less power meaning that the driver works more to climb hills. When running a six dog team they are able to pull a fair amount of load up hill so the driver can do much less peddling. Peddling is the term used to refer to kicking with one leg to assist the dog team with moving forward. It is a similar motion to riding a scooter where you stand on one leg and swing the other hitting the ground at the bottom of the swing to provide forward motion. Having the extra power of a six dog team when climbing is great but it also takes some getting used to at other points in the run. One of the most dramatic of these is when starting the run. The energy and excitement of a dog team at the start of a run is an amazing thing to behold. It is contagious and it's hard not to be swept up in it as the driver. The goal is to try and stay calm since it is also the time when problems tend to occur. Everything seems to happen fast and sometimes it's hard to think clearly when all of the dogs are screaming "let's go!!"
At our cabin in Lake Elmore when we run from our yard we start out down hill on a hard packed driveway that has a ninety degree turn at the bottom. I had been doing this one whole season with my four dog team with out any problems. I was able to use the drag brake and slow the sled enough to make going around this corner feasible. When I started running my six dog team (which consisted of several one year olds) I immediately found that I could not slow the sled nearly as much while descending the driveway. The result of this was that I hit the ninety degree corner at a much higher speed than I was comfortable with and generally ended up being swung around the corner and into the snow bank (envision crack the whip on skates). Hitting the snow bank usually meant the sled flipping over onto its side and me flying to the ground. Now the dogs don't really care whether I'm on the sled or on the ground, all they care about is running. They are so excited to be underway that stopping is the last thing on their minds. I do need to take a moment here and pat myself on the back for one thing. Rule number one with a sled dog team is never let go of the sled. I found that no matter how hard I hit the driveway I always held on! A reasonable person might feel that this isn't the smartest thing to do but if you let go of your sled you loose your team. If you are running from your yard this might mean driving around your neighborhood for hours to locate them. If you are out in the back country it could mean walking for miles and then driving or snowmobiling for hours looking for them. The dog team can get themselves into all kinds of problems with out their human team member. They don't tend to stop and look both ways at road crossings. They can wrap the sled around a tree and become tangled or any number of things. Now, if you've flipped the sled and held on and the dogs are still running you find yourself hanging off the back of the sled whizzing along with no braking ability and no control other than verbal of the dog team. Not a great position to be in! Usually I found that once we got into deeper snow my belly whopping caused enough drag and my desperate "whoa!" commands would cause the team to at least stop to look back and see what the heck was going on. If I was quick enough I could take this opportunity to right the sled and jump back on the runners. I did learn to right the sled on the fly after going through this three or four times so something was gained from the experience. I also found that after a while I was able to slide the sled through the corner and keep it upright. It was a interesting winter for me learning to handle the extra power of the six dog team.
The past winter of 2006 I ran a eight dog team most of the winter and had a much easier time adjusting to the added power than I did when going from four to six. A lot of that was my learning to be a better sled driver and having a couple more seasons of driving under my belt. It still amazes me to watch an open class musher running a team of fourteen or sixteen dogs at eighteen miles an hour. I'm a long ways from being able to do that but I am just as proud of the fact that I have become comfortable driving my eight dog team. We still have a lot to learn and mushing is an on going learning process where the one thing you can count on is the unexpected. I can't wait to see what the coming season will throw our way!
About the Author
Ken Haggett
Peace Pups Dogsledding and Vermont Bicycle Tours
Lake Elmore, Vermont
http://www.peacepupsdogsledding.com
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| Some other articles by Ken Haggett | |
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