Up here in Fairbanks!

This past Saturday took me to Fairbanks, Alaska...roughly 7.5 hours north. The ride was long, but took us straight through Denali National Park so the view was nothing less than amazing! Unfortunately snow was in the area so the white mountain tops blended in to the white sky too well to get any good pictures. Hopefully I can see Mt. McKinley on my way back! Driving through Denali was awesome but also a little scary! The roads are not too traveled so they were slick and we had to be very careful. We saw one guy roll his truck on our way there and today one of our local technicians flipped her truck on the way to help us! Thankfully everyone is okay, just damaged vehicles! And yes, we will drive very carefully on our way back.

 

In Wasilla we do our work at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters. In Fairbanks we work out of a local vet clinic who has so graciously let us use their facilities and have been so accomodating! Our first team was team full of Alaskan Huskies and it went smoothly. Our last  two teams on Sunday were full Siberian Husky teams...which to us technicians means only two things; 1. Thick fur and 2. Small veins. Although it turned out to be pretty interesting as the teams were not just Siberian teams but Norwegian Siberian teams. These dogs came straight from Norway with their mushers, and boy were they beautiful! If any of you saw the pictures on my Facebook page these dogs look more like wolves and are just stunning! And they had awesome tempermants to boot! We had such a blast working with these cuties and learing a lot about Norway from their mushers!


 Our second day was a lot of fun as well! We had two teams with awesome mushers, and even better dogs! The first team even brought us a yummy homemade treat, and I definitely got the most puppy kisses today! Here a pictures from Day 2! :)



"Do you have treats?!"

So CUTE!



Look at those pretty blues :)

Check out these dog boxes, compared to the next dog boxes below :)

 

 



 

 

Tomorrow starts our long days we will be working 12 hours days

until we leave on Thursday. On Thursday we drive back to Wasilla

and will stop in Denali to visit Jeff King and his team. Jeff won the

race in years 1993, 1996, 1998, and 2006!

 

Also, in other Iditaord news. With the lack of snow in southern Alaska

the Iditarod Trail Committee had a meeting today on whether or not

to move the race start to the north. The decision was to keep the race

start in Willow (south). This is of concern to most mushers as the lack of

snow has caused most of the trails to be unfit for racing. Although the Iditarod

Trail Committee takes musher safety very seriously and are confident they can make the trails fit by the start of the race. So while you're at it...send some of that snow up here!

 

Till next time :)

Sophie