Oake Lake Experience Today!

All photos in this post by Rebecca Lain
Ari sports the set of "jingle bells" we had on each team to help spread the holiday cheer.

Nick runs the dog team while I relax in the sled. Ari and Sasha were in wheel on the team.

And there's Oken in single lead, head to the ground!

Neil's first team out with Drew in the sled. Wimzi was on his team and is in point position looking right at the camera. Look at the big girl!

Journey and White Feather direct their attention to the goings on at the other end of the kennel.

Drew and Nick's dad, Pete, takes photos at take-off.

A father and two sons joined us today for a half day Oake Lake Experience. Our half day adventures allows you to get more acquainted with the dogs and spend more time on the back of the sled runners. Our guests learned to collar the dogs, as we don't leave collars on in their kennels for safety reasons, bring them to the tie out line, harness them and safely run their own sled assisted by one of our mushers.

Oken was in single lead today and boy was he cookin'! There was no hesitation at hook-up this time. He also lead steadily as we went over some pretty rough frozen slush and even through some heavy water pockets. Not slush; water! The snow was so saturated that it was slush no longer. We literally water skied for a short period of time as the dogs were up to their shoulders in water. No worries. The lake is completely safe and there is a thick layer of ice below the water. This trail phenomenon is really just another learning experience for the dogs and our guests a like and we quickly hopped back on solid hard packed snow trail. This is just what happens when too much snow comes down too quickly in the season. Our hope is that subzero weather will come soon and firm up our lake trail.

Phoenix also ran single lead on our second run. White Feather began up in lead with him but it was quickly apparent that she was a bit too mentally tired to lead effectively considering her young age and we placed her back in team. To keep Phoenix on his toes, I asked him to cut across the lake and off of our main trail towards the end of the run and he did just that. What a good boy!

And Sasha ran in the team for the first time! She was pretty darn good. Wimzi has been showing her the ropes and she is quickly catching on to what is expected of her.