• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Robert Forto

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Rants & Reviews
  • Team Ineka
  • Dog Training
  • Seminars
  • Contact

Serum Run

Serum Run Boot Camp: Yentna Station

February 17, 2012 by robertforto 2 Comments

We arrived at Yentna Station at about 4:00 pm and started on our chores right away. I started up the cooker and began to melt snow. It took about 25 minutes to bring the water to a boil and prep the food–a mixture of raw meat, fat, and kibble. I then let it soak for about 30 minutes. I sat back and drank a Capri Sun and munched on “horse nuggets”.

The snow machiners and the rest of the teams were in by now and I fetched my bale of straw to bed down the dogs. I set the team out on a drop line and removed their harnesses so they would be more comfortable.

After feeding the dogs their ladle of gruel I went about checking all the dogs feet and give each one of the twelve dogs a quick once over looking for sore shoulders and legs. Everyone, including Marble, seemed to be A-Okay. 

By 5:30 all the mushers and snow machine guys were inside and figuring out where we were going to sleep for the evening. I opted for a room in the lodge while 10 people crammed into one of the cabins. The price was the same, 55 bucks, so you might as well be comfortable, right?

Dinner was served at 6:30. An excellent Thanksgiving-type feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, salad and veggies and finished up with extra gooey brownies and ice cream.

For the next several hours we all talked and told mushing stories while a few of the gang caught cat naps. A mushing check point is always respite with various people knocked out in chairs. We were no different. Joe was sleeping so soundly that Erin was able to mark up his nose with a Sharpie.

Later in the evening, Dan, the owner of Yentna Station, broke out his 12 string guitar and rocked the place! This is why I came to Alaska. For evenings just like this. You won’t often find this type of hospitality in the big city. Here we were 35 miles off the road system along the banks of the Yentna River in the middle of nowhere and it felt like home.

Yentna Station is ran by the Gabryszak family; Dan, Jean and their two kids. They are some of the nicest folks I have met in Alaska. Not only do they open up their home to various passer-by mushers and loads of snow machines racing down the river, it is also the first checkpoint on the Iditarod trail as well as several other races like the Knik 200, Northern Lights 300 and the Junior Iditarod.

By midnight most of us were retiring to our beds. I slept soundly and didn’t move a muscle until 6:45 the next morning, waking up to a symphony of the dog teams as the mushers began their morning rituals.

More to come!

Related articles
  • Trails, trails and more trails! (robertforto.com)
Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Mushing, Serum Run, Team Ineka Tagged With: alaska, Capri Sun, dog, Junior Iditarod, mushing, Serum Run, Serum Run Boot Camp 2012, Sharpie, Yentna River, yukon quest

Serum Run Boot Camp 2012: Hot to Trot. Part 1

February 13, 2012 by robertforto 5 Comments

If one phase can sum up the 2012 Serum Run Boot Camp it would have to be:

Too Hot to Trot

It was unseasonably warm this past weekend and it played havoc on our plans for the serum run boot camp. Well not really. We all had a great time. The organizers will be the first to tell you that an event like this prides itself on being very fluid in their plans.

Raegan and Piglet

We were and we made it work.

After submitting our applications way back around Christmas and being selected in mid-January, I was ready for this weekend, no matter what it entailed.

We had a great group of participants: six dog teams and seven snowmachiners. This small group of mostly veterans of past serum runs was the perfect mix for a weekend on the rivers of South Central, Alaska. Being a rookie I was looking forward to listening and learning from the folks that have done this before.

Running the River

I have run the river on several occasions but mostly just up to Yentna Station and back without much planning or preparation. This is the same route that we did this weekend but with a bit more logistics. I had no idea just how much gear it took to just run 35 miles.

It all started on Thursday evening with us packing and preparing for the weekend. I know I packed like a rookie in  terms of food and drink but I packed a little too light on things that mattered. I forgot my shovel and enough trash bags and I should have brought at least one extra snack for the dogs.

Friday evening we all met at Eagelquest Lodge in Willow and had a dinner or ham and potatoes, baked beans, rolls and M&M cookies. My wife, Michele and daughter, Nicole, came along to support me in this adventure. It was why we moved to Alaska for goodness sake.

After dinner we had a meeting about the next day’s event’s, the trail, and our itneniary before retiring to our cabins for the evening.

The little cabin slept 5 and I took one of the twin beds upstairs. We stayed up late talking and telling mushing stories. I slept well sans the blaring night light. We had a meeting at 8:30 back at the lodge so we had to be ready to go by 10 am.

On Saturday morning it was pretty warm. About 28 degrees or so when we dropped the dogs from the dog trucks and gave them a quick meal.

After a nice breakfast of cinnamon rolls and juice we decided that the first teams would be out at 11:00 and we headed out to pack our gear.

I was third to go out and the run from Eaglequest to Luce’s lodge was a bevy of passing and playing “tag” with Joe’s Screaming Huskies team. I finally pulled ahead after Joe stopped for a few minutes.

At about mile 20 I stopped to snack the dogs with fish and noticed that Marble, my six year old Siberian, refused to eat it. She laid down and started dipping snow. Being the thickest coated dog on the team I could tell she was hot. We rested for a few and trudged on the the sugary, sometimes very deep snow, on the Yentna River.

In this part of Alaska they have had at least five feet of snow and the river is virtually a highway for the people that live along the banks and the 100s of snow machines training and racing along the river a break neck speeds.

At Luce’s lodge Marble quit on me and didn’t want to have any part of this game any longer. I loaded her up in the sled bag and away we went. Our snow machines carry all of our gear as well as a dog crate to carry a dog should they become injured, sick or otherwise quit.

Marble, my co-pilot

Being so close to Yentna Station I didn’t see any snow machine support and rather than wait I decided to make Marble comfortable in the bag. I secured her with a neckline and left he flap open so she could stick her head out and enjoy the ride.

By the time I got going again I could see two other teams about 1/4 to 1/2 mile behind me so I knew if I had to stop again they would be there to help if I needed it.

The Serum Run and the boot camp is not a race. We are out there to help each other. That is the beauty of this type of an event.

We arrived at Yentna Station in 3 hours 40 minutes. Not bad in the warm weather and punchy conditions. I have done this run in as long as five hours so, not a bad run at all.

The “trail breaker” snow machines were already there and had already set up places for us to camp our dogs. Being first in I would be first out in the morning.

I immediately started my chores.

Dogs first in mushing. That’s just how we roll.

More to come…

Related articles
  • Serum Run Boot Camp: Dogs (robertforto.com)
  • Team Ineka at the Sled Dog Stampede (robertforto.com)
Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Alaska, Mushing, Serum Run, Team Ineka Tagged With: alaska, broken runner, dog, dogs, Eaglequest lodge, erin mclarnon, huskies, Iditarod, mushing, paul mclarnon, pets, Serum Run, serum run 25 expedition, siberian huskies, siberians, sled dogs, Sports, Team Ineka, Yentna River, yentna station

Serum Run Boot Camp: Dogs

February 10, 2012 by robertforto 5 Comments

 

We are about to embark on the Serum Run Boot Camp this weekend. Starting Friday evening we will stay at the Eaglequest Lodge in Willow, Alaska and meet as a group. Over the next four days we will work as a team to prepare for the 2013 Serum Run Expedition from Nenana to Nome, Alaska which is held next February. The boot camp is designed to give us an idea of what it is like out on the trail for more than 19 days.

These are the dogs I am running on Team Ineka. We are running a 12 dog team.

Leaders

Goose and Zak

Swing

Denali and Sidney

Team

Marble and Magpie

Scoter and Raegan

Casper and Ringo

Wheel

Shifter and Spencer

Related articles
  • Team Ineka at the Sled Dog Stampede (robertforto.com)
  • Dog Works Radio presents The Gypsy Musher (dogworksradio.com)
Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Mushing, Serum Run, Team Ineka, Uncategorized

Sniglets Blog

May 18, 2011 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Sniglet* Blog

Gizzledipplers (gih’ zul dip lurz) – n. Those annoying waving hands seen on the back of Winnebagos (placed there by people too lazy to be friendly on their own).

* A Sniglet is a word that should be in the dictionary but isn’t. Sniglets are the brainchild of comedian Rich Hall, who with a little help from his friends, wrote a series of books containing Sniglets in the mid-1980s.

Filed Under: Daily Post, Serum Run Tagged With: postaday2011, robert forto, sniglets

Serum Run 2011: Sled dogs arrive home

March 15, 2011 by robertforto Leave a Comment

As the mushers and snow machiner’s crossed into Nome, some three weeks after the beginning of an epic journey that started in Alaska on a cold, wind-swept afternoon in Nenana, the home base support staff of this expedition sprang into action.

At about 6:30 PM my friend Paul–who flew to Nome to see his wife finish the expedition and give her a welcomed hug– texted me and said the dogs were loaded up and on their way. The flight should be in Anchorage no later than 8:45-9:00 PM.

Our handler, Austin and I, were already in Anchorage grabbing a bite to eat with our list of people picking up the dogs at the airport firmly in hand–and no sooner than we sat down the calls started to come in. It looked like we were the logistical point of contact.

We arrived, one dog truck and trailer, after another to Everts Air Cargo to await our furry friends. I spoke to the guy at the terminal at 8:50 and he said, “Those dogs aren’t going to be here till 11 at the earliest!”

The wait had begun!

At 11:00 pm or so one of the employees came out and announced: “They’re here! Come pick up your doggies!” and all of us scurried inside.

Being the first time I have done this, I was very impressed by the operation. At the meeting with all the mushers in Nenana before they left all of the teams were given a colored coded roll of flagging tape. We had black-red, red-white, pink-black, etc.

They started bringing the dogs in on the forklifts in big containers that look like dog boxes we use on our trucks. All of the doors had the tape firmly attached trough the holes, some with little noses sticking out.

As the forklift drivers zoomed around bringing in dog box after dog box and the 150 to 300 pound sleds for each musher, the handlers sprang into action after each load was weighed and recorded.

All told the cargo weighed more than 10,000 pounds.

Within minutes we had engulfed the parking lot with dogs too and fro. The handlers were taking the pups from the boxes to their trucks. Many of them giving the dogs a light snack and some much needed water.

I was surprised at how smoothly everything was going as it neared 1:00 AM. As most of the teams were loaded up and the sleds were secured on the tops of trucks and trailers, we were suddenly missing one dog. One of Margret Black’s Siberians could not be found.

We searched high and low in all of the boxes and asked all of the handlers if they had an extra dog. Frantic calls were made to Nome and it was assured all the dogs were on the plane.

All of us live pretty close and we are a tight knit group, so we figured that the Siberian Husky would show up at someone’s kennel when they got home. All of the dogs did have the corresponding color tape for each team on their collars as well. Some of the handlers didn’t know all of the dogs they were picking up personally so they may have had an extra dog without knowing it.

As I searched the dog boxes around the parking lot and as everyone was leaving, Austin was latching down three of the boxes to a trailer that the forklift guys had loaded up about 20 minutes earlier.

I heard a whimper and just assumed it was our dogs that we had just loaded into our truck. Then I heard it again. The missing dog had been found! We hurriedly un-did the straps and “rescued” him/her.

Just like a Siberian! Always the ones to get into trouble!

We loaded him up into the dog box, with his handler-person Scott and headed North to Willow.

We arrived at the dog yard at 3:00 AM and it looked like Scott and his truck arrived shortly before us at the neighbors next door.

I am sure we woke up every one within 2 miles with 30 or 40 dogs returning to their dog houses and the excited greetings from their “friends” that had stayed home.

But hey, this is Willow, the dog sledding capital of the world. Almost all of our neighbors are dog mushers and those few that aren’t–We’ll be done in a little while….

After getting all the dogs back to the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of their dog houses we began our feeding routine.

Austin and I decided it would be best to feed all of the dogs now instead of heading to bed ourselves just to wake up in a couple hours to do it in the morning. Besides, I am sure the Serum Run dogs were hungry. They had just came off a three week adventure on the trail for goodness sake.

All of the dogs looked remarkably well. They were happy to see us and gave us all “hugs.” I could also tell that the one of the puppy’s on the team had become a sled dog on this trip.

Jewel.

Jewel came back from this 700 mile quest and I hardly recognized her. It looked like she had been pumping iron at the gym. Her legs looked like they were twice the size as when she left, striated with muscles and super strong.

The mushers and snow machiner’s should start arriving back home Wednesday and in for a much needed rest before they head back to their “real” jobs and their chores in the dog yard.

The dogs–they are ready to pull again, and again, and again. That’s what they love to do.

As I laid my head on the pillow at 4:00 AM I was thankful to be a part of all of this and as I dozed off I thanked all of the handlers and support guys and gals that helped last night. I know they couldn’t hear me, but they know they are a part of the team too.

 

Robert Forto | Team Ineka | Alaska Dog Works | Mushing Radio | Dog Works Radio | Denver Dog Works | Daily Post

___________________

Robert Forto is a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the popular radio shows, Mush! You Huskies and Dog Works Radio Shows

 

 

Filed Under: Daily Post, Serum Run Tagged With: alaska, dog trucks, Nenana, Nome, robert forto, Serum Run, Siberian Husky, sled dogs, Willow Alaska

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS Feed
  • LinkedIn

Listen to Dog Works Radio

Copyright © 2022 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...