ACK!!!! What have they done?

Set out this morning for a run. Today I'm heading to Stave Lake, where there is a nice little forest service road, about 20 minutes from my house. Access to this area is one of the reason why we moved over here to Maple Ridge. I use this area for hill training, as it nice series of fairly steep hills as the road makes its way down the lake. If I come here early I normally avoid most of the weekend warrior type traffic, and this area is certainly close enough to access on a week day after work.

I was completely horrified when I pulled up to this little spot. Today, as I turned into the entrance to the FSR, the cement dividers and the locked gate was what met my eyes. Just 2 weeks ago this was my safe, easy to access, parking lot. Here I could drop the dogs, and hitch them up to the ATV with no worries about being spooked or run over on the road itself. Later I spoke with a couple of ATVers who told me that there is a move afoot to turn this area into a park, and to limit the motorized access. Hmmmmm, time to get myself down to the Mission Forest District office and beg them for a key.

For a while I mulled over what I should do, and as I had a puppy yard to be working on at home today, I decided to head on up the road, and find a spot where I could pull over and run from there, again hoping it was still early enough to avoid most of the traffic heading up the lake. Eventually I found a spot where I could turn the truck around and sort of tuck into the side of the road and unload. First I had to spend a little time picking up broken glass, all the while lamenting why people don't respect this beautiful spot. :(

There is one advantage to running in this situation and area, as by the time we were passed by a large propane truck, and a long tractor trailer truck I realized that the dogs don't even notice the traffic, they are more interested in doing their jobs.

But I have to give most of the credit to lead dogs

Hilda and KitKat. Hilda is new to the team this year, a retired Iditarod veteran she has added much depth to my team. Hilda comes from

North Wapiti Kennels in Alberta.

http://www.northwapiti.com/homepage/hilda.html

These two girls stood rock solid while I hooked up the rest of the team even with passing traffic.

It has been a couple weeks since I used this area last and was very pleased to see that the dogs are getting stronger as not only did our time decrease for this length of run, but they are pulling more of the hills with me on the ATV. It is my policy to not motor assist the dogs unless they cannot honestly make the pull. I would rather hop off and jog up the hills than touch the throttle. This policy had me eating dirt a couple of weekends ago at the Roslyn Dirt Rondy I attended, but that is a story for another day!!! There a few good climbs along this road that up until now caused some of the dogs to turn around and give me filthy looks as if to say "get your lard butt off that seat and give us a hand!!!"

Perhaps it was the Ravens that decided it would be fun to play leap-frog with the team. Who knows? But today they charged up most of the hills with no problems. I'm convinced this little team is getting stronger.

I suspect this will be KitKat's last weekend in harness for a while. I have been advised I should stop running her when she starts to show. Either it is my imagination, or KitKat has the tiniest baby bump when she sits now. That and the small contented Mona Lisa smile she wears is speaking volumes.