 |
| Krabloonik. Name award! |
 |
| The Kennels. Once one dog started barking, the others would join in, then the howling would start. The dogs are awesome, and sweet, and feisty -- but they're also hyper and crazy with a lot of individual personality. They're not fancy dogs, they're working, running, pulling dogs that enjoy a few too many beers at the end of the day, if you catch my drift. |
 |
| The one screaming on the left is Leo, one of our lead dogs. As for pulling the sled, he's actually on the right -- and he's severely right handed. He kept pulling us into the the snowbanks on the right. Our "Musher", Luke kept yelling at him, but his tone was more grandmotherly, as if speaking to a kid who's always making trouble. "Leo! Come on, man - what are you doing!?" There was, like, a certain amount of disappointment in Luke's voice -- and to bother Luke and Leo's credit, I think the dog understood that disappointment -- and that's how they communicate. |
 |
| Our sled. Krabloonik handcrafts every sled they use. |
 |
| Our Musher, Luke, was a great Musher, even though we got flipped out of our sled on the 2nd 180 degree hairpin. Luke had to run down the dogs, who kept on chugging until the sled sort of got stuck in a ravine. |
 |
| In action. |
 |
| That's me and Melia. The dog on the right kept getting into it with the dog that was previously on the left. They had to switch them up. You can see the blood under his eyes. |
 |
| Chilling, literally. It was, like, 20 degrees outside. |
 |
| Melia's eye. |
 |
| Jerkwad fancy-pants skier shook his head at our dogs, who had run into another snowbank and were sort of fighting again. Then the skier said, "Tally Ho!" and skied down the mountain, like a real professional. I think it might have been Roger Moore, one of the James Bonds, but my wife never believes me when it comes to spotting celebrities. Or is Roger Moore dead? |
 |
| Like I said, the dogs were about as sweet as they could be, but they were more like a rag-tag group of misfits than elite team of huskies like we sort of expected. They were more like The Dirty Dozen or like a dog team of Ghostbusters. They were more like Fat Albert's gang or the screw-ups from Animal House. They were the best, but they were cracked out. |
 |
| Still, they dug their faces in the snow for us. One last thing: they pooped and farted the whole way. |
