December 6, 2006 Winter Clothing & Other Cold Stuff

For the first time in years we actually have good, reliable snow that we can  run on - however, as it has been many, many years since that has been the  case, we have no long trails scouted out for sleds - and my regular ATV  trails require crossing the highway, which I won't do with a sled because I  can't safely hold the team on the side roads for long periods of time while  I wait for the traffic to clear (as I can with the 4 wheeler). Why aren't we scouting trails, you ask?? Well, Mark's snow machine hasn't  been used in a couple years and when he tried to start it a few weeks back,  thanks to time and squirrels, it wasn't keen on starting. It got hauled into  the local dealer to be looked at. They tell us, as it sits, it is worth  $750 - it needs $1500 worth of repairs to get running again - and after we  put that work into it, it will be worth about $1000. Obviously, we can't justify spending that kind of money on it - and we can't  afford or justify a new one - so I am doing all my long runs on strictly  roads with the ATV (the bush trails have too much snow for the ATV's). We can run the trails on the green land around us on sleds - and I have been  taking teams out for 6 - 12 mile runs on them, but as the team needs to be  running long in preparation for our upcoming Sheep Mountain race, I've been  running by far the majority of time on the 4 wheeler. And no, that isn't  alot of fun at -25. As for clothing, we use pretty much what we use for racing - a good pair of  long underwear and a layer of polar fleece are the basics. Over that I wear  a pair of Cabelas windshear pants, a jacket liner (which one depends on how  cold it actually is), and a Cabelas Trans Alaska Anorak. On my feet I'm  wearing my Lobbens and a pair of NEOS overshoes. A good mushers hat, a turtle fur neckgator, a couple pair of Wal-Mart  stretchy gloves and my big overmitts finish off 'the look'. :) Karen