Trail Work - Bet

When the peoples come out to play on our trails throughout the year many will ask about the trails that wind, twisty and meander all over our property. "How lucky you are to have them", they will often say.

Luck?  Pfffft, I say!

The whole reason the Musher and Musher Mark settled on this very spot was because of the fantabulous land and the trails, but trails just don't grow themselves you know!  Well, they grow, and grow and grow and we have to keep pruning them.

Musher Mark does a lot of the work, but where would he be without Super Border Collie Supervisor!

Only supervisors get to wear the high viz jacket that go well with my furs

In case you were wondering, my high viz supervisor gear came from Alpine Outfitters... Alpine Outfitters, an official sponsor of The Pretty Curly Tails and North Wapiti Kennels.

The First thing I supervise is the loading of my Betmobile into the truck.  We drive the truck as far as we can, then offload my Betmobile to drive the trail to locate the problem areas.

Betmobile strapped down, and chainsaw at the ready... check

Then we venture forth to survey the vast trail system to find those problem areas... I run ahead to scope out the situation.

Once I find a pesky area, I yell for the support team to move up.

This one seems problematic Mush Mark, I'm thinking you'll need the chainsawy thingie

After I determine the best method of attack, Musher Mark gets out the tools of destruction and starts wailing away at it.

I stand well away from the area because you never know when the tree will get angry and fling itself around... trees are pesky like that.

Also, that chainsawy thing is loud and hurts my very sensitive ears.

You can clearly see just how devious these trees are, that sucker is positioned at just the right height where the Pretty Curly Tails would just sail right under but clothesline the poor Musher (and ME) as we toodled along on the Betmobile... devious, devious trees!  They can fall 364 different ways, but just HAVE to fall right on the trail... the nerve of them.

More sawing and hacking and sawing and hacking and then stacking the wood up and sawing some more and... whew, I'm exhausted!

Thankfully the Betmobile helps with the draggy dragging away of big woody evil tree parts.

Good job Musher Mark, I think that will be a great path for the Pretty Curly Tails!

Then it's off to the next evil tree blockage.

Ehrmagerd, look at this, it's like a conspiracy of trees!

Seriously?  You have a whole big woods to fall (and make a sound whether there's someone there or not) and this is where you fall???

More running

More sawing

More dragging

Looks great!  I think we've defeated the pesky trees again!

Finally we load the gear up again

Um... is this a half-hitch, or full-hitch super knot?  Just making sure my ride stays on.

And then it's a ride home knowing full well that we did a fantabulous day's work, and the Musher and Pretty Curly Tails can safely navigate the trails and train without those pesky trees in the way.

So... mushing Pretty Curly Tails isn't just about having fun on the trail, because someone has to make sure the trail is safe, and thanks to Musher Mark and his handy chainsaw and his diligent supervisor, (me) another training season is about to begin!

- Bet