Rugged North Shore Trail

Running the Mid Distance Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon
Day 100, December 10, 2010
Team Buzzsaw / Stewart Taylor Printing

I've heard stories of how rugged the North Shore Trail is, but until you have been on it, you don't understand how intense it can be. We took the dogs on a 30 miler through the hills of the Normana trail and turned around where we have been training off the Fox Farm road. The 8 miles of the Normana trail that we added are unbelieveable! The hills are intense and much tougher than I would have imagined. I have been running some hills for training and needed every bit of that training to get through this short run. I got off the sled a few times, not for any other reason than sparing the dogs. I couldn't believe some of the hills that they climb....over and over. I looked at a couple of the hills and they reminded me of looking at a tidal wave. I wondered "How the hell are these dogs going to get up there?" But they pulled, without hesitation and attacked the hills, knowing their job...... never quitting. At one point we got to the top of a monster hill and when we turned a corner I saw that the hill continued up, Damn. Up we went again. But, what goes up, must come down. I got introduced to the speed that you don't want on a downhill. I couldn't brake as hard as I wanted but learned to pull up on the handelbar to create more pressure on the brake. That finally worked to slow them down to a controlled downhill speed. As soon as we were down on the bottom........ back up we went. It seemed like 20 times and this is just on a little 8 mile section! The rugged North Shore trail is exactly that..... parts of it are like a big roller coaster. It sure makes you appreciate the flats and the gradual downward slopes!