On our first day traveling with Acorn, Tank, and Tina we figured out that it was very hard for them to pull both heavy toboggans up even a modest hill. I think they may have been thinking, “we didn’t sign up for this!” I think Amy and I were thinking the same thing. Today we decided to try something different. When we got to our first portage we unhooked the second toboggan. Amy worked with the dogs to haul the first toboggan across the portage while I hauled the second toboggan across. Amy and the dogs moved faster than I did, but it was a vast improvement over trying to haul both toboggans at once.
We repeated this process on all three of the portages that we did today. At the end of each portage we would hook the second toboggan up to the first one, and the dogs would rocket across the lake. Amy and I wear skis on the lakes. One of us clips a long rope to our skijoring harness and to the back of the second toboggan this way we can stop the toboggan train easily. The other person skis along behind the 40 foot train of dogs, toboggans, and skier.
Silently skiing along, watching the dogs work and the winter landscape glide by is a wonderful way to experience the Wilderness. Today was calm and the only sounds we could hear were the swish of our skis and the cold air rhythmically filling our lungs. “I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found.” – John Muir
#wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #winter #BoundaryWaters #sunset #onlyinMN #getoutstayout
