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Published: July 20th 2009
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A little over a week ago, my work buddy, Robert, and I took to the trail and spent a few hours on our day off enjoying the silence that comes with a walk in the woods. Of course, being the curious person that I am, I didn't really stop talking for most of the walk (and neither did he) but I was constantly asking what plant is this? what tree is that? And so on and so on...
Luckily, my travel companion is an avid hiker and pointed out some awesome things as we headed up the Lemon Creek trail behind Home Depot. And as the sounds of construction faded away as we climbed up the hillside, the sun peeked through the trees on that hot Friday afternoon. And slowly but surely, the worries with friends, at work, at home, with family, etc...all seemed to fade away and I just thought about the sound of the water, the clean air, and the wonderful feeling of exertion as we hiked up this "More Difficult" trail. And words don't really describe the feeling of rejuvenation that a 3-hour one can give someone. And the company was pretty nice as Robert and I
both pushed rocks into Lemon Creek and forever changed the way the water rippled. It may be a small difference, but it just proves we were there and that's exactly what I needed to gain a little more perspective and a little more optimism.
Almost five days later, I was pretty excited when, on one rainy day at work, after only being there for half an hour, I got to go up in the helicopter and go on our ERA dogsledding tour. Of course, any Ramp Rat can tell you that starting the morning off with a helicopter ride is the most amazing thing ever -- even on a rainy and somewhat windy day. And...it was just that. This was only my second time up so I was pretty excited when I strapped on our black Glacier Boots and slid into that blue life vest, then headed down the ramp with three passengers to meet our pilot. I got Jonathan, a pretty good but sometimes angry guy, but he was pretty good. And after the little recorded safety speech, he even played some good music like Enya (very nice on a foggy Juneau morning riding up the channel), some
Santana, and some classic rock later on.
Once we flew up the channel and up to the glaciers, I started clicking away with my camera, getting some better pics than my first tour. We even saw a freshly cleaved glacier site where the blue was almost an emerald color. And then we rode over the mountain up to where the snow was. It was then that Dog Camp came into site and I started getting excited. When we touched down and saw all of those dogs (which I'd already seen once before when they loaded them at the beginning of the season), I was smiling from ear to ear. And the smile never seemed to leave my face as we got our "proper mushing" orientation, met our musher (ours was Paul who was a lot of fun and talked to me a lot about Idaho as he used to play hockey in Montana), and hopped on our sleds.
I started off riding as the man from Poland (who was paired with me) mushed our sled behind Paul's. And after about halfway around the trail, we switched and the Polish man went and sat with Paul so he could
get some good pics and I was there, the Era Ramp Rat, leading my own sled. Paul occasionally turned around and talked, but the few moments he didn't, I was just beaming as the dogs pulled the sled so quickly. It was such an amazing feeling to feel their power as they pulled you along the snow. You could almost feel their excitement and urge beneath you as the scenery slowly passed by. At one point, Paul turned to me and told me about these crevices that they ride over just before we passed over one. Apparently, some of the tourists were a little worried at how big of glacier crevices they slid over so they changed their trail, but it was a fun feeling to slide over a big crack in the ice which probably didn't even phase the dogs in their mission. Overall, it was over long before any of us wanted it to be, but one of the best parts was meeting all of the dogs at the end.
They were all cute and so much fun. I even got a couple of pictures and enjoyed my last 15 minutes by petting all of the dogs
I had time for and asking Paul questions about their size, age, and how long he'd been mushing. My Polish friend also seemed to be enjoying it as he was smiling just as much as me. And when we were called back to the helicopters, I offered to switch jobs with one of the mushers which he surprisingly said he would accept. 😊 But instead, I said goodbye to dog camp and headed back down in the helicopter to join my other fellow Ramp Ratters with our out-of-town guests. Overall, it was a great morning and I even had a pretty amazing day at work with some awesome groups. It was refreshing and nice to have a little optimism back. What an experience! 😊
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