We awoke this morning to find that the tent fire had gone out through the night and that our sleeping bags were covered in a thin layer of ice. Ryan's liners of his boots were frozen solid. The end of Connor's sleeping bag was wet and frozen and he was still having trouble feeling his feet and getting warm. David made the decision that we could not risk staying another night wilderness camping in temperatures like last night. As it turns out it got to about -20 degrees celcius last night (-16 degrees when Marcelle got up), and even Marcelle was cold.
We tried to get warm by moving around camp and sitting by the fire. We also helped to feed the dogs their morning snack. David spoke with Marcelle and she changed the plans for the day so we could head back to the ranch. There was no getting around it, we would still need to go back down the steep mountains though. After our breakfast of oatmeal, nutella muffins and hot chocolate we broke down the camp.
This morning Marcelle would be the first sled, with Connor second with 4 dogs, David third with 5 dogs and myself last with 4 dogs. Ryan had chosen to ride back on the snow mobile with Gilles. They left a little while after us as they needed to pull down the dog lines etc.
We knew that we would have some speed with the dogs today as our sleds had no weight in them. As Marcelle had the most dogs we had given most of the weight to her to help slow down her descent through the mountains. We took off at speed across Lake Hodnet. We knew that one of the first challenges for the day would be crossing the large section of ice where I had my fall yesterday. It was challenging as expected. Marcelle made it across fine. Connor unfortunately fell. David;s dogs veared off the ice into the ditch I was in yesterday. David managed to hold on to his dogs and just avoid running over Connor. This time, with a little guidance from Gilles I made it across without incident. The ice crossing was followed by an immediate sharp left hand turn and then sharp right hand turn. I managed the left hand turn fine but got run into the inside edge deep snow when turning right up the mountain. I had to get off the runners to pull the sled out of the snow and then jump on fast as the dogs were pulling away.
Now the ups and downs of the mountains began. Initially the going was relatively easy but we knew that the steep descent of at least 40 minute was yet to come. Making the steep descents, especially with no weight in the sleds, and wanting to make sure that we left plenty of space between sleds so as not to run over anyone who fell off, was very hard. It meant riding the hard brake all the way and holding on for dear life. It was such a huge relief that we all made it down the mountains unscathed - not one fall!!!! Connor was just incredible. David and I struggled and yet he just got on with it.
We continued on for what seemed like an eternity before finally stopping for lunch; our staple of chicken noodle soup, a salami and cheese sandwich, chocolate biscuits and of course Swiss chocolate. Thankfully we were getting much closer to the ranch now as we were quite exhausted.
We would soon wind our way through the forrest towards the ranch. Although I had done all the hard work of the steep descents without a problem unfortunately I encountered some issues in the forrest. I came around a corner and my sled hit a tree. I came off the sled and went face first into the dirt just in front of the tree. My dogs were gone. I ran after them but had no hope of catching them. Luckily Gilles and Ryan came along on the snow mobile. I just on the back with them and we chased after the dogs. Eventually we found them a long, long way down the track. Unfortunately they had hit another tree and the sled was stuck. Worse than that though, when they hit the second tree it must have pulled the dogs back with some force as Bandit had been pulled clean out of his collar and was now at the back of the sled where the mushers should be and had his paw stuck. It took Gilles and I both to free Bandit, who thankfully was unhurt, and put him back on the sled line. We then had to dislodge the sled, and fix the upside down hard break with the dogs trying to take off. It was a tough ride back with other close calls on hitting trees on the left hand side of the trail. Also, at one stage I lost sight of the other 3 teams and so was completely on my own. We reached a fork in the road and I was not sure which was to go. I needed to just trust that the dogs would know the way home. Eventually I caught up with the others and we made our final push to the ranch.
When we got back we took time to shower and then had a quiet afternoon which included watching two documentary films that had been made about Marcelle and reading about her plans to race in the 2014 Ididatrod. It was incredible to see that of the 16 dogs ear marked for the event, all but one had come on our trip. It was so good to be back in warm surroundings.
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