11 12 06 Creeper Trial day 2 Sunday

On Sunday morning we drove to the beginning of the trail in Abingdon, VA exit 17 and turn right on west main street. Fayth and I ran Cosmos-Kenai, Bear-Yeti, Sasha-Jojo, Ulric-Dancer. As we left the start we had Fayth's younger sister, Danyel, riding in the cart. This was her first "dogsled" ride. She had a great time. There were 10-12 horses that left just before us and the dogs wanted to catch up with them so they were running fairly fast. Cosmos is a trail hog and thinks he has to run down the left side of the trail. I had to keep telling people they could pass on my right. Danyel rode to the first "check point" which was Watauga. There is only a parking lot here. Danyel got out of the cart and I loaded the water and food for the dogs and we were off and running again. The dogs were still hyper and ready to run. We took off again and would not meet back with our van that was following us until we got to Alvarado. Along this part of the trail were many gates to open. The gates were nicely designed so they close by themselves. One of us would always run ahead and open the gate while the other ran the dogs through. It is easy with two people. It might pose a challenge for one person. I found that I could run ahead of the dogs and open the gate and jump back on the moving cart as it went by with out a problem. There is beautiful country in this area nice trestles to cross. I think the longest trestle is on this section of the trail as it crosses the upper portion of Holston Lake. Nice high trestle beautiful scenery. The big trestle is just before getting to Alvarado. There was also a "rest" area next to the river if you are walking, running, riding horses. We stopped in Alvarado and snacked the dogs and let them rest till they were back up and rearing to go. Ulric just about chewed through the gangline in front of him which would have released all the other dogs ahead of him. Luckily I had the leaders tied to picknic table with a snow hook. I like to carry a snow hook to tie down leaders or to stop a crazy team if need be by hooking a tree. Never had to do it though but just in case. After resting in Alvarado we went on to the Iron Horse Campground. On this run we bootied the front feet of Cosmos, Bear, and Jojo. They ran well. The dogs were looking good during the run and were having a great time. The distance for Sunday was 14 miles total. Bringing the weekend total to 29 miles. The dogs were in good health and rested afterwards as running dogs should. I am ready to go back and run the trail again. I love to see the dogs having fun.