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Congratulations to Lance Mackey for his Fourth Consecutive Iditarod win – and for recording the second fastest time ever in the history of the race. Always great to see how much he cares for his dogs. A very classy guy and a great representative of the sport!
Saturday was one of those beautiful winter days. Temperatures were cool, but not frigid. And the sky was cloudless. Clouds rolled in late in the day with flurries, but the morning was spectacular. And so we went strolling out to our favorite tree up to Cataloochee Ski and just enjoyed the weather. Hope your Saturday was as nice.
Our favorite tree framed against Cataloochee Ski.
Cataloochee Ski was having a spectacular day - and was not too crowded.
Cheoah is showing her true mountain spirit with a long blade of grass tucked away for future use!
After posting yesterday’s pictures, we were asked where did all of the snow go? The answer is contained in this picture taken from the Town of Waynesville Park.
Snow covered mountains rising above the park
The town is at an elevation of 2,750 feet (840 meters) and is where we took our first walk on Sunday. And the city of Asheville is 2,134 feet (650 meters) which is where we were all hanging out on the drop line:
Shhhhh - Natasha is taking a nap. No one should wake the Queen.
Our house, however, sits at an elevation of 4500 feet (1372 meters), so we are more like those snow covered mountains you see rising behind the park in the first picture. Our road may be plowed, but there is still plenty of snow. Oh, and we have more snow forecasted for this week.
Kiska and Natasha enjoying our cooler temps.
P.S. – And for those who asked, the Blue Ridge Parkway is still closed in our part of the world even though it is open in the Asheville area. If you are coming to our area, you can always call (828) 298 0398 for closure information. Just doing our bit to promote tourism!
We went walking on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where our section is typically closed throughout the winter. Normally, we have it all to ourselves, but fresh powder brings out lots of others. Here is who we shared the trail with.
Wooo - Who is that coming down the road?
One of the half dozen cross country skiers we met.
And this guy was loving running with his skier
And kept a good pace the whole time.
Kiska got a high vantage point to watch everyone pass
And all of these people were sledding down a hill
Qannik was wondering who was making all of the racket behind him
Some Pup was doing her "I wanna" song and would not be quiet
For those of you who do not know the “I wanna” song, Cheoah can be quite vocal when she wants something, which is pretty much all of the time. The trick is figuring out what she wants at that given moment so you can get a few minutes of quiet. I wanna drink of water. I wanna eat something. I wanna go to the bathroom. I wanna go for a walk. I wanna have my belly scratched. I wanna out of my crate. I wanna in my crate. And so on. Experience tells us that she gets louder and louder until you give in. And then you have a little quiet until she thinks of something else she wants.
In this case, she was bored watching the sledders and wanted to keep walking. After a few minutes of crescendo, we caved and kept walking. She has the humans well trained with embarrassment as her motivating tool. Sigh.
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Pups – need your help. Another of us is sick and needs pawsitive thoughts. Please cross your paws and send the best of vibes to Sitka who is being treated at the University of Georgia for a pneumothorax – which basically means a hole in her lungs. As of this posting, she was responding to treatments, but next steps are still being determined. Join The Herd in praying for a full and quick recovery. Power of the Paw!
Pups, we have to tell you how hard things have been this week. Can you believe that we went 30 hours STRAIGHT without any winter weather warnings? Whatever is a Siberian supposed to do? But at least some more snow moved in Friday afternoon and we had a great walk Friday night. All was right with the world because it was snowing and, very importantly, we beat the snow plow. Here are some pictures from the walk:
Red Team - in a blur
Black and White Team
Kiska covered in the falling snow
Kiska telling everyone to hurry it up.
Qannik practicing his winter camouflage
Queen Natasha setting the pace
Kodiak and Cheoah waiting on Rusty to catch up
Rusty - Why does everyone want me to stay in step?
Because I like to march to my own drummer
Join us as we walk around checking on trees down on our fire road, watch the skiers at Cataloochee Ski, and generally just enjoy this past Saturday’s snowy day.
Woo – What a small world. There was a mudslide in our little town and apparently it made the national newswire. We received a number of emails during the course of the day asking if we were ok. The answer – Yes. Same true for Tartok and Ruby over at The Thundering Herd Annex.
What happened? About a mile away from us, a wall of mud began sliding down a mountain side. That wall was tall – 30 feet (9 meters) high. That wall was wide – 175 feet (53 meters). And it slid a very long ways down the mountain – 3000 feet (900 meters). The good thing? It was slow. It took 30 minutes to move that distance which allowed for evacuation and no serious injuries or deaths. Absolutely amazing.
Photo from Asheville Citizen-Times
Between of the amount of snow, ice and rain we have had in the last couple of weeks, the ground simply gave way.
Mud slides like this are very common. While the Maggie Valley slide made news, we also had major slides in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (partially closing US 441 – for a second time), one in Weaverville, and another not far away in South Carolina – all this weekend. And all of this on top of the Interstate 40 rock slide that has had the interstate closed since October. Mother Nature simply likes to remind us that all of this rugged beauty is, well, rugged.
As always, a special thank you to the excellent emergency response crews in our area that worked around the clock to make sure everyone was safe (including digging out 4 canines from the mud – and all 4 are safe and sound). Those crews had to work in ATV’s like these to get around the mountainous terrain:
Photo by Asheville Citizen-Times
But we are safe and sound. We did do a survey of our area and, other than some downed trees from wind and ice, no problems around our house. More snowy scenes back tomorrow from our weekend adventures:
The Herd sniffing out a downed branch - Photo by the Hu-Dad
We seem to be having a lot of this in the past couple of weeks, but it was another slushy, icy, snowy, rainy day here. We had a couple of inches of snow, mixed with some ice and sleet, and finally about 2 inches of rain during the course of the day – with a high temp of 35 F (1 C).
We were curious what those 2 inches of rain would have meant if it had been just a little colder. A “rule of thumb” (now why isn’t that called a “rule of paw”?) is that an inch of rain equals 10 inches of snow. But the reality is that that depends on the density of the snow (are we getting scientific or what?). According to the National Weather Service, an inch of rain could equal as little as 3 inches of wet, heavy snow or as much as 100 inches of dry powder. We think we lost out on 15 feet of snow today. Ok, probably not, but we sure wish we had had more snow than this steady cold rain.
But you know The Herd. We never miss our walk. That is the deal with the humans. Walk us everyday and we will not destroy the house. Maybe The Herd is good at the extortion racket, what do you think? Anyway, hope you enjoy our soggy, cold walk.
Red Team starting out on our walk. Do you think Rusty is happy?
Kiska fluffing her tail against the wind and rain.
Queen Natasha - Ever alert for critters underneath the snow's surface.
Coming back down our drive at the end of the walk, Kodiak executes a perfect "Cheoah slide" to maximize snow coverage.
Today’s forecast is for a few inches of fluffy snow. Let’s hope.
UPDATE – 7:34 a.m. – We just read Max’s of South Africa update. We know most of you are already checking in, but please go there right now and wish Max and his family the best. They have just received the news that none of us ever want to hear.
It is the start to another great weekend and the weather is supposed to be perfect – if you are a Siberian Husky (cold, windy, snowy – awesome!). So we thought we would share a few scenes from around where we live to kick off our weekend.
Driving into Maggie Valley
Looking up at Cataloochee Ranch from our road
Looking the other way on the road at the ranch (over 1000 acres at the ranch)
Another view of our regular walking road
But the best scenery is here
And here. Don't you agree?
With the ice mixed into the snow this weekend, we did not get out and do any trails – much too difficult to walk. We pretty much stuck to walking around where we live since the road had been plowed. Hope you enjoy our scenery.
View from the Front Porch Sunday morning
Tree limbs covered in ice glistening in the rising sun
House near Chez Herd - Brand new and for sale - Come be our neighbor
House with a metal roof. We love how the snow slides off this roof
As the snow slides off the metal roof, it creates these "waves".
Red Team does not notice the scenery, but focuses on the walk.
