There was a great article on opening the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Asheville Citizen-Times.  The park service always has to work hard to open the road for the start of the summer tourism season, but after this rough winter season, their challenges are very strong.  As we walked, we did find some evidence of the challenges.

A fallen tree being cut up.

Rusty inspects the tree up close.

Still plenty of snow on parts of the road.

This sign is in a currently closed part of the Parkway, but will be open within the next month. Does tell you how remote some parts of the Parkway can be if they warn you 42 miles in advance of a closure.

All of the obstacles do not bother The Herd on its hike.

We had views to enjoy.

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Congratulations to Celeste Davis, of Deer Lodge Montana, for winning the Red Lantern in the Iditarod as the 55th and final team across the finish line.  She completed the race in 13 Days 5 Hours 6 Minutes 40 Seconds, which is the fastest Red Lantern run in the history of the race.

The last racer across the finish line also extinguishes the Widow’s Lamp (not to be confused with the Red Lantern – they are different).  The history is that a village would hang out a kerosene lantern when a dog sled freight team was expected.  That would serve both as a beacon to the team as well as a signal that a dog team was out on the trail.  The widow’s lamp is lit in Nome on the first Sunday of the race and is only extinguished when the last racer crosses the finish line.

A special salute to Wattie McDonald of Stonehaven, Scotland, who completed the race with all 16 of his starting dogs in harness.  This is a very rare event since most mushers drop dogs (who are flown out of the race and cared for until the musher completes the race).

We also salute the 16 teams who started, but did not complete the race.

And, very importantly, hats off to the 40 volunteer veterinarians who monitored the 1136 dogs who ran in the race to ensure that all of the dogs are safe and returning home.  If you want a fascinating read on the metabolism of sled dogs, we recommend this article from the New York Times.

Tonight is the annual musher’s banquet.  We congratulate everyone on a safe, exciting race this year.

]]> http://www.thethunderingherd.com/2010/03/21/opening-the-blue-ridge-parkway/feed/ 7 http://www.thethunderingherd.com/2010/03/20/blake-freking-and-iditarod-update/ http://www.thethunderingherd.com/2010/03/20/blake-freking-and-iditarod-update/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:51 +0000 D.K. Wall http://www.thethunderingherd.com/?p=4179

Hi, all. Rusty the Super Sleek Sled Dog here.

A friend stopped by our hu-dad’s office Thursday and asked him what he was going to do now that the Iditarod was over.  Over, our dad asked.  Our dad pointed out that the friend ran marathons on a regular basis.  Is the marathon over just because the first person crosses the finish line?  Nope.  So the Iditarod is not over yet either.

Congratulations to Blake Freking who completed the race yesterday in 11 days, 20 hours, 39 minutes and 11 seconds.  While Blake came in 42nd overall, he posted the fastest time in the history of the race for a team of pure bred Siberian Huskies.  What an awesome accomplishment.

Don't I look super sleek with my ears pinned back?

As of the time of this writing, a number of mushers were still on the trail.  One of the great honors of the race is the Red Lantern – the award given to the team that is the last to finish the race.  In our hyper-competitive world, many sports would label this the loser (or even everyone other than #1 the losers).  But the Red Lantern is an honor given to the last WINNER of the race.  Yes, an award in perseverance and we will celebrate the winner this year.  We look forward to finding out who that person is.

See, if I squint my eyes then everyone will think I am a super-cool mushing machine.

Just sitting here waiting on the official start of the weekend.

Wake me when it gets here.

We did not build this snow man, but think it is a somewhat modernistic design

Kodiak considers himself quite the refined art critic. Let's see what he thinks.

Enough said.

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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!

Kiska with her long flowing fur in the snow and wind.

Close up showing that wooly fur.

Always important to look good.

Hey, no pictures. A girl has to shake the snow off.

She is just thankful she is not hanging out with these clowns. How often is Rusty the normal one in this crew?

We Sibes heard you humans believe that Daylight Savings Time means Spring has arrived

Well, look down there where the Red Team is going.

Does that look like Spring to you?

Yes, The Herd is rejoicing in even more fresh powder.  We have seen so many blogs with blooms and buds and green.  We are still very much seeing white.  At least we are getting sunlight later in the day.  Plus, we had the annual joy of waking the Herd up an hour “early” Sunday morning.  They grumble every minute of it and the humans really enjoy that one day of the year.

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Stella asked yesterday, “I was looking for an article about Karen Ramstead leaving the race but couldn’t find anything. Do you have something?”

Karen’s blog does have a short note explaining that the injury to her hand in a pre-race training run was the reason that she scratched.  If you would like Karen’s version of the “hand incident”, go to this blog post.  If you want the far more entertaining version as told by Kara, go here.  If you are one of those people who sit in horror movies, know that some dreadful, bloody event is about to occur, and yet still watch it knowing that it will make you horka, you can see an actual picture of the injury here.  We should really take a poll of our readers to find out exactly how many actually clicked on the link despite the warning.

Out hiking a fire road yesterday and Kiska decided that she really liked balancing on this log.

Oh. Hey. Napping here. Is it Saturday already?

Hiking time?

Waiting here in the Jeep. Let's go!

Yes, it is Saturday and The Herd is ready for a weekend of the outdoors.  The weather here is a little iffy with rain, but much warmer temperatures, so we will be outside virtually the whole time.  We can smell spring approaching!

For those of you who are not on The Thundering Herd Fan Page on Facebook (because, amazingly, you apparently do not need to have up to the minute news on The Herd), you may have missed a great news article about the Iditarod that we linked to.  We will quote a section:

Karen Ramstead’s . . . Siberian Huskies are some of the most beautiful dogs at McGrath and anywhere along the Iditarod Trail. As villagers stopped by the checkpoint, they all gravitated toward her team to admire her handsome team. Handsome is as handsome does is a proverb meaning character and behavior are more important than appearance. It seems though with Karen’s dogs, they have it all – good looks, strong character and stellar behavior.

What a spectacular tribute to a very special lady.  Karen and and the Siberian Huskies of North Wapiti, we are very sorry that you had to make the decision to drop out of the Iditarod.  But, as always, we salute the tremendous effort and look forward to seeing you and the Pretty Sled Dogs again.  You are one heck of an inspiration!

Sometimes, Tartok believes Ruby will never run out of things to say.

No compliment is greater than a parody (right, KB?),  so we wanted to make sure that everyone saw these posts from Tales and Tails and Norwood.  They have received the Cheesewhiz Seal of Approval, for whatever that is worth.