Central Oregonian

Mushers go to great distances to find snow

Sled dog teams from Prineville travel the Northwest to find enough snow to race

ROGER HARNACK/OMAK-OKANOGAN COUNTY CHRONICLE

Karen Yeargain of Prineville heads uphill towards a checkpoint during the second day of the Conconully Snow Dog Super Mush. Yeargain finished third in the six-dog team portion of the event.

Lon Austin

With races at Frog Lake and Chemult cancelled due to a shortage of snow, Central Oregon sled dog racers are having to go farther afield to get races.

As a result, a pair of Central Oregon mushers recently drove more than 400 miles to get to a race that was held in Conconully, Wash., Jan. 21-22.

“So far, all of our races have been cancelled,” said Prineville musher Karen Yeargain. “We heard that they had snow in Washington, so we went.”

Yeargain was quick to point out that it is not uncommon for mushers to travel long distances for races.

“The Conconully races have a reputation for being very well run and we found that to be true,” she said. “They say the race has lots of up and downhill, but the general consensus of everyone in the race was that it was 85 percent uphill.”

Yeargain finished third in her division at the races, while one of her students, Kelly Barton of Bend, finished in fourth place.

“I was pleased,” Barton said. “There’s a joke going around that I will beat Yeargain someday, and that’s a goal of mine, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Dream on,” Yeargain quickly responded.

Participants in the Conconully Snow Dog Super Mush had their choice of four divisions to compete in. The feature event was a 12-dog race with contestants going 32-miles each of the two days of the event.

Other choices included the six-dog, 23-mile-per-day race that Yeargain and Barton competed in, and the six-dog sporting race that covered 12 miles each day.

The final category of race was the two-dog Skijor race, which covered nine miles each day.

For those unfamiliar with Skijoring, it is racing dogs while the musher is pulled on skis rather than a dog sled.

Thad McCracken, of Portland, Ore., easily won the six-dog race with a combined time of 4:23:52 for the 46 miles. Roy Etnire, of Seely Lake, Mont., took second with a time of 4:54:32. Yeargain took third place with a combined time of 5:52:36, while Barton finished with a time of 6:02:39. Although Barton has yet to beat Yeargain in a race, she came close on Sunday, finishing the second day of the race with a time of 2:51:49, while Yeargain had a time of 2:50:06 on that portion of the race.

Steve Duren, of Spirit Lake, Idaho, took first place in the 32-mile-per-day, 12-dog race with a combined time of 6:54:29, while Joe Loveless of Roy, Wash. won the six-dog sporting class with a time of 2:24.01. Mikki Douglas, of Cle Elum, Wash., won the skijoring race, despite an early fall on day two, with a time of 1:24:52.

Now that there is plenty of snow in Oregon, Yeargain and her students are finally able to get some much-needed practice in snow. That is exactly what she and her students did on Saturday.

“Today we had five of our teams running on snow up on the Santiam,” Yeargain said. “It was gorgeous. It was sunny, but cool enough for the dogs.”

Yeargain currently has five students, ranging in age from 12-56, and all five were mushing dogs during the day.

The group, whose slogan is “Have fun — be careful, and take your cell phone,” begins practicing in the fall as soon as it is cool enough for the dogs.

They begin their training with dogs pulling scooters on the local trails and dirt roads. Once there is enough snow in the mountains, they move onto snow with sleds during the winter.

Yeargain keeps a kennel with more than 40 dogs, including 36 runable sled dogs, a couple of retired dogs, and a litter of six puppies.

Yeargain is quick to point out that sled dog mushing is something that anyone can do. In addition, it is not necessary to have special breeds of dogs.

Yeargain said that she has seen a number of different breeds of midsized to large dogs pulling scooters, including Labradors, border collies, German wirehair’s, and even beagles.

Barton was quick to add that not only does it not matter what breed of dog you start with dog mushing is something that can be done anywhere.

“I’m originally from Los Angeles, Calif.,” she said. “I started mushing with a lab mix around

ROGER HARNACK/OMAK-OKANOGAN COUNTY CHRONICLE

Kelly Barton of Bend runs a team of Karen Yeargain’s dogs to a fourth-place finish in the six-dog team portion of the Conconully Snow Dog Super Mush Jan. 21-22.

Barton moved to Oregon to attend Oregon State University, which she graduated from in 2011. She has applied to attend graduate school and hopes to be a veterinarian someday. In the meantime, she is continuing to run dogs with Yeargain, although she hopes to someday have teams of her own.

“I like the bond that you get with the dogs,” she said. “I know it’s hard to believe that you can get close to 40 dogs, but they are as close to my pets as they can be without actually owning them.”

Yeargain’s youngest student is Kamryn Elliott of Prineville. Although only 12, she is no stranger to dog mushing as she already has seven years of experience.

She helps Yeargain with her kennel on Wednesdays and Thursdays after school, and can generally be found mushing on the weekends.

“The dogs are very important,” she said. “It’s fun to get outdoors and run them, but it’s a humongous responsibility.”

Both Yeargain and Elliott are planning on racing again this weekend at a race in Priest Lake, Idaho.

“That will be my first race of the season,” Elliott said. “I’m getting excited.”

Races continue into the spring with a race scheduled for Wanoga Sno Park, near Bend, in March.