Last year, the Happy Malamutes marked a 2.6 mile loop through the moose range and held an 8 hour ultra from 8am to 8pm each of the three days following Thanksgiving. This event was called Boycott Black Friday Ultra. Due to the pandemic, they canceled this event for this year. But they decided to go ahead and mark the loop trail for anyone who wanted to run, hike, snowshoe, or ski it unofficially. First I tried to drive up to Hatcher Pass, hoping to ski Archangel Road. But I was quickly turned around when I found that the road had about a foot of snow on it, and it wasn't plowed. I'm sure my Subaru could have made it up there, but it didn't seen worth the trouble. Instead, I chose to try skiing the marked Moose Range Trail. At first, Baby was wrapping herself around my skis and barking crazily at other hikers, skiers, and Christmas tree gatherers we encountered along the trail. I quickly gave up and loaded her into my backpack. About halfway around the loop, we lost most of the other people, and I let her out on her leash. She did quite well in spite of the fairly deep snow. It was really fun working our way along the trail and the markers were pretty easy to find. By the time we got back to the start, we were both ready to get warmed up. But I'm so glad I decided to do it. It would have been very difficult to try to actually run it. Some of the other runners tried a loop or two then finished up by running back on the road. The snow was much deeper than last year. Baby does quite well leading when I'm skiing, but the conditions have to be good and it can't be too cold.
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