2024 Copper Basin 300

The 2024 Copper Basin 300 is in the books! What a blast!!!

Run 1 - Glennallen to Chistochina (49 miles) - Really fun run! The start is always hectic and exciting and over the first handful of miles we had a lot of passes with other teams.

Run 2 - Chisto to Meyers Lake (68 miles) - This was the big grueling run. Left at 9pm, finished this run at 8 am.. 11 hours! And 3800 ft of elevation. We had to do a couple of water crossings on this run too, which are always an adventure! Towards the end of this run we enlisted the help of Lady Gaga and T swift to keep us awake.

Run 3 - Meyers Lake to Sourdough (34 miles) - Shortest run of the trip but one of the most fun! Lots of rockin and rolling on the twisty trail through the trees. Dogs really got into a groove halfway through this run that they would carry all the way to the finish.

Run 4 - Sourdough to Lake Louise (54 miles) - Nice long nighttime run. The dogs really loved the couple of times when they saw a headlight in the dark, charging up to investigate. It was a really wide trail and Marley and Peso had differences of opinion on where we should be running on the trail (we were snaking back and forth!) so I moved Peso back and put Marley in single lead. He did great and would end up being in single lead for the final ~125 miles of this race.. if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Run 5 - Lake Louise to Glennallen Finish (76 miles) - This was a gorgeous run, especially leaving Lake Louise. Bluebird day, sub 0 temps, dogs were CRUISIN! We didn’t know if we were going to take a stop midway through this run at the final checkpoint or if we were gonna blow on by.. but the dogs had tons of gas left in the tank so we did this run straight through. Didn’t see another dog team this whole run. We had a blast though and dogs were smokin coming into the finish. At some point in this run, I may have put my parka on… but there’s no photographic proof so

We rocked n’ rolled our way to an 11th place finish with ALL 12 of the dogs we started with happy and healthy. Our goals for this race were 1 - (as always) HAVE FUN!!, 2 - Finish with all 12 of our dogs, and 3 - Top 10. We finished just off from that final goal but absolutely crushed the first two! I couldn’t be happier with how these dogs did.. Best Dogs in the World! Nautique Sky Kennel

Big thank you to everyone who made it possible! Deke Naaktgeboren for being the dog man, Eric for being the best handler, Nikki for being an awesome vet on the race, friends like Romay Harris to make the checkpoints fun, and all the awesome race people from the Copper 300 organization! I really also appreciate all the support from the folks - friends, family, and followers of the sled dog sport! Thanks all!!

Next up.. Yukon Quest Alaska 300 in 2 weeks!

Dogs: Marley, Peso, Badger, Belle, Churro, Siesta, Gordito, Simba, Ariel, Husker, Pokey, Golden Gopher (all 12 finished the race!)

Handlers: Deke and Eric

Weather: Ideal temperature (-10 to 0 F most of the race) and no snow or wind