Rough & Ready Challenge: The Dead-Dog Yukon Mush by Mark Hatmaker

Setting the Scene

·        You’re on the 33-mile Chilkoot Trail winding through the Coast Mountains.

·        The temperature is dropping, through more than a few mishaps you’ve lost your sled-dogs like a cheechako [Greenhorn/no account rookie.]

  It’s either sit and freeze or get back on the stick.

The Gear

·        Your own bad self.

·        A drag sled, or a fine stand-in.

·        Weight to fit your grit. [Me and my 6-weeks out from knee-surgery went with 125#.]

·        Choose terrain with hills if you got it.

The Protocol

·        Lash yourself in like the lead dog you are and…

·        Mush that sled for ½ Mile at your fastest pace, we’ve got to beat the night after all.

·        If your terrain is flat, make that ½ mile a full mile. Mushing uphill is soul-breaking man making work; you’ve chosen for grit if it takes you dropping to all fours like a lead dog to make the final uphill stretches.

The Goal

·        Your fastest time with no sandbaggin’ puts you in bona fide sourdough range [that’s a fine thing.]

“This is the law of the Yukon, that only the strong shall thrive; that surely the weak shall perish, and only the fit survive.”-Robert W. Service


 [The above is extracted from our upcoming book Rough & Ready: Old World Strength & Conditioning for Modern Warriors]


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