Steve Mullen and his 18-year-old daughter, Brandi, are having the ultimate father-daughter adventure, mushing separate teams of Alaskan huskies for 100 miles through northeastern Oregon's rugged Wallowa Mountains.
"If something goes wrong, I'm going to help her out," said Mullen, 42. Then he laughed, because the two from Clearwater, B.C., are competing against each other for $1,000 in prize money, and he'll be handicapping himself if he stops for his daughter. "She's totally capable of beating me, and she weighs 60 pounds less than me," he said.
The Eagle Cap Extreme Dog Sled Race began at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Ferguson Ridge Ski Area near Wallowa Lake. The Mullens will travel together, crossing the finish line early today.
Unless, that is, Brandi decides to win the race, she said. The Thompson Rivers University freshman said it may be survival of the fittest during the final 10 miles. All she has to do is outrun her dad and other mushers in the race.
The seven-year-old Eagle Cap Extreme is split into 100- and 200-mile races for teams of eight and 12 dogs, respectively. Ten mushers are competing for a total of $6,900 in prize money.
Commercial fisherman Steve Mullen, a sled dog racer since age 12, has competed in the Yukon Quest and hundreds of other races. Brandi Mullen began sled dog racing at age 4 in a one-dog, one-mile race. "I was born into it, and I don't know anything else," she said. She's mushed teams in 10-mile sprint races, but this is her first 100-mile mountain race, and much of it will be in darkness, she said. "I'm a little nervous," she admitted. "I've never gone that far."
Having her dad along is a confidence builder, she said. When she was 10, he rescued her from a young moose that refused to surrender the trail to dog teams and then chased her, she said. Her dad tackled the 600-pound animal, knocking it into deep snow, and held it down until the sleds passed. He escaped the furious moose by jumping on a passing sled. "It was scary, yeah," Brandi said. "That moose was coming after me. Once my dad came back, it was OK."
To read more about the event visit:
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/01/father-daughter_mushers_hope_to_set_pace_in_eagle_cap_extreme_sled_dog_race.html
It looks like the results are in and neither Brandi nor her father took first place. Hopefully we will be able to find a follow up story to see how things went for them out there with their dogs.