A woman who organized a rescue group found the musher she was looking for late Friday night, after his nine-dog team had been discovered roaming the Upper Susitna Valley — with its winter dog sled still attached.
Rebecca Charles of Wasilla said on Saturday that musher Allen Lau, a friend of hers, is in good health.
She'd become concerned after learning on Facebook his dog team had been discovered without him Friday morning. The Willow Dog Mushers Association posted a picture of the huskies resting on a dirt road next to tall green grass, the sled pushed off to the side.
The dogs were found at about Mile 12 of Petersville Road.
"I was making sure he wasn't dead or hurt on the trail," said Charles.
Lau has been using his team and the sled – designed for snow and ice — to haul supplies to a remote cabin off the road, over swampy muskeg in an area with bears and other dangers.
Charles organized a team of eight rescuers, complete with waders, boots, headlamps, a six-wheeler and other gear to look for Lau.
But she happened to run into him at the end of the Petersville Road late Friday night.
"He was very upset and very, very concerned" about his dogs, she said.
He'd gone to get supplies, and somehow his dogs had become untied, she said.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Animal Control officers responded to the report of the loose dog team early Friday morning.
Kirsten Vesel, director of the borough animal shelter, said the dogs had apparently not been at Mile 12 long. They looked to be in good health, though they were slightly dehydrated, she said. The dogs remained hooked to the sled, but had become tangled in the gangline that kept them attached.
Lau could not be reached on Saturday. Apparently his cellphone was dead — gasoline for his generator was one supply he wanted to haul in, friends said.
Charles said Lau's main concern was he could not get his dogs and the gear until Tuesday. He understands they are at the animal shelter, but it's closed till Tuesday.
Jill Garnet, president of the Peninsula Sled Dog Racing Association, said she helped organize the rescue group by Facebook "networking." She lives far from Petersville — in Kasilof on the Kenai Peninsula — so she wasn't available to be part of the rescue group.
"It's been a true Alaska group effort," she said.
Lau was grateful and communicating with Garnet Saturday morning, before the battery on his cellphone began to die, she said. He was trying to figure out how to move supplies to the cabin.
Garnet said on Saturday she was trying to organize people who could help Lau haul freight, perhaps with a six-wheeler or eight-wheeler ATV that can handle the swamp.
"If they are willing to go Petersville, they can contact me," she said.
Her number is (907) 953-9223.