Tugged along by his four-dog team, Adam Robinson was skijoring at a swift clip last Sunday when, more than halfway through the 10-mile race at Mount Lorne, he glanced over his shoulder and an odd sight struck him.

“A dog team came up behind me — without a musher,” he said.

“No one had called ‘Trail,’ and I thought, ‘That’s kind of weird.’ Usually you give somebody a heads-up.”

Robinson contemplated the musher-less sled-sloggers momentarily, then made room along the ample path to let the mutts careen on by.

“I let them pass me, then I grabbed the handlebar. But I had my skis on so it was kind of hard to stop,” he said.

Eventually, Robinson managed to tip the sled over to slow the team’s progress as he held onto all 12 dogs: his own and the rogue team just ahead.

“I got dragged for a bit and then I got them to a stop — and then my dogs wrapped around a tree.

“I was stuck ... and I was like this,” he said, his arms flung-out as he clung onto both sets of reins.

“And then my dogs popped off the tree, so we all took off again.”

Eventually Robinson stopped them once more, tied them to a tree and took off his skis to help secure the mystery team further back, which turned out to belong to musher Meagan Gnabowski — no rookie, despite the slip-up.

She hitched a ride with fellow veteran Maren Bradley to catch up with her canines.

Robinson, perhaps as a result of his gracious efforts, finished dead last of the seven skijorers competing on the 10-mile route at last Sunday’s 21st annual Carbon Hill dog sled-skijor race at the Lorne Mountain Community Centre.

The race was the first of the Yukon mushing season.

“That’s the first time I’ve had to do it in a race,” he said of the stop-and-hitch for a fallen musher.

“I was a guide, so I’m super used to catching teams. Normally I’m on a sled when I catch them, which is a bit easier,” he added. “But it’s pretty common in a race for people to help other people out.

“The dogs come first.”

In the 30-mile race – officially 38 miles – Katherine Sheepway and Darryl Sheepway finished first and second, respectively, both on skis.

Katherine Sheepway dominated the event, earning a time of 02:37:17 — about 30 minutes ahead of her husband, who placed second of three skijorers but sixth overall in the 30-mile.

“Definitely the best Carbon Hill race trail there’s ever been. Couldn’t have asked for better conditions,” Katherine Sheepway told the Star. “They were amazing.”

Like champion mushers past, she attributed the win to her dogs.

“It was all dog today. I’m proud of the dogs. They did awesome.”

Led by Lota and her brother Selma, Katherine’s team was made up of two-and-a-half-year-old mutts — as was her husband’s — plus an eighth dog with an extra year or so on him.

Each skijorer in the Carbon Hill was allowed to run between one and four dogs, versus the eight-dog limit for mushers.

The couple, who have competed at the annual Mount Lorne event for several years in a row, hope to enter the Cinnamon Bun Run — up to 130 miles on sled or ski — this March.

They’re also looking to complete the 210-mile Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail Race between Dawson City and Eagle, Alaska, later in March.

As for the more local race last weekend, Darryl Sheepway noted he and his wife live about eight kilometres down Annie Lake Road: “These are the trails we train on, so it’s nice to win on them too.

“I’m very pleased with the way my dogs ran today — and I’m even more pleased with the way my wife’s dogs ran today....”

Meanwhile, Yukon Quest veteran Crispin Studer placed first overall in the mushing portion of the 30-mile race, arriving at the finish line about six minutes after Katherine Sheepway with a time of 02:43:15.

The three-time Percy DeWolfe champion said his eye is on the shorter races this year.

The Yukon Quest, in which he placed 13th in 2013, is out of the mix.

Studer, who moved to the Yukon from Switzerland in 2006 — drawn by the “winter, dogs, outdoors...” — noted the relaxed, sociable atmosphere at the Carbon Hill.

“It’s just a fun event because you see a lot of friends, there’s a lot of kids playing,” he said. “There’s competition but you’re not all wound about it.

“It’s a fun way to expose young dogs to the start,” added the Carcross resident.

Studer’s eight-dog team was made up mostly of two- and three-year-olds.

Meanwhile, Mandy Johnson — like Katherine Sheepway — beat out her partner, placing first in the 10-mile race with a time of 28:00.

She finished precisely one minute ahead of her hubby, Armin Johnson, who nabbed the number-two spot. Both of them rode sleds.

“My husband and I love the sport,” said Mandy Johnson, who’s been mushing since age nine and is now “really into the sprint racing stuff.”

On top of the socializing, “we love the competition,” she added.

In that vein, the couple made sure to include both leaders and yearlings in their teams last Sunday.

The pair are preparing for next month’s Anchorage Fur Day Rendezvous Winter Festival — or “Rondy.”

The city’s 10-day winter celebration sees mushing teams re-race the same route, which veers through the streets of Anchorage, during three 25-mile heats for a total of 75 miles.

Virginia Sarrazin, a five-year musher, finished first of the skijorers in the 10-mile last weekend, but was bested to the line by Mandy and Armin Johnson.

She earned a time of 30:00.

Travis Bernard, a rookie competitor, and the only one on classic skis — no mean feat — raced in the six-mile with Freya, a husky cross “with a sled dog build.

“It’ll be her first time skijoring with so many other dogs around, so she could handle it well or it could be a disaster, we’ll see,” Bernard laughed beforehand.

“These are great when you’re on trails like this stuff,” he added, pointing to his planks following a 10th-place finish out of 11.

“But when it’s all packed you don’t really have any grip, so when you’re trying to skate you fail a bit.”

Nonetheless: “I like it here, it’s a good, relaxing atmosphere. Everyone looks like they’re having fun.”