The call of the wild is a sled dog's howl as it waits to be chosen to run.

You can hear the call each winter when musher Dotty Dennis and her partner, David Beck, a legendary ski mountaineer, bring Husky Express Dog Sled Tours to Hope Valley, east of Carson Pass on Highway 88.

Those wanting to get their sled dog fix vicariously can go see the movie "Eight Below" or watch TV footage of Alaska's grueling Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which starts Saturday. But there's nothing like being in the presence of a sled dog team about to cut loose.

Dennis and Beck's paying customers are treated to a rare experience: a front-row seat on a pooch-powered ride in the snowy Sierra.

The dogs chosen to pull the sled don't muzzle their enthusiasm.

Today, the loudest dog is Donner, a mostly black Siberian husky with ice-blue eyes and a white stripe from forehead to nose. He bites off each bark like a hunk of meat.

Dennis clips the dog's mother, Sissy, into the gang line in the first lead position. Donner's 3-year-old littermate, Cupid, gets tied behind. Frustrated, Donner digs furiously in the snow.

Beck leads Yuba, another littermate, behind Cupid. Donner bites and tugs at the rope that ties him to the fence.

The other lead, Shiner, is strapped in. Dennis says she's partial to her leaders. But she shies away from naming a favorite.

"It's like asking a mother of five, 'Which one do you like best?' " she says. "Maybe they do, but they don't want to say."

Finally, Donner is chosen and is attached next to Yuba. Cupid, also known affectionately as "Boing-Boing Dog," leaps into the air, barking. She jumps forward trying to pull the sled (referred to as a toboggan) off the snub line anchoring it to the fence.

Sissy and Shiner watch quietly. The siblings howl while the two wheel dogs, Dawson and Kobuck, are tied closest to the sled. Some of the dogs' cries sound almost human, eerily like tribal utterings. The last dog, a big male named Yuri, is strapped next to Cupid.

Ready? Hike! Haw! Good dogs!

Salinas residents Lyle and Marcie Lemp climb into the 6-foot sled, the kind used for the 1,100-mile Iditarod trip across Alaska. They are celebrating their second wedding anniversary by dog sledding.

"We always do something different," says Marcie Lemp, 64.

Lyle Lemp, 55, adds, "We went snowmobiling for three hours last year and it nearly killed us."

The waiting sled dogs yowl and paw at the ground. The dogs in the trucks, the ones that won't go this time, just moan.

Dennis steps on the sled's runners, grabs a handle and releases the snub line.

"Ready? Hike!" she calls. The team springs forward and jolts the sled into motion. The huskies pull hard, quiet except for their panting and the sound of their paws racing across the snow.

"Haw!" Dennis cries. The dogs curve right and settle into a lope, going about 10 mph. She shouts each one's name and calls it a good dog. The sled slides over a crystal-white meadow beneath Scott and Thompson peaks.

Just east of the Sierra crest, Hope Valley is one of California's biggest high-country meadows, akin to Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows. Dennis has a permit to operate the tour starting in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Hope Valley is huge, pretty and undeveloped except for the little-used highway.

Tahoe area beckoned

Dennis, 63, has mushed for half her life. She was inspired by a dog sled tour operator she met in Colorado in the mid-1960s. Dennis was an Aspen ski bum moonlighting as a waitress. She thought training Alaskan malamutes looked like fun.

She started mushing with three German shepherds and a cart on dirt - a common way to train dogs in snowless seasons and climes. While working as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas, she and her dirt-dog team competed in Southern California. Dennis built a six-dog unit of fast Siberian huskies and became addicted to racing.

Like most of the serious drivers, she longed to move north and trade cart and dirt for sled and snow. While others went to Alaska, she went to the Lake Tahoe area. She visited Alaska in 1979 and 1984 to help with the Iditarod. She met people closely tied to the "Last Great Race," such as Col. Norman Vaughan, chief musher on Adm. Richard Byrd's first Antarctic expedition and at 84 the oldest person to complete the Iditarod.