Happy day :)))

Today we used our free day very well for driving the dogs. After many very cold days it was finally warmer from yesterday - we had only -15 degrees. And today was perfect sunshine so Jörg hooked up 13 dogs.

Before the start
Jörg full speed out of the kennel. You can see Klödi, the black single dog, he seems to lough all over his face ;)

I used the waiting time to drive our puppys in a winter wonderland

Susan got also some motion, running with me and the pups.

Jörg on the way home, the dogs had ice-faces.

Look at this...

...it´s -42,5 degrees this morning. We think that is absolutely not necessary...But it´s a good reason not to be out to often and be in front of the computer for following the Femundlopet instead. There it was also very cold the first day. The teams where checked by the veterinarians to protect the dogs from frostinjuries. On the side www.sjekkpunktet.no you can also find a lot of informations about the race - if you understand norwegian ;)
Btw, on the thermometer you see that it´s only 5,6 degrees inside. That´s not the truth, it stands beside the window and there it draws some cold air in. We have about 22 degrees (plus) in the house :))) Our dogs got some extra straw in their houses that they stay warm, too.

Tablemushing-time!!!

Now the real business is starting. Tomorrow at 16 pm the first open sleddog team will leave Röros to start the Femundlopet. So we have a busy weekend in front of us. The whole day in front of the computer, follow the GPS-tracking and the updates of many dogdrivers at their websides. We tablemushers are very happy that there a lot of peoples who updates their blogs and websides. So we have ofter more informations about the race then the folks who are on the race. It will be exciting following the game of the big guys! If somebody else is interested, you can follow Femundlopet here http://www.femundlopet.no/ . But be prepared that the server will crash sometimes - it´s normal because we are not the only ones who follow the race!

Today I was out with the dogs for a long run. It was the first time this season that we could drive on the river. I really like that part of the trail.

Tjapps Quest 2012 ;)

Like everybody knows we had plans to go to the Troms Quest this weekend. But it was to less snow, so it was cancelled. So we decided that I drive with 12 dogs the 100 km to Tjappsåive. There are living Heike and Michi with their dogs, they drive a racing and tourist kennel. They have a beautyful trailsystem and Christina and I met there. So we did our own Tjapps Quest, we drove the dogs like on a race, coming into a checkpoint, staying there on straw a few hours and then driving further. Many thanks to Heike and Michi that we could use their trailsystem and the support in the checkpoint. Heike made even a whole in the lake that we could get water for the dogs!

We drove the dogs during the day...
...and during the night...

...on lakes...

...and in the woods. Short said, it was beautyful :)))

A movie from today. Sorry for the poor quality inbetween, I had cold hands (-19 degrees), balanced the camera on my glove to come with the other hand into the other glove. It was not that easy. Btw, there will be no results from Tjapps Quest, it was only one competitor in every class ;)))

After many trainings with trailbreaking I had the joy to ride our dogs in sunshine and with a nice trail today :) I hooked up all 15 adult dogs for a long run. It was really fun to see the pace of the dogs and how eager they worked.

Sunshine, a good trail and eager dogs - can you ask for more?
And it was not that cold eather, only -10 degrees :)))



Here again a small video ;)

There was only one sad thing the last days. The Troms Quest is cancelled because of to less snow :((( Not only that we missed that as a good training, I had for the first time in my life bib-number 1...

Trailbreaking - again

Today the dogs had a tough job to break the trail. Jörg opened it with the Snowmobile yesterday, but we had hard wind and so all trail was gone and blowing in the wind again. But I was not alone today. The Austria girl Christina who lives 100 km from us joined me and trained her dogs together with me. . My team at a better part of the trail.

Christina with her team. Guess who is the passenger in her sled?
Susan of course! She had full control over everything and joined the ride in Christinas sled :)



Christina did a small film. here was absolutely no trail left and the dogs were partly up to the ears in the snow - who wonders, we have so small dogs...