LONG TIME NO SEE..

Maaan, how busy has the last few weeks been !??!

March is over half way through and we are up to the ears in work. The blog is fifth or sixts priority, and the blog is for sure the only thing with a standstill in this period.

The long-tour seasson is just starting for real. From yesterday the dogs will be out total of five days. The clients are 11 students and one teacher from a nature-photography-study in Åland islands, Finland.

I have also had some enjoyable wholeday trips lately. First one with eight guests where we went in quite strong winds to Vinstervann and the cabin we rent, Grønnolstølen.

The other trip some days later, starting here at the farm since the weatherforecasts promised snow and wind. It was sunny and calm all day. We enjoyd the magic of the forest for the day, taking good time to prepare a superb cheese/local ham warm sandwich lunch =)

Sebastian & Lydia from Berlin

The BIG news of the last few weeks is our new and super cool office in the centre of Beitostølen.

200 Smtrs will be filled with info and interactive displays of all activities available here at Beitostølen. We have rented the office together with Beito Aktiv. We aim to open new markedparts with this new office. The work to make it an atraction will start for real when the biggest highseasson is over. Come and visit us!

Even Elisa has been Outdoors !! =)

Between working we have followed both Iditarod and Finnmarksløpet with great excitement. Most of the best mushers of the world has been competing in theese two races.

Iditarod, the longest race in the world, takes place in Alaska from Anchorage to Nome - 1850 km! This year we finally saw a native alaskian win the race. John Baker reached Nome first.

In Finnmarksløpet Roger Dahl from Alta won impressivley. Runners up was Sigrid Ekran - Robert Sørlie and Gorm Engen. We are still waiting for the rest of the field to reach Alta and the finnishline. We are a little proud here as well. Gorm Engen, our good friend and "neighbour" ran the race of his life and finnished at a impressive 4th place. Congratulations especially to you Gorm!

We are now turning our eyes to the spring seasson. We are still waiting impatiently for the snow to settle, and make it easier to go whereever we want in the mountains. At this point the snow is still very soft and the dogs are "swimming". Soon it will change!

We are planning puppies and now we await Loba to get into heat.

Summer programme is coming out soon.

New homepage are still under construction.

One new dog has arrived, Loke . He comes from our friends Marit and Susanna.

We pray for lots of heavy snowfall the next two weeks. That will be needed in the end of spring!

LIFE GOES ON!!

Even though yesterday was sad with Bimbos passing it was a beautiful day. The tours went as normal, the dogs was happy and keen to run!

Theese pictures is from last Saturday. Photographer Nicolay Flaaten was out in the plane with Espen. Nice line on Øyangen!!

Danish winter hollidays is upon us. There is still availability on the day tours!

BIMBO 1999 - 2011

Yesterday was a sad day.

Bimbo passed away.

She was our first Husky. She had 26 puppies during her 12 year long life. She was a big inspiration for us, and her first puppies was the beginning of our our first team.

For the last years Bimbo has lived with us as our house dog. The kids loved to crawl all over her. She didn`t seem to mind. Every evening Bimbo sneaked into the sofa, even though she was not allowed to. Irritating then, now we miss it..

Bimbo was my vacumcleaner after chopping meat for the dogs. Bimbo was always present, always loose and a good companion on endless of trips. She stopped her career as a working dogs maaany years ago, I think she considered work to be for lower ranked dogs, hence the nickname "BimboQueen". If not a very good working dog, Bimbo poduced VERY good puppies!

During twelve years, Bimbo has lived in many places. First in Svalbard where she was born, the daughter of "Dildo" and "Pippi". Then Bimbo moved to Finland to Flakholmen in the finnish archipilago, where she stayed while I went on a expedition to Canada.

She came back to Svalbard with us, before moving to Beitostølen in 2005.

Bimbo is the mother of both my parents dogs in Finland. Schackelton and Inuk.

In the afterlife we like to think that Bimbo is reunited with her parents, as well as at least two of her children wich she outlived (Gusto and Svala) and her mate for life Turbo.

Here in our dogyard 4 of her "puppies" still run fast. Asterix, Rambi, Smirre and Staffe.

Rest in peace BIMBO

"Beito Camp" TODAY!

Today it's been a WONDERFULL day down at Beito! The Camp by the Øyangen lake, is looking cooler and cooler! If you don't believe me, you just have to look up those pics:

No, this is not somewhere in the High Arctic... This is by the Øyangen lake, 30 mts from our dogyard! Wiggo and Åge from Beito Aktiv, have been setting up this beautifull igloo. Kids love to play around it! :-)

Espen Aarhus has parked his plane right by the kennel. How cool is that!!? Espen offers private flights on his plane, what I'm sure it's a wonderfull experience. The dogs think that having a plane as a neighbour is interesting! They don't seem to be bothered at all when the plane takes off or land so it works very well and it looks spectacular!

What about a race between your machine and "ours", Espen? :-)

Despite the good weather, the temperatures have been pretty cold today. This morning, Niklas measured -32 degrees at the kennel. During the day, thanks to the warming effect of the sun, the temperatures have been "warmer", but still, very cold. That's why we decided to fire up in the lavvo and warm our hands around the open fire, with a cup of warm toddy.

... and, we didn't forget the dogs either. They got new, fluffy, warm straw! For theese dogs are used to cold temperatures, but still need some extra attention to

keep them warm and happy!

Beitostølen Helsesportsenter

Today I have been on Helseportsenteret and made four rounds with lovely children in the sled.

Weather was extremely changeable. Here is a video from the 2nd round that brought us perfect weather=)

FEMUNDLØPET RETROSPECT

On wednesday evening we set of to Røros and Femundløpet World Championsship 2011. Just before midnight we arrived to our good friends, Staffan and Ingrid and their adorable son of 6 months, Abel.

After a good night sleep we went to Røros Centre on thursday morning for the big event.

At 12:00 the first team of F600 set out on its 605 km jorney. With one minute interval team after team set out. We helped Erle to get on her way, and everything went smoothly.

At the last minute, my old friend from Svalbard, Arne Liaklev saw his chance. He had traveled to Røros in the last minute, and he did not have any handler to bring his depot out to the track... I see the typical behaviour of an experienced wilderness traveller. Any problem is solved enroute.

Well, Arne hit a tree while overtaking another team. So 1,5 hrs into the race his sled looked more like Santaclaus sleigh. A problem that was solved, simply by Arne adjusting to the new contidions =)

Erles race sadly ended allready at Tufsingdalen. She had a sudden attack of sickness, and had to scratch after such a good start. We feel with her, as we know she is the last to deserve what happened to her.

Arne started as the last team, and the surprise was enormous when he suddenly pulled into *Checkpoint Tufsingdalen as the 2nd fastest team, only one minute slower than the silver fox, Robert Sørlie.

Out of Tufsingdal the confusion was complete. Robert was supposed to start one minute ahead of Arne. But the dogs bit Roberts lines, so he had to stay back to fix it. Nobody seemed to understand that Arne was to start 2nd, and he was way back starting in the middle of 83 teams. Arne only saw one sollution, lifted his anchor and raced through the resting teams. Very bad job of the checkpoint crew. It looked awsome though!

Since Robert had problems, Arne started out as the leader and kept it all the way to Drevsjø.

But the high speed, and deep sugersnow tracks, was hard for Arnes dogs. Soon after leaving Drevdjø, Arne had to take a dog in the sled, and the hills up to Tynset slowed him down. After Tynset Arne descided to take it easy, and focus on making it to the finishline. Long rests, and easy runs, was a good medicine for the dogs. After Tynset all Arnes dogs ran to Røros. 25th place to Arne in his debute Femundløp. Not bad!

It was a thriller between Sigrid Ekran and Robert Sørlie. Sigrid was to hard a match and won the race nicely!

The short race was won by Marianne Skjøthaug from Finnmark.

Respect to theese women!

after

February made me shiver...

February came with warm weather.

November, December and parts of January will be remembered as very cold. For the last couple of days though, its been pleasent temperatures around zero degrees C.

Yesterday I went on a very nice wholeday trip with Renee and Lianne from The Netherlands. The original plan was to set out towards Vinstervann and Valdresflya. But when the morning came I realized it was winds up to blizzard strength in the high terrain.

So we stayed below the treeline, and ended up having a wonderful day with the dogs.

We did some trailbreaking in the forest, and as I have said many times before, the dogs never stop to surprise me. Even when falling completely through the snow, with a big clumpsy heavy musher behind the sled, they just keep going. Amazing!

Half way we stopped, dogs got a big slice of raw meat.

We made up a fire, warmed the soup, ate it with bread, coffee, tea, sirup, cookies. We could really apreciate beeing in the forest, as we could hear the wind roaring in the treetops.

Today Silje has been running one team at the "Helsesportsenteret" (HealthSportInstitute) where we go twice a week. It is a real plesure to bring disabled people out in the nature. Many of them actually crying of happiness=)

At the moment Silje is on her way out again with some local guests on a HalfDay tour. They will cover some 16 km in aproximately 1,5 hrs effective sledding. The whole "show" last for about 3 hrs since we are very keen on having our guests helping with the preparations of their own team and so on.

Tomorrow me and my father is going to Røros for Femundløpet 2011. Sadly I will not be compeeting. I havn`t been in good shape since christmas time, and my testrun in Hallingen made it clear to me, that it would be unwise to participate in a three-day competition.. After all it is important that I am able to work also after the race, since I live from running sleddogs.

It will be exciting to follow the race from the sideline. It is probably the biggest race ever with about 250 teams running.

HALLINGEN 2011

Hallingløpet 2011 is over. I was at least last man standing. It was physically very hard for both me and the dogs, and I have learned a lesson about conection between dogs and musher.

That connection between me and the dogs was non existing. Theese super well trained atheles belongs to our friends Erle and Gorm. They have been trained and groomed for racing all there lives. I dodn`t even have a young rookie team, but a bunch of experienced racers that has finnished many great races before.

Frodo, Mathilde, Dæven, Maloy, Senja, Frekk, Fox and Splitt.

Frkk and Fox obviously did not respect me. Worst was it with Fox. If I say that he worked for 10 km I am overdoing it a bit. Frodo who is Erle and Gorms legendary all time best leader, did his job, but not much more. Senja, Maloy, Splitt and Mathilde did some heavy duty working, but it helps little when the musher is 100kg and the route is 160 kms.

So we ended up as the last team to pass the finishline. In mushing language the last team is called "red lantern". I didn`t see that coming, and obviously I am not to proud. One bright side is, that the last musher gets a comfortprize. So it is much better to be the last than 2nd last=)
Lesson is learned and at the end of the day I am happy with the outcome and what I am able to draw from it.

The outcome is that Femundløpet will be dropped for my part. I see nothing worse that joining a big competition just to scratch it half way, because of lack in preparation (another reason is that I suspect that I have pnemonia, doctor will tell tomorrow).

I now have more respect for the guides is Beito Husky Tours when they say that the dogs is not listening=) It was probably good to get back to basics for 14 hrs.

Our dogs are specialized touring dogs. In the tracks we are not as fast as other teams, but off-piste we can for sure give a good competition. Today I spent a long time with my pack. Tears almost running as a felt our special conection stronger than ever!

LITEN CAMPINGVOGN TIL FEMUNDLØPET

We are looking for a small camping wagon or even a camper to be used under World Cup Femundløpet from 2-9th of february! HandlerHenrik and myself need a place to rest on checkpoints. Any suggestions / contacts are apreciated.

Mobile: 95 80 40 95

=) Niklas

TOP GEAR

On saturday we had one of the most busy days in the history of the company. We kicked the day of with a halfdaytour for six girls and moved onto a big arrangement with aproximately 90 guests. They all got to try dogsledding over a track of a little more than 1km. The dogs got to run the track 14 rounds. After 10 laps, one suspects that the dogs will not be able to manage the whole day. I got the impression that they where tired. But I know better. What they really are is bored. Huskies have a built in search for adventure. To run around in the same pattern does not suit their personality. But strangely, after the 12th round the dogs got a boost of energy, and my feeling was that they could keep it going all night long. The impressive part is, that the dogs do not know if they will be doing 10 laps or there will be 20 more coming. They do this for us humans, and they enjoy it. Strange beeings indeed!

Now we have plenty of snow! We have many expedition bookings this winter and we look forward to get started on the real adventures of 5 days or more!!

This weekend the crew from the world famous english motor programme "TOP GEAR" will visit our premisis here at Enjoy Beito (http://www.enjoybeito.com/). They have no plans for a husky ride, but once they see the raw powers of my animals, CAN THEY REALLY RESIST IT??

Karolina alone with 2-team Beito Huskies

Karolina and Tuva running a 2-team !!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011 !!

So, Christmas is over and the calender shows Jan. 11 - 2011.

Christmas is normally a very busy period for us and the dogs. This year though it wasn`t so busy and we where able to really enjoy having family visits from Denmark/Finland. Christmas, as all of november and december, was a COLD experience. The temperature where seldom rising above -20C and the normal was -25 to -30. The dogs easily handles theese temperatures. Naturally there bodies uses more energy, and we make sure that they are provided with plenty of dry warm straw in there doghouses. All through the year Our dogs are fed minimum two times a day. In wintertime it is not rare that we feed them 6-7 times a day. The food they get would give a normal house dog huge digestion problems. The huskies though has an amazing ability to cope with ultrahighenergy foods as pure fat, meat, fish, intestrins and so on. The dogs never siezes to amaze us!

November and December also will be remembered for the lack of snowdays. Northern winds brought the extreme cold but almost no snow. We had about 15 cm until last week. Just enough so we could arrange the trips without problems.

This last week brought us plenty of snow, and now we are back to normal. At this point I guess we have about 70 cm of snow and of course we love it. The dogs also seems to enjoy the harder workout it brings to break trail, awaiting the next comand from the Boss =)

Five groups has allready been out on 3-Day expeditions. Three groups with dogsleds and two with backcoyntry skiis. We have slept in cabins most nights. Only one night in tents.

In November and December the cold weather gave us problems in the dogyard. The small, almost nonexistent stream outside the yard, froze in the pipe under the road, and water/ice started flowing into the dogyard. In the beginning we worked hard to keep it open with all sorts of methods. Later the stream froze above the dogyard and water/ice started to flow into the premises from all around. At that point we descided to "evacuate" and build a seasonal dogyard by the lake on flat land. That was also a big prosess that took us some weeks, but now everythinh runs smoothly in the new place. Again a HUGE thanks to ØSIL for borrowing fences to us so we could manage the move without total financial disaster!

I, Niklas, will be entering two dog sledding races this season. I will be running the dogs of Gorm Engen and Erle Frantzen. Theese dogs are specialized long distance racing dogs. It is the excact same breed as my own dogs, however my dogs are specialized touring dogs and not as fast running as Gorm and Erles team.

The first race is the "Hallingenløpet" 21-22nd of January. 160 km.

After Hallingen we prepare for World Championsship race "Femundløpet" 2-5 of February. 400 km.

I look forward to theese races, but I also enter with a clear head, that it is not my own dogs, and I will probably not be able to race them to the max. So I expect a beatiful nature adventure with focus to come through the races with happy and healthy dogs. My farther will come to be my hadler through the race. I doubt that he has realized how tough that job is, but he is still young, tough and dangerous (66) so there should be no problems =)

As snow falls outside we look forward to next weekend wich will be one of the busiest of the winter!