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!