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!