I spent New Year's in the mountains of Valdres in southern Norway, together with some old and many new friends who are into sleddog racing (a.k.a. 'mushing'). The picture above is Marit Kasin of Kennel Vinterdans, who is out training her team. We were some 20+ people and about ten times as many dogs, I think. I took hundreds of photos. A friend also brought along a sled I got to borrow so I could try sleddog riding for the first time in life. Great fun! I definitely need more experience to be able to do it better, but I had fun going along a fairly easy trail. And fortunately my 'guide' was very patient with rookies! I had 6 dogs in front of the sled. Some people had 18 when they went out training - THAT was an impressive sight, I tell you. No wonder the lady on the sled was the reigning Norwegian champion...
One of my favourite huskies in the world, if not THE favourite at present: Amigo. He comes from Ketil Reitan, but is now owned and trained by Jeppedalen Husky Trail. He is an excellent lead dog and amazingly beautiful, I think, with one blue and one brown eye. I've met Amigo a couple of times before and we got on well enough. But this time he was off training for a few days due to an injury, and I took him for a walk twice. That was as if cracking a code - we totally connected and all of a sudden he was a different dog; very cosy and loving and ... I completely melted!
Old flatcoat retrievers look cute in 25 below zero degrees... Whiskers and eye brows turn white, just like my hair did, because of humidity freezing. I love his looks! He is one out of two flats who live with Jeppedalen Husky Trail and their 20+ Alaskan Huskies. And the flats are the only ones who formally live inside the house rather than out in the dog yard... ;-)
Cuba and Sunniva. The latter is a six-year-old girl who is crazy about dogs and dog sports. She had borrowed a kid's sled from one person, and Cuba + another dog from another, and got to race her own two-dog team around the kid's trail in the snow. Great fun! Here she's thanking Cuba for the ride. Later Sunniva got to be co-pilot on a 14-dog-team. No need to say she was high on adrenalin after that :-D Great girl, who will one day make a fine musher methinks.
Early afternoon in the mountains. The colours were absolutely amazing regardless of what time of the day it was, and with lots of clear sky we got to experience all kinds of colours both on the sky and in the landscape around us. No wonder we spent the larger part of the day outside...
Sunniva and BentO share a sled behind 14 dogs, all of which belong to the latter! It was an amazing sight, both for the joy in her face, for the beauty of a long team winding its way through the snow - and for the sun and the shade effects caused by snow clouds and near-sunset. Magic!
Winter magic! This is what a regular birch looks like around midnight when it's more than 20 below zero degrees... It's not a black-and-white photo; just a regular colour photo taken in the dark using standard flash. No wonder, perhaps, that I had to go out at night for a walk and for taking photos :)
I spent New Year's in the mountains of Valdres in southern Norway, together with some old and many new friends who are into sleddog racing (a.k.a. 'mushing'). The picture above is Marit Kasin of Kennel Vinterdans, who is out training her team. We were some 20+ people and about ten times as many dogs, I think. I took hundreds of photos. A friend also brought along a sled I got to borrow so I could try sleddog riding for the first time in life. Great fun! I definitely need more experience to be able to do it better, but I had fun going along a fairly easy trail. And fortunately my 'guide' was very patient with rookies! I had 6 dogs in front of the sled. Some people had 18 when they went out training - THAT was an impressive sight, I tell you. No wonder the lady on the sled was the reigning Norwegian champion...
One of my favourite huskies in the world, if not THE favourite at present: Amigo. He comes from Ketil Reitan, but is now owned and trained by Jeppedalen Husky Trail. He is an excellent lead dog and amazingly beautiful, I think, with one blue and one brown eye. I've met Amigo a couple of times before and we got on well enough. But this time he was off training for a few days due to an injury, and I took him for a walk twice. That was as if cracking a code - we totally connected and all of a sudden he was a different dog; very cosy and loving and ... I completely melted!
Old flatcoat retrievers look cute in 25 below zero degrees... Whiskers and eye brows turn white, just like my hair did, because of humidity freezing. I love his looks! He is one out of two flats who live with Jeppedalen Husky Trail and their 20+ Alaskan Huskies. And the flats are the only ones who formally live inside the house rather than out in the dog yard... ;-)
Cuba and Sunniva. The latter is a six-year-old girl who is crazy about dogs and dog sports. She had borrowed a kid's sled from one person, and Cuba + another dog from another, and got to race her own two-dog team around the kid's trail in the snow. Great fun! Here she's thanking Cuba for the ride. Later Sunniva got to be co-pilot on a 14-dog-team. No need to say she was high on adrenalin after that :-D Great girl, who will one day make a fine musher methinks.
Early afternoon in the mountains. The colours were absolutely amazing regardless of what time of the day it was, and with lots of clear sky we got to experience all kinds of colours both on the sky and in the landscape around us. No wonder we spent the larger part of the day outside...
Sunniva and BentO share a sled behind 14 dogs, all of which belong to the latter! It was an amazing sight, both for the joy in her face, for the beauty of a long team winding its way through the snow - and for the sun and the shade effects caused by snow clouds and near-sunset. Magic!
Winter magic! This is what a regular birch looks like around midnight when it's more than 20 below zero degrees... It's not a black-and-white photo; just a regular colour photo taken in the dark using standard flash. No wonder, perhaps, that I had to go out at night for a walk and for taking photos :)
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