Puppies

The next generation of the team arrived in the beginning of october...

Film work

Last year september and october was hard work taking part in the film Far North. I had dogs that took part as actors and apart to taking care of the dogs I worked with logistics and was cast for two weeks. Now the results are comming, the film had premiere at the filmfestival in Venezia in August. Here is a video telling more about Far North:

Kajak Course

First weekend of September we had a WW kayaking course in Målselva and Salangselva...

Autumn paragliding

Trying to get out flying as often as possible. There is so much to learn, so I hope to do as much flying as possible during the autumn and winter.

Summer activities

Long, or maybe short, summer is gone with new experiences and trips. Highlight of the summer was one month traveling around in the alps with hiking, paragliding course, good food, visiting
friends and more...

Greate skiing

Getting more used to my new skies and enjoying good skiing in Tamokfjellet and Mårtind...

Spring

May means changes towards summer activities, but still trying to get the last out of the remaining snow. Most of the time is spent at home fixing the barn and preparing next years firewood, but I have got the chance to test my new rando skies and had a day with diving on Senja. There might still bee some sledding possibilities in the mountains, but our team is back in front of the ATV getting ready for shorter trips the next two months.
Lena started working again 50 % in the end of April and this also means a bit more time at home to make shore everything is fine with Tuva.

New camera

After some months without camera I finaly got my new Olympus camera which is supposed to be waterproof and shock proof. Hopefully this one lasts longer than the normal one week after the warranty cameras I have had before. Now I hope to be able to publish more posts and pix again.

The last weeks I have been mostly out in the mountains. First on dog sledding trips from Dividalen in Norway over to the ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi. We were lucky and had two grate trips with good weather.
After the last dog trip I went to the Lyngen alps ski guiding. We had two god days. Friday the plan was to cross the Lyngen peninsula from Gamvika to Nord-Lenangen over the top of Stor Galten. We started in grate weather, but after a few hours snow and wind forced us to take another route than planned. But after all a long challenging and interesting day that was ended with good skiing the last 800 m.
Saturday we had the most fantastic skiing at Kjostind.

More from Finnmarksløpet

Skare and Kaos are happy to reach the Finnish line in the lead after 2 days 19 hours and 18 min as NR 21. The race was a grate experience for me and I believe also for the dogs. The only drawback was that I wanted to continue...
The first two legs from Alta to Jotka and further to Skoganvarri is normally good trails, but this year a lot of the stretch was soft sugary snow and slow conditions. As the next leg to Levajok is normally softer and heavier I decided to change plans. Instead of resting 5 hours in Skoganvarri and 7 in Levajok I left Skoganvarri after 4 hours and made a 3 hour rest in the mountains. This way I had two 4 hour legs instead of one 9 hour leg. With my young dogs this was the only smart thing to do to save enough energy for the rest of the race. I knew this would be a good thing to do, but I did not dream about the difference it made to my team. I started out after my rest as NR 51 in the race and from here I passed 30 teams for the rest of the race and was not passed by anyone. For the continuing legs to Karasjok, Jergul and Alta I managed to keep the spirit and speed in the team. But the race is also many other important factors. Like meeting other mushers on trail and checkpoint, having a grate handler team (Thanks to Bård and Erik) and enjoying the nature around Finnmark. The most motivating an inspiring for me is the time with the dogs working together, learning to know them better, and building confidence. They all did very well.
Skare, steady as always, never being tired and just looking brefly over his shoulder when passing Mollisjok and the road at Stilla.
Kaos, always ready to go, getting a bit stiff, but recovering quickly. Elvira, which I though was my weakest dog, but kept on working like a hero and did two legs in lead. Momba and Elton, that got tired, but still did their best all the way. Allways pulling also in lead. Jota, the mad worker that allways goes like a machine except when he got sick at the second leg and neaded a ride for 20 minutes up the hills. Brutus that worked the whole way and never made any problems. And Sunda that had to leave the team in Levajok, but did a god job as long as she was there.
No it is time for new plans and ideas to grow for future callenges and teams...

Finnmarksløpet

As you can imagine the race was a grate experience. The team, specially the youngsters, did a fantastic job and seven of the team finished. Sunda had to be left behind at Levajok due to a sore shoulder but she is back at work now. I will have a more detailed summary of the race when I have the photos and a bit more time. Now it is time for trips to the mountains, we leave for a Dividalen - Kiruna trip on Friday...

Last polish is done, one more trip on Wednesday and then leaving for Alta and the race start on Saturday. Looking forward to get some new answers about the dogs. I have no big expectations with this very young team, but hope we will have a good experience together.
With 3500 km of training it is the best trained team I have started with in the race, so time will show if it makes a difference...
The final team is
Skare: 8 years, leader, two times Finnmarksløpet and one time Femundsløpet finisher.
Momba: 1 1/2 year, rookie, leader.
Kaos: 1 1/2 year, rookie, leader/team dog.
Elton: 1 1/2 year, rookie, leader/team dog.
Elvira: 1 1/2 year, rookie, leader/wheel dog.
Sunda: 2 years, rookie, point dog.
Jota: 5 years, has raced pasvik trail, point dog.
Brutus: 5 years, some distance experience but no finishes, wheel dog.

Strengthening up my team

To make sure my team is strong enough I have got a new member in the dog community...

Moose on the farm

The last days we have got a new animal on the farm. This moose has stayed around the house and dog yard for almost a week now. I went out with the dogs after it got dark this evening and 10 meter out of the dog yard my team turned 90 degree right of the trail. When I lifted my head I saw just into the eyes of the moose. Luckily he did not get angry, but just walked away slowly between me and the rest of the dogs in the yard.

New video

I was looking after Tva this morning and managed to combine it with some more video experiments. The result can be found here... It is from my last trips with the dogs and from our moose.

Cold weather

The sun is back in the valley and in a few days it will come trough our kitchen window, and as usual the cold weather comes with the sun. The plan of the day was to go for a long training with the dogs, but with -30 c I will wait until to morrow.
We had grate trips Saturday and Sunday. Half way up Iselvdalen we found a dead reindeer, recently killed by a wolverine. It was a lot of fresh tracks around it and a King eagle was sitting on it when we passed on the way back.




Monday me and Siv guided a caving/skiing trip for 50 soldiers to Fjellfrøs grotta. It is always fascinating to go from -15 c outside and in to the constant +4 c of the cave.

More Internet mushing

More Internet mushing is coming up. Olav finished on a strong 21 place in Femundløpet, and kept me awake three nights to check race updates at the net. Yukon quest is starting this weekend with ten more days in front of my mac. Here is a link to YQ.

Internet mushing

Wasting most of my time in front of the computer these last days. Femundsløpet is on and I am following Olav closely. At the moment he is at the checkpoint Søvollen after 187 km, and he is NR 11. According to my calculations he has the second fastest racing time so far, which means that he has rested his team well. It is going to be some exciting hours ...
Follow the race at
http://www.femundlopet.no
http://www.retten.no/femundlopet/
http://qaqeerlaaaq.com/

Training status

Training the dogs video on this link..
The last long training started out more like swimming than sledding. With almost 1m fresh snow the first part was hard work, but Skare did his snow plow duty in lead. We spent 6 hours 40 km, not very fast, but good training. After 6 hour rest we went out again for 5 hours, then 6 more hours rest and at last a leg at 4 hours. All together we did 130 km, not very fare, but very good race preparations specially with the difficult conditions we had in the start. As you will see on the video the weather got better the second day. The dogs and the musher got necessary race and checkpoint practise like sleeping in the dog tent on the trail instead of home at the kennel. It was also good to see that there is some good new lead dogs coming up. Momba is taking more and more over as a responsible lead dog, it seams like he already has got the important skill of finding old disappeared trails and leading off trail. All together we now have 2800 km of training since we started this season in August.

Tommy and Ronny has come from Tromsø and stayed here for training the last two days, grate with visitors and good to keep the trail open...

To day is the start of Femundsløpet 600 km and to Morrow Femundsløpet 400 km starts. It is going to be a exciting weekend following the teams on Internet at www.femundlopet.no.

Specially I am very exited to see how Olav is doing representing the neighbourhood...

The winter has arrived for real with heavy snowing in many days. Not the best speed training for the dogs, but good for the dogs to practice trail braking... We where in Tromsø this weekend for a small race, but due to heavy snow fall the race ended up more like a social event than a serious competition. Anyway the dogs where performing well and we ended up at first place in the open class. Rapport from the race will be at the site of Tromsø Sled dog club web site http://www.ken-g.nu/tthk/ To night and the coming 24 hours the plan is to to a long training run with the dogs preparing them for the challenges they will meet at the race. I will do a 6 hours on and 6 hours off training run for about 30 hours with resting on the trail. Depending on snow conditions and speed I hope to cower about 180 km. Coming back with rapport...

New year and a new life situation. 3 January Tuva arrived as a new member in our small family... We are looking forward to a lot of exciting adventures together in the future. As a real norwegian she was delivered with skies.
This has made the training a bit more home based the last two weeks, but Aslak (brother and second part of the Undervegs racing team) has helped out with the training. He raced the five young dogs and Brutus in Kiruna last weekend and they did a good job. His blog from training and adventures is at http://askeladdturer.blogspot.com/