One of my wishes and bucket list ideas is dog sledding. When Maddis gave me the post card with the dog on it saying her present was a surprise, I had a feeling that it might be dog sledding, but I didn't want to get my hopes up so I thought about all possibilites. Like I said in my previous post, when we got to the site for the dog sleds, there were a couple of things that we could have done besides dog sledding. There were snowmobiles and a ski rental shop with a ski lift right next to it. Plus she had brought helmets to make me think we were doing something else. She is a sneaky one.
We were assigned to a sled that had 7 dogs attached to it. We were the third sled behind a father daughter combo and behind us was the rest of their family, mother and daughter. When we were ready to go the dogs went from exhausted to pumped and energized. They were jumping and barking, pulling at the sled signifying that they were ready to go. The two guides were on the front sled and told us to pull on the rope that held us to a pole in the ground third so that we were all in a line heading up the "hountain". Maddis was the first to be in the sled and I was the "driver". There wasn't much to do as a driver since the dogs knew the way but there was a break peddle in case the dogs were to fast or if there was danger of crashing into the sled in front of us. Half way through the trip they added another dog to our sled because lets face it, these dogs were smaller then I thought and Maddis and I are not children. It was a tough ride up, the dogs were pretty tired and so I had to push the sled a couple times to get them moving. Even when you thought they could take no more, we would be stopped and some of them would look back at me as if to say "what are we waiting for?! Lets go!!!". The people in front of us were going quite slow, I am not sure if it was their dogs or the fact that the dad was breaking almost the entire time, but we had to stop a few times in order to get some speed going up some of the steeper hills.
Once we got to the top, the scenery changed a bit. We weren't surrounded by trees so much as white tall objects here and there. The fog came in so everywhere you looked it was white except for us and the dogs. I couldn't really tell where the ground ended and the sky began. Getting lost out there would have been extremely frustrating and difficult. It was very cold as well, my toes were starting to go numb. We finally arrived at a resting place and let the dogs take about a 15-20 minute rest. Where we stopped was at a small ski hut in a valley in the middle of nowhere. Maddis and I ordered up hot chocolates and cinnamon buns. There was a small room with a wood burning stove that we set up shop in. I had been sweating so I decided to take off all my jackets so I could dry out a little bit. Once we were through with our fika, the two guides asked us to go back to our sleds and get ready for the trip back down. This time it was my turn to be in the sled and to sit back and relax. I figured we were going to be flying down the face of this "hountain" since it was mostly downhill. The scene was incredible before we left the ski hut. Every single dog knew what was about to happen and you could tell they were all extremely excited. Most were jumping, pulling and barking. The noise was immense, so the main guy walked through the packs and tried to shush them. It worked for like 5 seconds but then they got riled up again, so they set them loose and we were off!
The people in front of us, yet again, were painfully slow. Maddis and I did stop quite a bit as well to get some speed. There were even a couple times were we traveled off road a little, this made us laugh a lot. Unfortunately for one of the dogs, he kept getting stuck in the rope, twice I had to untangle him. I almost wanted to just hold him in the sled with me because he looked so tired. I was a little nervous to touch or handle him since I wasn't sure how these dogs reacted to people but when I went over to him to untangle his leg, he just kept looking straight. It was like I wasn't even there, I'm sure that they are handled all the time by other people and was glad that he did not growl or snap at me. There were some parts of the path that we bounded and sped over, I was laughing most of the time. We were the loudest team out there, encouraging the dogs to run was number one with Maddis and I. We kept saying that they were probably thinking, shut up and let us do our jobs. But we just kept whistling and praising them as we went along. They were great!It seemed like we got back to the starting point all to quickly. I wish it had lasted longer, but man, what a Christmas gift, one of my favorite gifts in my life up to now. I must have thanked Maddis a million times and even almost started to cry when she told me. Thats me, emotional Whitney. It was a great experience that I will never forget it and encourage everyone to try it.
I asked one of the guides how they pair up the dogs and he told me that they try to pair them according to ranking, relationship with one another and if they live together. The dogs are born with the want to pull a sled in their genes, its all they want to do. Its easier to pull a sled if you are next to a friend I guess, someone to motivate you through out the trip. Sounds like a team sport to me! After we were done, we were able to pet the dogs. They all looked and acted exhausted. I could only imagine how tired they must have been. Some were resting on each other and some had dug holes and were curled up in them. We were the last ride of the day so they were putting the dogs back in their compartments when we left. It was a wonderful day with the dogs and I will never forget the experience. THANK YOU MADDIS!!
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