Monday, February 22, 2010

Minimalist sledding

Here's Sil, Isi and me going at full throttle with Solan, Mazunte and Bibi supplying thrust and gravity contributing to speed.

This is called "skijoring", and is just one never-ending bungee jump. Hook dogs up to a bike and it's called "bikejoring". "

The main challenge, when doing this, is to remember to stand far apart while starting up or while resting, otherwise the dogs tangle those lines something awful.

6 comments:

Oldfool said...

I love the way working dogs and some working horses throw themselves into their work with such glee.

Makes me ashamed of my lazy ass.

Andy in Germany said...

Now I know how I want to go shopping in the snow. Just have to learn to be upright on Ski's more than a couple of seconds.

And find a dog

Seriously though- I'm assuming this is possible as a form of transport?

Northmark said...

Oldfool: I feel the same. Awe and humility confronted with working animals.

Andy: Yes, it's serious transport! When I had "only" one dog, I would connect him with stanchions to a small transport sled, a "pulka". We could cover 40 - 50 km a day (70 km record), completely independent.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!!!

dogsled_stacie said...

I find switching to the manmat harnesses for skijoring eliminates *most* of our tangle problems! And my dogs are PROS at getting tangled and not being able to get out of said tangles.

Check it out - we just had a 100-MILE skijoring race here in the Yukon! Three skijorers started AND finished! Now that's some cool transportation.

kris said...

We want longer movies !