Today was quite the day, the confused guests had another tour so in the morning we needed everybody.
I was outside with the dogs when we got the order to get everything ready and then 'wait' for the guests down the hill.
Usually we help with starting the sleds but with these guests they need to learn fast since they want to do the overnight tour. So instead of helping we placed ourselfs along the difficult starting parts, ready to catch any sled that was driving without a human...
The first sled managed surprisingly well, the second one however came crashing down around the corner. Me and phil were the first one's in front, so I charged towards the lines connecting the dogs and the sled while phil jumped on the empty sled and hit the brakes.
It was a high action moment but we managed it very professionally. After we checked that the guest was okay, phil drove the rest of the 'difficult' start.
After that one, no more sleds fell and the guests were on their way for another tour. Me and chris let the dogs out that didn't get to run and prepared the sauna again.
The guests returned more or less unharmed and we had lunch together. Then, all of a sudden, johanna came in and gathered me, peggy, marlene, svenja and laura for another tour. This was quite unexpected and while I was gathering all my warm clothes in complete panic I managed to misplace my phone 3 times.
But finally I found it and we had our intro on how to ride dog sleds with johanna. There were 2 of us on every sled, except for laura she had her own sled because she was already a lot more experienced than us.
I was with peggy, she was standing for the first half, while I was sitting in front. Now in the front seat you can't do much, you have to shift your weight every turn but if something goes wrong, you're screwed because only the person standing has access to the brakes.
I was so happy with our sled, we had bob and nilla as lead dogs, vincent in the middle for pulling and nobel AND marshall in the back to really get us going. These were the 2 dogs which weren't always allowed to run because they are too powerful.
We started and the start was surprisingly fast. However we did not fall and managed to reach the frozen lake without incident.
After a few minutes of stress, figuring out when to shift my weight and by how much, it was actually quite peaceful. We were driving through some beautiful forests, empty planes and low underbrush.
We were directly behind johanna and behind us was marlene/svenja and laura. We were driving at around 11-15km/h which did not feel so fast actually.
After a few challenging turns we had reached the halfway point and it was my turn to take the standing position.
Now on the one hand you have to shift your weight for every turn to go left or right. And you also have to use your feet to break, which is not that easy. The brake is just a matt or a iron bar if you really want to stop.
It took me a bit to figure out the steering but peggy was a great help and after a while we did quite well. Peggy had a bit of a sore throat and was coughing from time to time. Which is no problem at all, however for some reason vincent goes full speed whenever somebody coughs. So I had to break whenever peggy coughed.
Then we went downhill, a very steep downhill, we got very fast which wouldn't be so bad if johanna kept going straight. However, she took a very sharp turn to the left.
Now I don't exactly remember what happend but I wanted to brake but I also had to shift my weight to go left and it was at that point I noticed that the sled was about to fall no matter how much I shifted my weight, we were too fast.
So I jumped off while still holding on to the handlebar and ran behind the sled as fast as I could to keep up with the dogs. Johanna was looking towards me and kept yelling 'why are you not breaking!?!'
Which yes, I was not breaking but I also wasn't really on the sled at the time. I pulled myself on the sled again and hit the iron bar with both feet. We actually managed to slow down and stay in one piece.
Peggy had no idea what just happend, she was just confused why were suddenly so fast. Anyway we returned home, johanna wasn't very happy with my driving style and told me to apologise to all the dogs, which I did.
However I just wanna say that there aren't many people that drive a sled for the first time and manage to take a turn like that at top speed.
And I am pretty sure nobel agreed with me.
We calmed ourselfs with a puppy walk and after dinner, played some uno with cursed rules that marlene's 'friend' invented. But I am pretty sure marlene just made them up by herself.
It was quite a day.... And I even had off!
