Nordic championship for samoyeds, in Furudal 2014

Friday the 7th of February,  I packed the car and loaded 9 dogs to leave for Furudal . At 13 o'clock , I was finally done and found that I had quite a lot of time to get to the driver's meeting . As we started off the car just slipped off the road intto the ditch. In spite of 4wd we couldn't get the caer back on the road again so we had to call our nice neighbor who quickly came up with a tractor and soon the car was on the road again. The journey to Furudal went well and I arrived just in time to take care of the dogs before the common dinner.

Håkan, who was taken ill by a cold, was at home with 11 dogs. I shared a cabin with Lars Jämtsved who together with Lotta have bought several puppies from us. We got up early on Saturday morning, gave the dogs food, rested them and made them ready for today's race .

I started as number one in 4-dog class and Lars started last in six team class, fifteen minutes before me . We were on the spot in the starting area in good time.
Lars drove six team sleigh for the second time in his life. Hero ( Lars and Lotta's own dog , Bielkersmils Great Hero of Ergo ) went in point along with Delta, which he borrowed from us. Further back in the team went Lexie ( Lars and Lotta's own dog , Bielkersmils Ejla of Ergo ), Appa, Corall and Birk who he also borrowed from us.
I went with Etna and Corona in point and Geist and Ergo as wheel dogs.
The trail in Furudal is 11km, very technical, tight turns, short sharp hills and some long relatively steep up and down - slopes, just the kind of trail that samoyeds love.
My dogs chased off at full gallop when officials dropped us off and kept good momentum even though we had one quarter until the last team in six team class.

It turned out that our time was good, we were second after Fredrik Petri, just like 2013.

After the finish , we took care of the dogs and then passed the rest of the day in idleness characters and ended with a pizza on the campground's pizzeria.

The temperature on Sunday was just around zero so no booties were needed for the dogs.

I started as number two in my class  two minutes after Fredrik. The dogs worked well and the time was 44 min 31s , 22 seconds faster than yesterday's heat and we finished asnumber two. The winners were Fredrik and third came Camilla Dehlin who went racing for the first time!
Lars, who had been very nervous for the technical trail and the fact that he drove sled for the second time in his life, came in third place . Congratulations !

Sunday ended with an award ceremony where Bielkersmils kennel was awarded no less than 5 pc bows for SE (Polar) Champion as our dogs were awarded in 2013. I was also pleased toonce again take with me the nice trophy (donated by Little Rocky's kennel in Norway), the best lady's  team in 4-dog class.

Five more bows to put on the wall

The beautiful award, the samoyed on the sledge, was mine to bring home for even one more year

    

On Tuesday it was time for the first heat of 30km of the test 60. Due to lack of snow the test was situated at Koppången where there was quite a lot of snow
 I started with a six team where also Madde and Gustaf*s dog Bielkersmils Fantastic Frej of Nallo was included . Lars once again borrowed four dogs from us and also ran six team class.
I was not feeling quite good,I had a cough and was feeling a bit warm so the dogs had to work almost entirely without help. I felt the speed was not quite as good as i use to be so once we reached the finish line and was told that our time was 2 hours and 25 minutes , I was very surprised.
On the night between Tuesday and Wednesday it was snowing slightly and the trail were a bit tougher. The dogs worked pretty well andthe time was 2 hours and 45 minutes. We had the shortest total time and won then and Lars and his team was the number two. Really well done!

On the 18th - 19th of january, Håkan went to Nornäs and competed in the Wilderness Race 2 x 60km. He went Nordic style with 4 dogs and won his class at the time 11:37:10 about 8 hours and 25 minutes ahead of number two. It was pretty tough conditions and it was only Håkan and one other nordic style who completed , the other five in the class did not finish the race.
 The Wilderness Race competed Hakan against the other Polar races and it was only he who drove Samoyeds in Nordic style.
Robert Axelsson, a friend of ours, also went competeing . He went släby sledge with eight dogs. He borrowed Bielkersmils Ergo of Pepper and Bielkersmils Birk of Kartman from us.
 He came in second in his class and was very pleased with the performance . Congratulations Robert - a very good achievement!

Håkan was satisfied with the gold medal and Robert just as satisfied with the silver in his class