Jokkmokkguiderna – Dog sledding adventures, canoeing and other wilderness adventures in Lapland Sweden. » 2009

Arkiv för April, 2009

Together with the newspaper Dagens Nyheter to Sarek National park.

We are now in the end of the season. The weather has turned and it has been raining a bit.
On the 28th of April we chose to lie still instead of fighting against the elements of nature. Instead we, Anette from Dagens Nyheter and me (Matti) chose to start early the next morning. Saltoluokta Mountain Stations area was still and sleeping while we hooked up our snow hooks and steered our dog teams up the hill to the bare mountain. The huskies held good speed over the frozen open spaces. Standing on the sliding sleds we saw the sun rise over the horizon. We took of the trail on the highest point between Sitojaure and Aktse and steered west in to Sarek National park. Sarek is a part of the world heritage Laponia. It was stone hard ice crust covered with 5-10 cm of powder snow. What more can you wish for as a musher? We set a base camp west from Skierfe on the edge to the Rapavalley. Anette took some pictures and awaited the sunset. By sunset we took the snow shoes up to the top of Skierfe. It tingles in the stomach when you look over the edge of Skierfes cliff 700 metres straight down. The next morning we got up early, harnessed the dogs and drove the dog teams down along Abmojåhkke ravine. When we reached the Sitojaure cabins it had become rather warm so we stopped the teams and took up the box with food and had a coffee break in the sun. The Swedish Tourist organisations house keeper “Tobbe” with company were there to service the cabin. They should change gas, change some tin on the roof and fix some things here and there. There are always things to do. After a while the hostess “Ulla” came gliding on here skies. The last part back to Saltoluokta we had to take it slow and stop many times so the dogs didn’t over heat.Read more about Anetts photo project.
/Matti

Publicerad: 30 April, 2009 i Aktuellt.

The northern Kings Trail with huskies.

This week’s direction was set to the north. Peter and Diane (New Zealand), Ulla (Sweden), Hadewych (The Netherlands) and Florian (Germany) joined at Saltoluokta and become this tours group together with the dogs. The plan was to follow the Kingstrail north from Saltoluokta to Abisko. We drove from Stora Sjöfallet further on through Teusavagge. When we started out on the second day from the Teusajaure cabins most of the sleds were on the side, upside down and without drivers…An utter circus to quote Peter. Okay, we started out on the roof of a boathouse but if you have booked an adventure… We drove further on to Kaitumjaure, Singi and travelled on to Sälka. There we also got the time to go a short trip towards the Hukejuare cabins. As the week went on all became better and better musher’s. After the heavy uphill to the Tjätjapass we had a very nice and easy run down to the cabins at Alesjaure where we met Stina and her husky team. Stina had driven our car up to Abisko so that we could come down to Saltoluokta again with all the dogs and equipment. It was a nice tour and great weather with some detours from the Kings trail. Sorry that we have so few pictures from this tour but my focus was to film during this week.
/Matti.

Publicerad: 10 April, 2009 i Aktuellt.

Fog, sunshine and dog sledding.

Stina arrives to Saltoluokta with her huskies and the whole “family” is together again. Claudia and Aldo from Switzerland and Malin who had practical training at the mountain station were our guests for the following four days. With five dogteams we drove south along the Kings trail. First to Sitojaure then Aktse, laidaure, Aktsenjunjes and then back to Saltoluokta. When we drove from Aktse there was thick fog up on the bare mountain. We steered west with the compass as our only benchmark. The fog lifted and we were lucky to get a splendid sunny day above the clouds. The longer in the season we get the dogs work better and better.

/ Matti & Stina