Dog sledding

“Do you like rollercasters?” Our musher shouted to us as we were swept through a twisting trail of powdered snow and ice pulled by 10 steadfast huskies at 25 mph.

On Thursday we had a wonderful experience here in the Colorado mountains choosing to spend my other half’s special birthday on a breathtaking 2-hour dog sled ride before dinner courtesy of a fantastic musher called Theresa and 10 powerful Alaskan sled dogs led from the back by blind Roy.

Dog sledding has been around since the 10th century and was once an Olympic sport. Dogs are bred for endurance and strength and a 6-mile race is considered a sprint, and a 600-mile race more common.

At Krabloonik at the foot of the Snowmass mountain over 200 dogs have been bred and trained to either race competively or run tourists through a 10-mile trail during the winter months in all weathers.

I am not a known dog lover but seeing the howling and excitable dogs living outside in rows of kennels on arrival was slightly disturbing and when Googling Krabloonik when planning the day plenty of detractors came up, however many more, who are probably much more sympathetic than me approved of the way these working dogs are looked after by the long-time owner Dan MacEachen and his many staff, and local newspapers report continuing improvements to the facility.

Anyway, moving on from that, the ride itself was fantastic. The two of us were sat in a sled built on site using just birch wood and elk hide. Wrapped in blankets while our female musher worked busily behind and at the side of us steering, pushing, pulling and driving us through peaks and troughs and through some incredible scenic snow capped beauty, I felt a little like a bloke who was sat in a broken down car, while a women pushed me up a hill!

Nonetheless Theresa our musher loved her job, and was a wonderful teller of stories and guide book facts too. It didn’t come as any surprise to me later to find out that she was a huge rugby lover. Playing not watching. Three times a day she runs these trails, six days a week. Made me tired just thinking about it.

Anyway, the first bit of the ride was for the dogs and the musher to navigate a black diamond ski run, that was some start. Then our sled lifted at an angle as we flew around a hair-pin bend with our female, and pretty slight, musher hanging off the sled like a master yachtsman.

We flew through parts of the White River National Forest marked by millions of tall, bare Aspen trees. It became a bit more sedate after that as we entered this huge ranch, used by thousands of cattle in the summer we were told, and skated along trails and over creeks with the 13,300 ft Mt Daly watching over us. Then came the ‘rollercoaster’ which was superb and finally we got to the half-way point where we could get out and stretch our legs before embarking on the return journey. My leg actually disappeared in about a foot and a half of snow as I inelegantly exited the sled!

Afterwards we took our wind swept faces and wonderful birthday memories to the Krabloonik restaurant for a 4-course meal, which included roasted elk loin and a couple of pints of Ranger IPA. It was a great finish to an exhilerating afternoon.

Tonight we are in Denver after driving four hours and descending over 5,000 feet from Aspen today. It has been a lovely week, but the time has come for us to head home tomorrow with a 4am alarm call. Goodnight.