And again 2 weeks of the high season are gone. Again with a lot of sunshine, happy guests and top motivated working dogs. The snowshoe-hikes at Aittokoski area or the lunch-bbq outside of the cabin are getting a new highlight in those end-of-season-weeks. Because: who wants to stay inside, if the sun is shining outside.
A closed group of 8 was guided by Julian & Moritz on the Bears Trail. Full house in the Aittokoski-cabin is not happening often, but they did a great job again and everything went fine. The cabin-dogs are of course blocking the couch sometimes, saying "hey, humans, go outside to the sun, we keep an eye on the inside here". Our veteran Momo could join the cabin-trip and hike once more and was very happy and tired after the trip. Mulan is getting closer and closer to "the perfect" cabin-dog and enjoys bed and all cuddles. And guest-dog Yuki came to the cabin as well during a winterweek-plus-tour, certainly remembering her old days when she was still active working sleddog with us.
The animals are feeling the soon arriving springtime as well. On the trails, we can now regularly see fresh prints of courtshiping grouse, martens and even wolverine. Also singing birds can be heard more and more. We did not yet see any bear-prints, but they will soon come out of their hides and look around. But don't worry: besides prints, we will not see anything from them. Yes, spring is in the air. With actually around 0 degrees C and already 11h40minutes of daily sunlight, not only we humans feel it, but also the wild animals of course.
Our teenagers from last summer get their first runs now, one after the other. A very satisfying and nice job to do in the last weeks of the sason, seeing them running after a few meters like they have never done something else. 32 teenagers getign used to run in harness in team is a huge job for us until the end of the season. With a bit of luck, all of them can get 5 - 7 runs, means a lot of teams with 2 teenagers in it at once. But it worth the job as it will help a lot, when autumn training 2023 starts again.
Last but not least: Julian has left us after 4 months of help. He joined the team on short notice last November and as a no-dog-experience-person he learned very fast and got a full member of the team, managing the old kennels and the kitchen like a pro in the end. His calm attitude, always wiling to help & assist and his good observation of the dogs in the kennels will be missed by all of us until the season ends. We say THANK YOU Julian for your time and support here in the last months and look foreward to a possible visit in summer!