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My First Skijoring Experience
By Eric
A lot of people don't know what skijoring is. Skijoring is a very fun sport which I do with my dad. Skijoring is just like dogsledding but you get pulled really fast on skis. One or more dogs can pull you on your skis, and some people even use three dogs in this sport. I wear a skijoring belt around my waist and then two straps go through my legs. The belt connects to a line called the tugline which hooks up to the dogs' harnesses which are on the dogs, and the dogs pull me. Normally I use my cross country skis for skijoring, but it doesn't really matter what kind of skis you would use.
"Hi Eric" my dad says excitingly, "Do you want to try skijoring for the first time?" Since I still had a lot of energy from school and I wanted to try skijoring I guess I would try it. My dad was pretty excited that I could come and after a little bit we got ready to go. "You'll have lots of fun" my dad said. "Hopefully I will" I said. So after we got all of the supplies in the car including our dogs Timber and Kiska we took off to Francis Gross Park. On the way there we talked about if you have an emergency and have to stop fast just fall or release the quick release so the dogs will stop pulling.
When we got there I was revved up and ready to go skijoring. We put our skis on the trail and put on our gear. Soon we took out the dogs. I was running Kiska (an orange colored dog that is brindle), and later on my dad was going to run Timber (a grey colored dog that is also brindle). After we got all of our stuff on and Kiska hooked up to me I was ready to go. All I needed was one simple command and that was "Let's Go!" After I said that I felt a jerk and a rush of speed from Kiska. As I was going I could feel the cold wind against my face, and there was silence. About half way through I fell on the soft snow but only once. It didn't hurt that much, but I did slide a few feet. At the end of the run I had some pretty close calls like riding on one ski trying not to fall. When I stopped at the end of the run my dad came up and asked, "Did you have fun?" I said, "Yes!" Since I had a lot of fun and wanted to try it again and again now I'm racing adults and getting pretty good places. So if you have a dog or dogs and you would like to try it for fun, I would encourage you to do so. You and your dog will have lots of fun!
Photo by Mark Stewart Copyright © 2000-2009 Skijor Now. All rights reserved. |
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