How to Skijor
Someone asked me what was involved with skijoring (and expressed a bit
of envy that down in Texas they can't really do the same thing.) My
response was that it is really too bad that he was missing all the
fun. Here is what I do for a typical training run. The procedure is
similar for a race, all though for a race I go though the full
procedure, not the abbreviated outline I have posted here.
- Night before: look up weather on the internet and wax skis (60 minutes)
- Day of: hydrate dogs with can of tuna fish in bowl of water
before you go (10 min) must arbitrate because they only have
one bowl.
- Unstick the garage door and open it up (15 min) (Nothing seems
to work right in below zero weather.)
- Install trailer hitch insert on car (10 min, frozen hands)
- Dig out trailer and dig out driveway (30-45 min) depending on amount
of new snow.
- Load up equipment (15min)
- At least the car starts ...
- Break trailer tires loose from frozen driveway, and hitch up trailer
(20min)
- Figure out why trailer lights don't work (30min)
- Fetch dogs from back yard and put in trailer (5 min)
- Last minute mental check list (did I forget anything ... skis,
boots, dogs, trailer, etc.) (2.5 seconds)
- Start driving to site (5 min)
- Oops, did I close the garage door (10 min to turn around and drive
back to check)
- Repeat for all other forgotten items (30-60 min)
- Arrive at site (it's probably dark by now unless you got
started at 5am) but that's ok because the dogs can see just
fine at night with all the light reflecting off the snow. And
besides, it's kind of fun to put your trust in your dogs that
they won't run you off into a tree or ditch at 20 mph and kill
you. Hmmm, mental note, next time bring a helmet.
- Begin unloading procedure. (20-30 minutes cumulative)
- Take equipment out of car (skis, boots, poles, harnesses, etc.)
- Take dogs out of trailer and chain them to the side of trailer.
- Put harnesses on dogs.
- Set out skis/poles near trail next to a tree.
- Put harness on self, hook tug line to self, hook lines to dogs,
and hook dogs together with neck line. Disconnect dogs from
trailer.
- Go!!!! (at least from the dogs perspective)
- Get drug on your face cursing towards the nearest tree.
- Struggle to your feet, realize the dogs are hopelessly tangled.
- Go!!!! (note at this point, it doesn't matter what command you
yell, halt, stop, hike, go, they all sound the same to the dogs
right now: so Halt!!!)
- Struggle/stumble on foot, coaxing your dogs towards your skis and
poles as they struggle in the opposite (now you
feel pretty smug that you remembered to set your skis/poles out
near a tree so you have something to hold on to while you try to put
your skis on.) A good skijorer is always one step ahead of his
dogs.
- Go!!!!
- Put your skis on while not getting drug off, expertly keeping
your dogs from getting tangled, all the while not jamming up or
breaking your bindings, not bending or forgetting your poles,
or gloves or some other important article ... and you are still
maintaining a good grip on that tree, right? (20 minutes)
- Go!!!!
- Ok, realistically, the dogs are still hopelessly tangled, one ski
still isn't on quite right, and you forgot your gloves back at
the tree, but we are tired of struggling with the dogs, so lets
run for 100 meters and burn off just enough energy so they will
let you untangle them and get our ski on right ... then Halt!
- Go!!!!
- Untangle them. Untangle them again. Untangle them one more
time for good measure. You can never be too untangled, right?
- Go!!!!
- Finally, we are untangle and flying down the trail.
The dogs are running hard, the trail is well groomed and fast.
Everything is good. This is what it's all about. In fact we
are going too fast to skate/shuffle. I think I'll just pole a
bit to help out the dogs.
- Oops, did I set down my poles while I was untangling my dogs?
Oh well, no turning back now! I'll just get them on the second
loop.
- Think to myself that this whole adventure would be a lot more
fun with 3 dogs instead of just two.
- Skijor for a few more minutes.
- Arrive back at the trailer.
- Give your dogs a treat and water for running so well and being such
good dogs.
- Reverse the entire procedure to get home and get unloaded.
That's all there is to it! Skijoring is a wonderful sport for both
people and dogs!
Next I plan to write a
bike-joring tutorial.
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