Domestic Goddess Travels: Dog Sledding Weekend

A couple of weekends ago we had an opportunity to do an overnight dog sledding trip. A friend of ours had done it a few weeks before and had recommended it so Ben, David, Tracy and I organised to go. It was run by a Frenchman (Francois/Joel) and his Mongolian partner out of Terelj National Park under the “Winds of Mongolia” tour company. He had extensive experience as a tour guide, mountaineer and dog sledder from Europe and had been running these sorts of tours in Mongolia for the last 5 or so years.
We were picked up by “Francois” from out the front of the Big Irish pub at 8am on Saturday morning in a 4WD van (with rather dubious suspension) and driven out to the starting camp about 1 ½ hours from UB. Paige stayed in UB with Undra. We didn’t think she’d be up to the challenge and would probably only have lasted a couple of hours, not overnight.

Picture: One of the dogs with blue white eyes

Picture: The boys being shown the sleds

From the “Base Camp” we were kitted out with anything we didn’t have but would need clothing-wise. We weren’t quite sure of what to expect and what to bring and expecting some very cold weather Ben and I had bought our own cold weather clothing and a supply of munchies and the compulsory alcoholic beverages. All Ben and I needed were some slightly warmer boots and we were also issued with some excellent sheepskin mittens. Surprisingly we were all to have our own dog sleds and teams, which initially made us a little nervous. How do you steer? What do you do if you fall off? Do the dogs understand English?
We half expected big Husky-type dogs but these ones were lean, (noisy) energetic looking animals. Francois (whose real name we later learnt was Joel, but for some reason we called him Francois) assured us that these were well trained and the real-deal.
After some nervous moments and watching the harnessing of the dogs (we had either 4 or 5 dogs on each sled), we all jumped onto our sleds and followed Francois (and his partner, who had a big sled and 7 dogs) up the frozen Terelj River. The dogs were full of energy and couldn't wait to get started and it became a bit of a tangle at the commencement.

Picture: View of the dogs from the sled

At first we were all pretty nervous, but after a while it became apparent that the dogs knew what they were doing and that all you really had to do was hang on and occasionally apply the brake when it was time to stop or you needed to maintain the distance between sleds. We learnt the hard way that often if you come abreast of another team, the dogs will want to argue with each other and that can result in tangles and stoppages.

Picture: Ben sledding

Picture: Bernadette sledding

Picture: Bernadette & Ben having a break

Ben was the first one to fall off when his sled hit a rock and it tipped him off. The dogs didn’t stop so he had to get up and sprint after the sled. I was the next to come off and then later David did. Over the weekend Ben managed to get the record for the most falls: twice (3 times really as he fell off again on the remount, as the dogs just kept running, landing flat on his back amid a lot of laughter), but David held the record for the longest slide when he fell on the ice. You never have a camera ready when you need it. Tracey maintained her dignity for the weekend, managing to stay on the whole time.
On the first day we travelled about 60km, stopping every hour or so to rest the dogs. The weather was perfect, no wind and very sunny but after a couple of hours we had had enough sledding. Only another day to go! There were some nervous moments crossing the ice as it made some unsettling cracking sounds that conjured up images of falling through the ice into frozen rivers. Didn’t happen, whew!! But having watched to many Hollywood movies didn’t help my nerves.

Picture: What some of the ice looked like

Picture: Dogs resting

Surprisingly and disappointingly we saw no wildlife (you don’t consider cows, horses and dogs wildlife), but there were numerous wolf, snow hare, lynx and bear tracks. Some of the wolf tracks were absolutely enormous.
Eventually we turned around and headed to a Ger camp we’d passed an hour or 2 earlier, pulling up to a cacophony of dog barks. The camp was a local family who had an arrangement with the tour company and that’s where we’d be staying the night. Francois de-harnessed the dogs and chained them outside and we went into the main ger for dinner beef, potato and noodle soup which I really liked and a rest. The dynamics of the family what I could work out was there was a mother and father, daughter and child in one ger and in the other where we stayed was a married couple who was the son of the parents in the other. The young girl show me where the baby goats where as she had to feed the animals for the night. The family keep the baby animals in their own ger to protect them from the cold and I would say any wolves that may be around. I helped collect some fire wood which I saw one of the sons chopping, I thought it was the right thing to do as we where all going to be kept warm through the night.

Picture: Little girl showing one of the baby goats

Picture: Little girl mixing the milk

Picture: Grandmother making sure her grandchild is warm

After dinner we got stuck into the drinks. Apparently we have the honour of being the first people to set up a bar as we’d managed to bring a number of bottles of vodka, baileys and some other stuff. We shared this with the family and they shared some of their local stuff.

Picture: Bernadette with our hosts

The local stuff is the first distillation of the fermented mare’s milk and incidentally tasted astonishingly bad. Now the worst part is you don’t just have 1 of these, you have 3. Not wanting to offend, Ben screwed up his face and sculled them. They weren’t small shots but somewhere between 100 and 200ml and the last one had “floaties” in it just to add to the experience. Things got a little blurry for Ben from that point on. I think his next memory was waking up in a sleeping bag without any pants on due to me having to undress him for bed.
With six adults on the floor in sleeping bags and the couple in the small bed the ger seemed quiet cozy. At about 2am the light came on and wood was added to the firer. I took the chance to duct to the toilet but to my surprise the lady decided to join me and as I squatted behind the cart she decided to have a conversation in Mongolian with me, I wasn’t too sure what to make of this experience but when you got to go, you got to go.

Picture: The Ger camp in the morning

Picture: Cow being milked

Picture: Little girl collecting baby goat

The next morning we were offered the usual “milk tea” and rolls for brekkie. Luckily we’d brought some extra snacks as they sure came in handy. After breakfast wandered around the camp, the whole family seemed to have their own jobs to do even the little girl who wouldn’t have been much older then Paige. Her job was to collect the baby goats from their mums and put them back in the animal ger. She was quite happy to let me help. The women’s job was to milk the cows by hand where I did have a go at it; I think the ladies found it quite funny that I couldn’t get any milk. They made it look so easy. The men’s job was to herd the animals out and start on repairs around the place. Everyone had their jobs to do and after taking more photos it was time to “mount-up” and head back to base camp. On the way back we stopped for lunch and to rest the dogs. Ben and Dave decided they wanted to try sliding on the ice to see how far they could get but in theory it worked but in practice they didn’t get far.
By the time we got back to UB it was after 5pm on Sunday afternoon and we were all thoroughly weary. A great weekend and highly recommended for those who are only moderately adventurous I think it was one of the best experiences I had in the out doors of Mongolia something I will always remember.

Picture: The Mother making our lunch