Today was our last day sledding as we had to combine days 5 and 6 due to the conditions being too dangerous to sled our final route early on in the morning.
We have been unable to unfortunately make the ice hotel as a final destination due to the lakes starting to thaw therefore making it too unsafe to travel in that direction.
This all meant for an early start which meant a 6am rise and very cold weather to start the day. We now have this camping lark down to a tee (well sort of - we nearly burnt the tent down this evening) and have our little systems all in place so that we were ready for the half nine off.
We first tackled a couple of ice lakes which were absolutely massive and took hours to cross. There was a strong biting wind all morning so we all had our serious cold weather gear on.
After completing the frozen lakes we stopped for lunch at a spot where the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish borders all meet. There is a landmark signifying this point and you can walk round it visiting the separate three countries on your way. I have done three countries in a day before but never in one minute.
We saw bear prints today but no actual bears. Wildlife has been sparse and the highlight other than a very cold South African were four swans conducting a migratory fly past this morning.
After all this we were sledding uphill where we had to help the dogs a lot by pushing the sled whilst running behind. This is bloody hard work especially with all your gear on. The dogs really do appreciate the help and it is satisfying to work as a team like this. Once we had reached the top we travelled across an alpine pass before we got ready for the downhill through the forests to the end.
We were stopped before we started the descent to be briefed on what to do and make sure that we went down nice and slowly. There were some very tricky corners to negotiate with a steep fall if we got it wrong. I was travelling behind Jay and at a particularly difficult corner all the other sleds had stopped. I could not stop my dogs at all and they overtook Jay and her dog team on the outside where there was no room to do so. How I held onto the sled I will never know but we all made it down safely. There were lots of crashes today but poor Kenny seemed to fare the worst. He not only crashed but was then run over by another sled (and dogs) but he is a tough cookie and took it all with a smile.
We then hit the final picturesque run down to the end point of our five day adventure.
We are camping out for the final time tonight before we head back to civilisation and will be having a celebratory bbq which will be interesting given the freezing conditions.
It has been a fantastic adventure for the both of us and despite being well challenged we have enjoyed every minute of it. There will be lots of photos to follow.
Thank you to everyone for donating funds to SCBU. It really is appreciated.
Chris and jay x
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