Mush: husky racing in the Alps
“Mush, mush, mush”, a man in a fur trimmed parka urges on his husky team, racing through the crisp, white snow; only in Canada or Alaska right? Not quite. Europe has its very own mushing scene, and one extreme race as Tomas Mowlam finds out.
La Grande Odyssee is a 1000 km race, through 27 different Alpine ski resorts in Switzerland and France.
The 25 mushers 308 dogs set off from Avoriaz on Saturday 9th January and they are now just two days from the end in Haute Maurienne Vanoise.
It’s a deadly serious race with prize money of $100,000 (that’s just over £60,000).
The race was the brainchild of three men. Henry Kam, a businessman and keen follower of adventure sports who sponsored Nicholas Vanier on the Yukon Quest.
The Yukon Quest is a brutal 1,635km sled dog race from the Whitehorse, Yukon Territories and Fairbanks in Alaska. Temperatures can commonly drop to as low as -51°C with winds up to 50 miles an hour.
Dog sledding has millennia long tradition in North America and Canada, where until the coming of the aeroplane it was the main form of transport. It found popularity in Europe during the 1970s as a sport, and now European competitors try their hand in the two most famous North American races; the Iditarod and the Yukon quest.
Kam and Vanier decided in 2002 that Europe needed its very own version of the Yukon Quest and so got to work with Dominique Grandjean, a vet and husky specialist.
By 2004 16 French and four Swiss ski resorts had agreed to host stages on un-skiable areas, and a year later the first race of 18 mushers and 300 dogs hit the snow. The event has grown in popularity attracting media coverage and sponsorship from all over the world.
“These races are extraordinary sporting events in which man and animal develop in perfect harmony in an authentic environment,” according to the organisers. “It enables people to discover that the mountain is beautiful, that it can be used in a gentle and non-aggressive way.”
Sled dog racing is an incredibly green way to enjoy the alpine climate, and the organisers romantically say that “the only mark it leaves in nature is the footprint of the musher and his dogs in the snow: a mark which will disappear with the first gust of wind or snowfall.”
Image Credit: re-ality
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