RUNNING H

By Kasia Jillings

Being surrounded by towering 1000-year-old Araucaria trees, draped in a fresh layer of snow, is Narnia. This, however, is where the similarities between C. S. Lewis’s classic tale The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and my adventure to South America end.

Balancing on two thin, wooden sled-runners behind six Siberian Huskies as they charged through the Andes Mountains in Southern Chile. While three days of dog sledding through the dramatic mountain range alongside an active volcano, was physically and mentally exhausting it was also the best adventure I’ve had yet.

Thinking back to the beginning of the trip with Villarrica-based Aurora Austral Husky Patagonia I’m shocked and a little embarrassed to admit how unprepared I was. I had lofty hopes of sitting on the back of a comfortable, warm, sled while being towed around by cuddly Huskies. What actually happened is as follows.

It’s an hour drive followed by a half hour snow hike to reach the base camp where German owner and tour operator Konrad Jakob keeps his 51-strong pack of dogs – a mixture of Siberian and Alaskan Huskies and Alaskan Hounds – during winter.

I spent the journey there in mild panic over whether I would be any good at dogsledding. As a canine fanatic with two of my own arctic dogs – a very loveable but slightly dopey Samoyed, Bella, and a strikingly beautiful, rescued Siberian Husky, Anya – it was very important to me that I did not completely humiliate myself.

What got me most worried was some brief advice late the previous night from 66-year-old former adventure, Martin was in Chile to help out with the Huskies for a few weeks and compete in an expeditionmushing race.

“It’s simple,” Martin assured me. “To drive the sled away from a tree or obstacle, place all your weight on one of the runners and lift the other off the snow. This turns the sled away from the tree.”

Martin also advised me to draw from my knowledge of skiing. The two most concerning thoughts -which I chose not to share with him – following his advice were a) I’m a terrible driver, with poor spatial awareness and b) I once managed to bowl over a lone skier on a gentle slope of Cadrona where we were the only two on the mountain.

Fighting off my nerves, we arrived at the A-frame cabin, which serves as the base camp and is situated on a 3000 hectare privately owned protected reserve. From here the team – Konrad, 42, his girlfriend Inga Schaab, 33, who also lives and works on the farm,