U.P. 200 Sled Dog Race

“This past weekend Tarabull and I volunteered our time to help out at our local sled dog race. It's a pretty big thing (up here at least) because it's a qualifying race for next week's Iditarod. Mushers come from all over so our town turns it into quite a show: they block off six city blocks of one of our main streets, truck in a TON of snow and cover the six blocks transforming them into a big starting gate. Thousands of people crammed into town for Friday night's start.

Tarabull started out Friday afternoon as a bag checker (no, not the male dogs) and made sure that the teams all had the required gear. On Sunday when the teams returned to town we watched over the first checkpoint leading into town to make sure the dogs stayed on the trail and out of Lake Superior. We were even joined at the checkpoint by members of two different police snowmobile squads---complete with sidearms and radar guns. One claimed he regularly clocked snowmobilers doing 100 miles an hour! I jokingly asked him why he didn't have a little cage between him and his back seat and he said that whenever a "passenger" gets unruly he just threatens to drag him into town, lol.

It was a tough race because we had some bad squalls and lake effect snow on Saturday and Saturday night. The teams were about four hours behind schedule due to white out conditions and four foot snow drifts.

I hope to have some picture added to our Webshots some time in the next week, including one of Tarabull being "arrested" by a snowmobile cop. It's amazing that these little dogs have so much power and stamina. We're looking into volunteering at some of the local sled dog kennels in exchange for some time on the trail with the dogs.”

“Very cool. That sounds like an excellent event. There must be a lot of yellow snow afterwards...”

“Sweeet! I love dogs, and have always thought sled dogging is too cool.

It would be a dream trip, to do a Sled Dog trip though the BWCA, and north into Quetico, at least for myself anyway. Ok, an Alaskan Sled Dog trip would be nice too, might as well dream big!”

“That is WAY cool.”

“There was a lot of yellow snow---mostly from drunk college kids.”

“Sounds like fun!”

“Dude, seriously, you were at the races this past weekend? Man, cannot believe we did not run into one another!!”

“I ran into Tarabull and Honeybunches but I was always a few step behind you.”