Race to the Sky 2007

This weekend, I was able to go witness something that I never thought I would ever be able to see. I saw the beginnings of one leg of the Race to the Sky dog sled race. It was, to sum it up in as few words as possible, really cool. That’s the short version…the long version is as follows…

We left Helena around 1pm to head to Lincoln, MT (home of the Unabomber and the Hi Country Trading Post (http://www.hicountry.com/ ) which makes great jerky products and other “Made in Montana” things) which is a small town located on the western side of the continental divide. By “small town” I mean that the population of the town is increased by at least 30% whenever the Race to the Sky is in town…so it was pretty small.

We went to Hi Country right after eating lunch at this small place and got to look at some of the stuff that they have for sale there. They have samples of just about everything that they sell…and let me tell you, we did our best to reduce their stock, but unfortunately for us, either they had too much in stock for samples, or there was too few of us. Either way, it was yummy! We ended up purchasing enough jerky and jerky products to feed a small army for at least 2 meals.

We all ended up staying at a place called “The Sportsman” or something like that, that came with fireplaces in all the rooms, which was pretty neat. Mr. and Mrs. Electrician, Mr. and Mrs. EPA, Jr. Electrician and Little “G”, and Groovy and I were in our group. We spent Saturday night playing cards (a game called “Pitch”) and all turned in rather early.

Sunday morning, we all got up and met at this diner next to the hotel and had breakfast. I ordered pancakes and was REALLY surprised to see these plate sized flapjacks come out. I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t able to finish everything…but it was REALLY good.

After that, half of our group left to go snow shoe around in some of the snow (there was plenty of it) and the rest of us went to relax before going to the race which was set to start at 12. We arrived at 11, with plenty of time to walk around, look at the dogs and sleds and to pretty much just enjoy the weather.

Now, if you’re like me, you think of sled dogs as these large, Husky type looking dogs with big, billowy fur. Unfortunately, that would be an incorrect assumption. In actuality, the majority of them are small dogs that are REALLY thin with short hair. Apparently, smaller dogs have better stamina and are easier to care for than larger dogs. Anyway, the dogs were all barking and ready to go well before the start of the race.

At 12, they got the first set of dogs ready to go. They actually have to anchor the sled back by having a rope that is attached to the bumper of a truck and the sled so that the dogs (who are REALLY ready to go at this point) don’t take off before their time. At the appropriate time, they release the rope that is holding them back, and they take off. And let me tell you, they are fast! We were away from the start by quite a bit, down the track that they were to go down, and they were at us in no time at all. And quiet…not a single one of them was barking once it was time to go.

We watched a couple of the teams take off down the field, in 2 minute intervals, and then decided that we should try to leave before everyone else. We did that (I almost fell down again on a big piece of hidden ice!) and beat the rush out of Lincoln. All in all, it was a really cool thing to have been able to see. If you ever get the chance to see something like that, take it…you won’t regret it.