A brief Wiki lesson for those of you unfamiliar with this event:
"The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual long-distance sled dog race run in early March from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of 16 dogs cover the 1,000 mile distance in 9–15 days or more. Teams frequently race through blizzards causing whiteout conditions, sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds which can cause the wind chill to reach −100 °F (−73 °C). The race is the most popular sporting event in Alaska"
Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iditarod_Trail_Sled_Dog_Race
We made the 2.5 hour trek to Anchorage on a sunny Saturday morning and arrived just in time for the ceremonial start of the race.
 |
| #1 on my list of favorite drives |
The mushers started out in downtown Anchorage and took off one at a time on an 11 mile jaunt through the city. We decided to skip the downtown crowds and watch the teams go by a few miles down along the course. This allowed us to get up close and personal - we even got to high-five a few mushers as they rode by (haven't washed our hands since!). Although this ceremonial start wasn't actually part of the race, it was pretty cool to see all the teams in action just before they took off on their journey north. The actual timed start took place the next day from Willow (80 miles north of Anchorage).
 |
| High fives for the red bootie team! |
Once all 69 teams had passed by, we went into town to check out Fur Rondy. Fur Rondy is an annual winter festival which Anchorage holds around the time of the Iditarod. Its a huge festival with over 100 events. Some of it was your typical carney stuff: a ferris wheel, concerts, talent shows, native art/dance, etc. But the rest was pretty unique. There was a snow sculpture competition, ice bowling, leaf blower air hockey, fur bikini contest, and Running of the Reindeer (in which you can run a 5k alongside - you guessed it - running reindeer). Some of the other winter-themed events, like snowshoe softball and the giant snowball fight, were sadly cancelled this year due to lack of snow.
We got to experience only a little bit of the festival sine we had to spend most of our day doing our "big city" errands, so these are the most exciting photos I got:
Definitely want to plan to spend some more time at the festival next year.
In the meantime, I downloaded the Iditarod app and have been keeping tabs on the race. The latest news is that 12 of the 69 teams have already had to forefit due to dog and musher injuries. And it's only day 3 ): The trail is apparently bare in many spots and very bumpy. Fingers crossed that they will have some more snow as they head farther north!
No comments:
Post a Comment