Fur Rondy is Here!

Fur Rendezvous has finally arrived bringing crystal clear cold weather. Squirt had to do his business this morning in -15 degrees. Luck for him, I took time to put on his boots. Btw – I think the Fur Rondy clock is off on the web page due to the cold….it’s batteries are slow. :)

Robert and I took the afternoon off and went to the starting line to watch the World Champion Dog Sledding Sprint races. WOW – that was fantastic. All of downtown Anchorage was a howl with about 250 dogs and they were ready to run.

Due to the warmer temperatures we had in late January, most of the snow was off of the streets downtown and the event coordinators had to set up a special track with snow trucked in from parking lots. (They didn’t have to make any.) As noted in the title, this race is a sprint race. Each of the 17 teams team leave the starting line on a separate clock timer so the dogs aren’t on the trail close to each other. Each team is separated by about three minutes at the start. As the teams come to the starting line, they have to be held back because the dogs are anxious to go. Most sprint dogs look different than dogs that run the Iditarod as they tend to be spaniel type dogs. Huskys and Malamutes are apparently for long distance running at a slower pace. This race trail is approximately 25 miles long and the teams will finish in approximately an hour.

Getting the teams to the starting line and stopped waiting for the “go” signal is a challenge. Each team had at least 7 handlers plus the musher holding the dogs back. There were normally 3 people along the dogs keeping the leads from getting crossed and holding the dogs, 4 people holding the sled itself, the musher finishing last minute preps getting ready to start. The really amazing thing was each sled was attached via rope to a snow machine (snow mobile) and the snow machine driver kept the breaks on to hold them back. Even with all of the extra restraint, some teams still managed to pull them forward before they should have.

Each sled had between 13 and 20 dogs harnessed for the run. As one team was heading for the starting line without all of the handlers, snow machine in tow, something must have smelled good as the lead dogs did a right turn toward the sidewalk which brought everything to a halt. Human intervention was required to readjust their attention. None of the dogs had booties on today. I guess even at below 0 if you are running at 25 mph, you don’t need booties. I don’t think Squirt will ever have that chance. He is more of a ‘sit in the sled and direct kind’ of dog. Too bad I didn’t take the camera. Luckily, they run two more times this weekend. The town was so quiet after the dogs left!

Tonight is the celebration of the inaugural class to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. We will be attending the get together and the watching the fireworks. (Note – we don’t get fireworks over July 4th as it is light most of the night….)

Tomorrow is the Dog Weight Pull, Snow Sculptures, more races and the first fur auction (the whole point of the festival). Sunday we are going to go to the reindeer races and maybe more sled races. Check back for pictures!