Today's activities started with a walk downtown on a beautiful day with clear blue skies to get a good position for the start of the Iditarod race.
Today was the "ceremonial start", staged for the benefit of the public and sponsors and to give the mushers a chance to interact with fans as they run an 11 mile course through the city, much of it on a special trail of snow laid down in the streets. Each musher also has an "Iditarider" as a passenger - a supporter who has bid for the privilege of riding with their favourite musher for the day. It is a staged start - there is no way to line up and start 69 dog sled teams at the same time - so teams start at two minute intervals.
We managed a good position near the start line to watch the first couple of mushers start off and then gradually moved along the course to watch the other mushers pass by. This turned out to be an ideal way to see it. Near the start the crowd is bigger and you get the real sense of excitement. Further along the course the crowd thins out and you get close to the mushers as they cruise by - often giving high fives to people as they passed. At one point the trail wound through a snow covered park which was quite picturesque in its own right. In the end we were working our way back towards the start when the last of the 69 entrants passed by.
From there we went and entered ourselves in the "Running of the Reindeer" to be staged in the main street at 4:00pm that afternoon - a little like the Spanish "Running of the Bulls" only way less dangerous. After a late lunch we had time to walk back to the motel for a rest before returning to the main street for the "run". Unfortunately Laura & I were having trouble meeting Sam & Keira at the planned rendezvous point and by the time I managed to get in touch with them by phone Laura & I became separated in the crowd. Laura showed typical resourcefulness by getting hold of the event announcer's microphone and arranging a new rendezvous point for the four of us.
Thus we found ourselves in the last - and largest - group to set off on the "Running of the Reindeer". It was wall-to-wall people in the street so that even breaking into a trot was hard enough, never mind a run.
Actually it wasn't quite wall-to-wall people - we left the flanks unguarded so that when the reindeer were released behind us they flashed passed on the unprotected wings to finish the run ahead of us. It was still fun and we did get to pat some of the reindeer at the end of the run.
After such an activity filled day we were content to have a quiet night in.
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| Sled dogs waiting for the start |
Today was the "ceremonial start", staged for the benefit of the public and sponsors and to give the mushers a chance to interact with fans as they run an 11 mile course through the city, much of it on a special trail of snow laid down in the streets. Each musher also has an "Iditarider" as a passenger - a supporter who has bid for the privilege of riding with their favourite musher for the day. It is a staged start - there is no way to line up and start 69 dog sled teams at the same time - so teams start at two minute intervals.
We managed a good position near the start line to watch the first couple of mushers start off and then gradually moved along the course to watch the other mushers pass by. This turned out to be an ideal way to see it. Near the start the crowd is bigger and you get the real sense of excitement. Further along the course the crowd thins out and you get close to the mushers as they cruise by - often giving high fives to people as they passed. At one point the trail wound through a snow covered park which was quite picturesque in its own right. In the end we were working our way back towards the start when the last of the 69 entrants passed by.
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| Aussie musher Christian Turner starting out |
From there we went and entered ourselves in the "Running of the Reindeer" to be staged in the main street at 4:00pm that afternoon - a little like the Spanish "Running of the Bulls" only way less dangerous. After a late lunch we had time to walk back to the motel for a rest before returning to the main street for the "run". Unfortunately Laura & I were having trouble meeting Sam & Keira at the planned rendezvous point and by the time I managed to get in touch with them by phone Laura & I became separated in the crowd. Laura showed typical resourcefulness by getting hold of the event announcer's microphone and arranging a new rendezvous point for the four of us.
Thus we found ourselves in the last - and largest - group to set off on the "Running of the Reindeer". It was wall-to-wall people in the street so that even breaking into a trot was hard enough, never mind a run.
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| Reindeer dash down the unmarked flanks. |
After such an activity filled day we were content to have a quiet night in.
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