Rondy Sled Dog Race

In late February/early March, there is a festival call the Fur Rendezvous, called Fur Rondy for short. While it is centered around fur (duh), it's basically an excuse for Alaskans to party. There's lots of events from an outdoor carnival (no kidding), to sled dog races (Rondy and the Iditarod start) and a relatively new tradition called "Running of the Reindeer". I have pictures from these 4 events... so here goes on posting/blogging about the pictures from the first event: the Rondy Sled Dog Race. This is a three-day event (I'm guessing the times were added up).

As we approached 4th street, you could hear the cacophony of the dogs barking. These dogs were AMPED. Ready and raring to go. We heard that one of them got loose earlier and it took an hour to round up the dog. These dogs are born to run.

















Though they closed down 4th street, they had to keep some streets still open. Here's how they controlled traffic:



One musher fell off of his sled near the start... it took 4 adults to tackle the dogs/lines to get them to stop so the musher could catch up and remount. This was after a set of dogs went the wrong way down C street. An exciting morning.



There were attendees of all sizes, including a school group that counted down with the emcee:







More blog posts to come!