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Re: From the Beargrease Trail
I mistakenly thought the next stop along the trail I wanted to go to was just a mere 3 miles from where I was in the last post and only one mile from the main road. Boy was I ever wrong about that. The road is called Fox Farm road and I don't know why they call it that there is absolutly nothing on the road but an occasional logging truck. It isn't even wide enough for 2 cars to pass in winter without having to slow way down so it's a good thing that I only saw 2 the whole time. Slow way down means going from 20 to almost nil. It was glare ice all the way, not a speck of sand on the road anywhere. What whole time? All 7 1/2 miles of winding twisting hilly road. I did see some spots that will be great to go back to and take pictures in fall when there colors are out though and finally I made it to the trail. I was beginning to loose hope that the trail even crossed this road but then I saw this sign
Yaay, what a relief! whew but I was losing daylight fast now.
There was quite the little party going on though so the drive was actually worth it!
It struck me as funny that so many more people were in this spot than the last one and it was so much farther from civilization. I did get there in time to see a few mushers pass by before it got dark.
There was a hell of a party a goin on! At first I got a lot of friendly banter back and forth from the revelers from being from Wisconsin as evidenced by my license plates. But once I convinced them I was a Minnesotan through and through they invited me to join them and offered me drinks and food like I was one of their party, lol.
no shortage of eats
or drinks either..
There was hot chocolate with anything you wanted to put in it. Peppermint snapps, butterschotch snapps and irish cream and coffee even!
It was also getting dark as you can see!
At each road crossing along the way are race officials who check off bib numbers of the mushers as they pass and they have 2 way radios that the call the numbers into also. They keep good tabs on what is going on that's for sure!
This guy in orange was one of those score keepers and he had his little daughter with him. See the little pile of twigs? Daughter was making a little fire in the snowbank and that was her wood.
The party people had a much bigger fire across the road and looked to be ready to spend a good part of the night out there on the trail. How fun for them!
Back over at the little girls fire she had gone and gotten more branches and got her fire going pretty good and I was practicing my manual shots because now I was really losing daylight and automatic wasn't going to get me anything!
It was almost dark here but now you can see the light on the lead dog as well as the musher. Now the musher will know where his lead dog is in the middle of the night. This comes in handy on many occasions such as if they were to come across a moose on the trail or something.
And then it was time for me to come home. Back the 7 1/2 miles down the windy curvy icy road in the dark which seemed to go on forever but before I knew it I was back on the blacktop like the whole day was nothing but a dream.
The marathon will end sometime tomrrow morning but it is also going to be -22F below with a -50F below windchill and I am trying really hard not to let myself go there but we'll see. Heck, I have my moosehide mukluks and a thick down coat that goes down to my ankles so ya just never know. If I go I will be back out on the trail before daylight!
I mistakenly thought the next stop along the trail I wanted to go to was just a mere 3 miles from where I was in the last post and only one mile from the main road. Boy was I ever wrong about that. The road is called Fox Farm road and I don't know why they call it that there is absolutly nothing on the road but an occasional logging truck. It isn't even wide enough for 2 cars to pass in winter without having to slow way down so it's a good thing that I only saw 2 the whole time. Slow way down means going from 20 to almost nil. It was glare ice all the way, not a speck of sand on the road anywhere. What whole time? All 7 1/2 miles of winding twisting hilly road. I did see some spots that will be great to go back to and take pictures in fall when there colors are out though and finally I made it to the trail. I was beginning to loose hope that the trail even crossed this road but then I saw this sign
Yaay, what a relief! whew but I was losing daylight fast now.
There was quite the little party going on though so the drive was actually worth it!
It struck me as funny that so many more people were in this spot than the last one and it was so much farther from civilization. I did get there in time to see a few mushers pass by before it got dark.
There was a hell of a party a goin on! At first I got a lot of friendly banter back and forth from the revelers from being from Wisconsin as evidenced by my license plates. But once I convinced them I was a Minnesotan through and through they invited me to join them and offered me drinks and food like I was one of their party, lol.
no shortage of eats
or drinks either..
There was hot chocolate with anything you wanted to put in it. Peppermint snapps, butterschotch snapps and irish cream and coffee even!
It was also getting dark as you can see!
At each road crossing along the way are race officials who check off bib numbers of the mushers as they pass and they have 2 way radios that the call the numbers into also. They keep good tabs on what is going on that's for sure!
This guy in orange was one of those score keepers and he had his little daughter with him. See the little pile of twigs? Daughter was making a little fire in the snowbank and that was her wood.
The party people had a much bigger fire across the road and looked to be ready to spend a good part of the night out there on the trail. How fun for them!
Back over at the little girls fire she had gone and gotten more branches and got her fire going pretty good and I was practicing my manual shots because now I was really losing daylight and automatic wasn't going to get me anything!
It was almost dark here but now you can see the light on the lead dog as well as the musher. Now the musher will know where his lead dog is in the middle of the night. This comes in handy on many occasions such as if they were to come across a moose on the trail or something.
And then it was time for me to come home. Back the 7 1/2 miles down the windy curvy icy road in the dark which seemed to go on forever but before I knew it I was back on the blacktop like the whole day was nothing but a dream.
The marathon will end sometime tomrrow morning but it is also going to be -22F below with a -50F below windchill and I am trying really hard not to let myself go there but we'll see. Heck, I have my moosehide mukluks and a thick down coat that goes down to my ankles so ya just never know. If I go I will be back out on the trail before daylight!
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