Instead of watching the Superbowl on Sunday, I found myself at a dog sled race, driving a snowmachine. A friend from town was helping out with the Nome Kennel Club Dog Sled Race, and offered to let my roommate and I borrow his snowmachine to go out on the trail and take photos.

After a short practice run around the block, we sped out across town at a breakneck speed to make it to the start line before the mushers took off. Riding in back that time, it was all I could do to keep from getting bounced off. The GoPro had a hard time of it too; I thought it was filming the whole time, but when we arrived, it turned out it had frozen up, probably from the cold affecting the battery. Bummer!

Nonetheless, once we were there, the snowmachine was handed off to me and we spent the afternoon between the start line and various points on the 7-mile loop trail watching 9 teams of local mushers racing across the tundra.

First teams in the lead

This guy above was racing with his daughters, and taking pictures of me taking pictures of them! They ended up winning with the fastest race time. Some racers were fairly competitive, but for the most part it was all very lighthearted.

Coming back around the loop

Team of Greenland dogs

After the race we got to talk to some of the mushers and help send them on their way — some drove in with their dogs in the backs of their trucks or towed in sleds behind their snowmachines, and others just mushed back to town.  One woman asked me to direct her lead dog onto the road, and I was amazed at the strength of the team as they strained to run once she got on the sled — it felt like holding back a bunch of horses, but lower to the ground!

It was a great time though, and although the GoPro was being a bit fussy with the cold, I salvaged a few decent shots, edited together in the shot film below. Enjoy!