Recently moving from Alaska, I am very familiar with skijoring and running dog sleds. If you've never ridden on a sled behind a pack of running dogs, put this on your to-do list asap! It's more fun than you can imagine, and those little dogs go fast! So when I heard of Leadville's Winter Carnival, and their skijoring event, I thought it sounded kind of fun. Then I saw pictures of past years, wha?? you use horses?? Now that is just absurd. Skijoring with horses...insane. Well, this does go along with the Leadville spirit, and this event has been going on since 1949.
Now of course I had to see this, especially because they're passing right in front of my apartment building. I'm not sure what it is about animals pulling people on snow that is attracted to me, but for six years in Anchorage, the Iditarod passed directly below my office window too...lucky me I guess.
Yesterday was the first run, in the morning snow machines (or do they say snow-mobiles here?) towed kids up and down the track for $5. Then later in the afternoon they brought out the big dogs, I mean, horses. Holy roller! Those horses are not messing around, and then they throw in a few 8 feet jumps, yikes!
There were two different tracks used, the first set with smaller jumps. Actually the course was a bit of an obstacle course, you have to hit the jumps, and then spear several rings that are hanging from a magnetic pole. If you drop a ring, 2 seconds get deducted from your time. The fastest person through the course wins, and you must be in control at the end of the course, not really so easy behind a bucking bronco. I was pretty impressed by how well most of the skiers did, and as far as I could see there were no major injuries- always good!
Watching people get pulled by horses going about 30 miles and hour was pretty intense. It definitely drew a pretty good crowd. Lots of spectators enjoyed the festivities with lots of 'aaaah's and ooooooh's, oh that looked painful..." Good times in Leadville regardless. I guess when winter lasts this long and you have this much snow dumping on the ground you do what you can to have fun. I only have one complaint, to those folks with the prime spot as seen below, please, seriously, get off the fragile historical ledge of the 100 year old building!
dude - that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteI just finished your blog. Not only was it quite interesting it was very well written. I had no idea that historical preservation had so many components. Good job! Helen
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