Race to the Sky Takes to the Trails This Weekend

Twenty-one dog mushers will be converging on the Montana trails to run Race to the Sky starting this weekend. The 300-mile vet check will be hosted by the YMCA in Helena starting at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 12. Come and watch these athletes (the dogs) receive their physicals from the International Sled Dog Veterinarians. School groups, the public and others will be able to see what the veterinarians check for before releasing the dogs to run Race to the Sky.

The Camp Rimini Commemorative Run will take place Friday night, near Helena, starting at 5:30 p.m. The 300-mile mushers will start out at dark and run into the night a short distance and finish back at Camp Rimini. There is a bonfire planned and food vendors at Camp Rimini. The public is invited to come and cheer the mushers as they run the historic Camp Rimini trails that World War II veterans trained on.

Saturday, Feb. 13 marks the start of the 300 and 100-mile continuous races, at Hi-Country Snack Foods in Lincoln, Mont. There will be 21 mushers starting their races on Saturday at 2 p.m. Prior to the race at 11 a.m., the 100-mile teams will have their vet check.

The 100 mile race ends in Seeley Lake Sunday morning, Feb. 14 with the awards ceremony taking place at the Seeley Lake Community Hall in the afternoon.

There are mushers entered from Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Michigan, California, Washington, Utah, Alberta, Canada, Saskatchewan, Canada and Stockholm, Sweden. There are eight musher signed up to run the 300 mile race, 10 to run the 100 mile adult and three juniors running the 100 mile junior event. Seeley Lake's Roy Etnire will be running his dogs in the 100 mile again this year.

Race to the Sky is, and always has been, an Iditarod qualifier. That means dog mushers can finish Race to the Sky 300 and use it to help qualify to run Iditarod.

Visit http://www.racetothesky.org for musher profiles, more information and up-to-date race information.