The Race is on!

Sunday was the restart of Iditarod 2011.  (They do a ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday, then truck the dogs up the Parks Highway for the "real" start at Willow... about 40 miles from us.)   The teams take off from Willow Lake, heading west across a series of lakes and roads before reaching the Suisitna River

We help out with the trail crossing at Crystal Lake.    The teams transition from the flat lake down a "chute"  (the summertime access trail to the lake), across the road and onto another lake.  This trail is heavily used by snowmachines, cross country skiers, and on Sun we even saw a couple of bikes with snow tires.  To keep the trail open for each team, there are flaggers at each end of the path... when we see a team coming, we communicate with the road flaggers to let them know to stop snowmachines from entering the chute and to get ready to stop cars on the road. 
In addition to our regular team of trail guards, this year we had a volunteer couple from Jacksonville FL... they got the assignment of trying to keep the crowds from encroaching on the trail on the lake.  The teams follow a set of markers across the ice.  We had some eager fans who kept getting inside the markers, leaving little space for the teams to get through. 

These pictures were taken by our friend Susie.  She and Brian had their snowmachine and went down to the start, then came back to watch with us.

Here's the starting arch where thousands of fans gather around the starting chute.

About 3 miles up the trail where we hang out, there's fewer people.  Here's our "camp" as Scottish musher Wattie McDonald went past... he's giving us a big thumbs up for flying the Saltire (St Andrew's) Scottish flag.

left to right... Barb (trail guard) in vest; two visitors from Montana; Scott; Wattie; Gretchen; Pat & Sarah (behind tripod), the gals whose nearby cabin is our Iditarod HQ; and Brian