Mush! Cache race is a real rush for 8 teams

HYRUM — Forget horse power. This weekend, it's all about dog power. The third annual Cache Valley K9 Challenge got under way Friday with the first leg of a two-day dog-sled race through the mountains.

At 4 p.m., eight mushers sped off into the snowy wilderness near Logan Canyon at two-minute intervals, starting from the Franklin Basin trailhead.

By Sunday morning, teams are expected to arrive at the finish line, located at the same site, having completed the 220-mile race. It sounds like a great distance, but 220 miles is a medium length for such a race. The world-famous Iditarod, which takes place in Alaska the first weekend in March, is 1,100 grueling miles.

The eight teams that signed up for the K9 Challenge may use this weekend's race as a qualifier for the Iditarod, though only a few have chosen to do so. A musher who will compete in her sixth Iditarod this year is Jessie Royer, a 30-year-old from Fairbanks, Alaska.

"This is just a training run," Royer said of the K9 Challenge.

She has some younger dogs that have never raced, and this weekend will give her a chance to test them and possibly add them to her Iditarod team.

Of the eight teams in this weekend's event, only one is a returning team.

Rob Greger, Bozeman, Mont., is a 15-year race veteran, although this is his first time racing in Cache Valley. Greger has run the Iditarod twice but failed to complete the race. He's in Cache Valley this weekend for a good time in the outdoors with his dogs, he said.

"That's probably the greatest part of it, I guess," Greger said. "It's pretty quiet. I get to see a lot of things that other people don't get to see."

Once, Greger was coming down a trail with his dogs, and they came upon a deer carcass that two golden eagles were picking at. The dog team frightened the two birds, which had eaten so much they couldn't get off the ground, so they waddled off with wings outstretched and finally ran up a nearby hillside.

This year's K9 Challenge has no Utah competitors. Teams came from Wisconsin, Montana, Alaska, Canada and Idaho.

Kathy Carmichael and her husband, Mike, are among the five or so mushers in Cache Valley. They aren't in the race this year because they organized it. Eventually, they hope to compete in the Iditarod, and in the meantime, they're helping the sport of dog-sled racing to grow in Utah.

More information is available online at k9challenge.squarespace.com.

If you go ...

Today: Dog-sled demonstrations 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Bear Lake Overlook

Snowman-building contest, noon

Food and drinks, all day

Sunday: K9 Challenge mushers arrive at finish line, 7 a.m., Franklin Basin Trailhead

Awards, 6:30 p.m.

E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com