Travel | UP200 and Midnight Run | Marquette, Michigan

 

I live in Michigan, which is a great state in my very own humble opinion.  I live in the lower peninsula but wish I lived in the upper peninsula (the UP as we call it. pronounced you pee. teehee.) We enjoy visiting the UP at every chance we get, and some friends of ours mentioned they were going up to Marquette for the UP200 dog sled race. We quickly consulted our schedules and decided to do it.

 

We left on a Friday morning and quickly learned that there was a blizzard warning for the county we were heading into. We all confirmed that we weren't scared of a blizzard and continued on our way. We eventually made it into Marquette around 6:30 pm, quickly changed into our cold weather gear and headed downtown for the start of the race.

 

There were TONS of people, and way more small children than I anticipated. It was really cold, but people had their children out and about, appropriately bundled and hilariously pulling them on sleds behind them. It was absolutely amazing to see the community supporting this event, and even more awesome to be around people who enjoyed the cold weather and snow.

 

The first sled was slated to leave at 7:00 pm, and we got to the chute at about 6:45 pm. We wandered around looking for our friends and then we got set up on the fence with a perfect view of the dogs.

 

 

Our view of the dogs coming down the chute

 



A little bit of information on the race; the UP200 is a qualifying race for the Iditarod. It covers 240 miles of terrain from Marquette to Grand Marais; including hills, creek crossings, crazy amounts of snow and isolation.

 

Map from the UP200 website

 

 



Let's keep in mind that they are required  to have 16 hours of rest, and at the Grand Marais checkpoint there are vets to check the dogs over. They can drop dogs at any checkpoint, and there are rules for who can handle the dogs at the checkpoints. The race finished on Sunday morning, whenever they made it back to Marquette (we didn't get to stay and watch).

 

So, it's an intense experience. Add in the extremely cold conditions and blizzard and I am sure it was an adventure for them. The teams left at 7:00 and then the next race (the Midnight Run) was beginning at 8:30. We walked around into the warming tents they had set up, got some coffee/hot chocolate and said hello to the doggies who were VERY anxious to get going.

 

A turn in the chute

The Midnight Run is a much shorter race, at about 90 miles. They have a mandatory 5.5 hour rest period, and were slated to begin arriving around 8:30 am on Saturday morning. We got down to where they were supposed to be arriving around 9:15 and conditions were like this...

 

 

Blizzard

So we didn't see anyone, anywhere. We wandered around in -27 degree weather for a bit and then retired to the indoors. It was creepy/amazing to be walking around downtown in that type of weather. It felt almost post-apocalyptic. I guess the first dogs made it in around 10:30 am, so the weather had clearly made an impact on their timing.

It was an amazing experience and I am glad we have friends who like to do nutty things just as much as we do!