Husky News

Veteran dog sledder Terry Hinesly stamps his feet to warm them as workers assemble an orange plastic fence in knee-deep snow for the start of this week’s Eagle Cap Dog Sled Race at Wallowa Lake State Park.

“It’s a hard race,” said Hinesly, 61, a retired probation and parole officer from Prospect who has competed in three of Alaska’s grueling 1,150-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races. “The primary objective is to finish the race with all your dogs.”

Seventeen dog-sled teams will depart at 11 a.m. Thursday from the snow-covered state park near Joseph. Sleds will be broken into 12- and eight-dog teams, with the bigger teams racing 200 miles to the town of Halfway and back to Wallowa Lake. The smaller, eight-dog teams will run a 100-mile race to the U.S. Forest Service’s Ollokot Campground and back.

Some teams could begin arriving by 3 a.m. Saturday at Wallowa Lake. Prize money totals $8,500.

The course promises to take dog-sled drivers and their teams through some of Oregon’s most spectacular mountain terrain. The oldest competitor will be 69-year-old Laura Crocker of the Rogue River town of Trail; she’ll compete in the 100-mile race.

The 200-mile segment is a qualifier for Alaska’s 17-day Iditarod and for the 1,000-mile, two-week Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. It is dedicated to the 2007 Eagle Cap race winner, Dean Fairburn, 45, of Hailey, Idaho, who died last summer while kayaking the Payette River.

“This is one of the top-notch races in the lower 48 states, and it could become the best 200-mile race outside of Alaska,” Hinesly said of the race, now in its fourth year.

The Eagle Cap race has grown steadily from 45 spectators in 2005 to an anticipated 1,000 spectators this week. It is the brainchild of Ray Potter, 77, of Enterprise, an ex-cowhand, rancher and Alaska trapper who organized it to help Wallowa County’s economy.

“You could starve to death in Wallowa County in the winter,” Potter explained. “Give me another two to three years and it’ll be 3,000 to 5,000 spectators.”

Potter also hopes to grow the race into a 300-mile endurance test with 16-dog teams in 2009. About 150 volunteers are helping put on this year’s race, he said.

Cold weather and moose traditionally pose the biggest threats to racers, Hinesly said. During 30 years of mushing, he braved 67-below zero cold snaps and twice shot moose attacking his dogs, he said.

“They come out of nowhere,” he said. “People have lost dogs to moose, and they beat up sleds and mushers.”

In 2006, three feet of snow fell on the Eagle Cap race in less than 24 hours, and blizzard conditions forced organizers to trim the longest course to 100 miles. Chilly weather is forecast for this week’s race, and that could make conditions ideal,said Buck Potter, 27, Ray’s son.

“The dogs run better the cooler it is,” he said.

Source:The Oregonian