City of Lakes Loppet

A co-worker was competing in the skijoring event at the Loppet this past weekend and convinced me (and a few others) to come out and watch. Always encouraging, we wished her well and asked if she could fall down and let her dog drag her so we'd have some cool pictures to show everyone at work. Unfortunately, she didn't help us out with that, although a few other strangers did. Probably the most embarassing was the competitor in the Advanced division who wiped out about 10 seconds into the race, in full view of the hundreds of people gathered to watch the start.

All in all the dogs were impressive, some pulling hard enough their owner didn't have to do anything other than stay upright and go along for the ride. I have a bunch more photos but just wanted to feature this one because it looks cool.

But there was a whole lot more than just skijoring. Bike races on ice, a snow carving contest, sprint races, ski races for various ages and distances and a luminary loppet - a chance for anyone to get out on the lake at night and ski by candlelight, with ice sculptures lit from within lining the course.

First off was the Jr. Loppet, which mostly consisted of high school or junior high kids. This is a shot of them lined up waiting to start (the starting line is also the finish line).

Following that event, the Mini-Loppet took place. This should be renamed the "Take your kid to the lake and let them fall a lot" Loppet. I thought the pond hockey kids were like a puppy pile, but the skiers were a seething, writhing mass of puppies just waiting for the chance to wipe out and take as many kids down as possible. Some of the ones at the front were pretty good skiers but it rapidly went downhill from there. Or actually, not so rapidly downhill as this photo shows.


Race volunteers basically stood at the top of a small hill and stopped everyone until the hill was cleared of fallen bodies, then let a few more go down and repeated the process. Over and over, until at last I couldn't take it anymore and walked over to Lake Calhoun to watch some people parasailing or paraskiing or something which involved a large kite/sail type of thing pulling people across the lake. That also featured a lot of falling down - I believe the theme of the day has been firmly established by now.

Hey, there's a snow penguin!



Later I watched the sprint races and marveled at the color commentary provided, some of it unintentionally thanks to an inadvertant open mic in the main announcing booth. The sprints were fairly predictable - bet on the woman who's a current U.S. National team member to win, and bet on the guy who holds the world record in the 100 meters to smoke everyone. Too bad there isn't gambling on ski races.

I went back late at night to check out the luminaries, late enough so the course was pretty much empty and I didn't have to dodge any skiers. There was an ice pyramid, an icecropolis thingie, and lots of other sculpture things. Really nicely done, and I'd suggest taking part in this event for anyone who can manage to ski a few kilometers. I'm pretty sure they allow snowshoes as well.









You can see 40+ photos here.