Mushing

This Is Oregon's Most Epic Dog Sled Race

Meet the mushers (and the adorable huskies) that defied blizzards to race in the 2017 Eagle Cap Extreme—some qualifying in the process for Alaska's Iditarod.

By Ramona DeNies January 27, 2017

In Joseph, fans await the start of the 2017 Eagle Cap Extreme.

With miles of backcountry racing hidden from view, mushing isn't exactly a spectator sport. That doesn't stop fans of the Eagle Cap Extreme from showing up in force for what volunteer Troy Nave calls a "small but intense glimpse of the race"—that high-energy start from the parking lot of Ferguson Ridge Ski Area. Here, fans surround 200-mile competitor Neal Bowlen of Park City, Utah.

Photography by Jeni Greenshields

Puppy love

The Eagle Cap Extreme is big news at the Wallowa County Chieftain. According to freelance photographer/writer Ellen Bishop—who snapped this image of competitor Morgan Anderson hugging her dog Inca—race coverage makes the front page for an entire two weeks, rivaling summertime coverage of local rodeo Chief Joseph Days.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

The dogs have fans, too!

Says Bishop: "The 'Best Kept Team' award—determined by the race veterinarians (also an all-volunteer group )—really is coveted by the mushers and their handlers. So the images of mushers hugging, talking with, and praising their dogs are very true to the spirit of this race." Here, 100-mile competitor Clayton Perry and his lead dog before the race.

Photography by Trevor Warren

Pets from a volunteer dog handler

According to Nave, mushing outsiders tend to associate the sport with larger breeds, like malamutes. But these highly disciplined teams are most often made up of smaller, lither Siberian huskies. For these teams, Nave says, "50 pounds would be a big dog."

Photography by Trevor Warren

100-mile competitor Maeva Waterman preps her team.

Photography by Jeni Greenshields

Waterman hugs her lead dog at the start.

Waterman had one of the event's more dramatic race experiences. From the post-race press release: "Five miles into the race, 100-mile racer Maeva Waterman of Bozeman, Montana, slid off the course. Her upended sled hung up on a downed tree, and she clung on to the handle bar with her foot. After extricating herself, Waterman began to work on getting her team back on the trail. But the slope was steep, and she had to unharness half of her eight-dog team. With help from fellow musher Dina Lund, Waterman got her sled and four of the harnessed dogs secured. Then began the work of collecting the other four dogs, now running loose. Eventually Wallowa County Search and Rescue arrived to help retrieve the dogs. Musher and team had to scratch and return to the start, shaken but unhurt."

Photography by Ellen Bishop

2-Day Pot Race competitor Dina Lund

Eagle Cap Extreme's "pot race" consists of a two-day race of 31 miles each day, with teams of six dogs. Racers compete for a share of a pooled pot of cash. Lund, pictured here with one of her team members, later scratched in her own race, after helping 100-mile racer Waterman.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Two-time ECX 200-mile champ Brett Bruggeman packing up

Throughout the race, each musher must carry with them a number of mandatory items including an axe, cooking equipment, and food enough for human and dogs in case of overnight emergency.

Photography by Trevor Warren

Anderson at the start, with one very snowy sled

According to the post-event press release, while Enterprise High School senior Anderson competed in the pot race, her "sister" Charlotte Burkhardt, "an Austrian exchange student who lives with Anderson and her family, won the 22-mile Juniors Race."

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Protective—and highly visible—pink booties

Competitor Jason Campeau of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, boots up his team to avoid sore paws.

Photography by Jeni Greenshields

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Photography by Jeni Greenshields

A very excited team moves into starting position.

During the race, says Nave, the huskies burn calories at the rate of a marathon runner—somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 protein-rich calories a day, delivered in forms from kibble to frozen chunks of fish. "A dog's metabolism is different—they don't carbo-load like humans," says Nave.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

And go!

200-mile competitor Laurie Warren takes off with her twelve-dog team amid heavy snow flurries. (She went on to finish fourth in the race out of eight finalists and two did-not-completes.)

Photography by Ellen Bishop

200-mile competitor Brett Bruggeman starts.

Bruggeman, of Great Falls, Montana, ultimately took second place in the race, arriving just one minute after the winner for Eagle Cap Extreme's closest-ever finish.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

And they're off

Beyond the starting gate line of sight, the racers quickly slip from view in the snow. Nave says the next point of visibility is from a ridgeline ten miles in—otherwise the racers are on their own till they reach a mandatory half-point check-in. Here, Brendan Jackson of Wrangell, Alaska, begins the 200-mile race as onlookers cheer.

Photography by Jeni Greenshields

Halfway point vet check

Veterinarian Kathleen McGill helps to check every dog's condition during a required six-hour layover for the longer races. Says Nave: "the dogs get totally combed over" while the mushers' bags are checked again to make sure that all mandatory gear remains in place.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Anderson nears the finish line.

Anderson won the pot race with a cumulative time of seven hours and 53 minutes.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

At the finish line, a family gives Anderson's tired racers some love.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

200-mile winner Bryce Mumford approaches the finish line shortly before midnight.

Mumford's winning time? 35 hours and 35 minutes.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Mumford's team crosses the finish line for the win.

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Warren congratulates each of her dogs after the race.

The fourth-place finisher arrived at the finish line just 13 minutes behind Mumford. According to the event press release: "For the last hour of the race, while Mumford and Bruggeman cruised casually ahead, Warren kicked alongside her sled, like a skate boarder, to help her team. Warren, a petite musher who weighs around 100 pounds with all of her gear on, was chasing down three highly experienced teams: two dog teams from the back-to-back ECX champion, and one driven by an Iditarod veteran."

Photography by Ellen Bishop

Back at the hotel, one serious dog pile

200-mile racer Neal Bowlen and his team, testing a motel's pet-friendly policy. Bowlen, an Iditarod hopeful, competed against several other veteran Iditarod racers in this year's ECX.

Photography by Neal Bowlen

In mid-January, as mild weather dissolved Portland’s last melty snowmen, eastern Oregon bundled up for yet another ice storm. But closed highways, unplowed roads, and “hurricane-force weather" proved no deterrent for one hardy pack of travelers—the far-flung participants competing in the 13th annual Eagle Cap Extreme dog sled race.

By start time on Thursday, January 19, all of the race's registered mushers—the term for these human captains of highly trained dog teams—had made it to the snowed-in parking lot of Ferguson Ridge Ski Area near Joseph, Oregon. Joining this year’s 24 competitors (who hailed from Bend, Bozeman, and even Alberta, Canada) were 230 lithe, fluffy huskies: the “marathon runners” of the dog world, says longtime race volunteer Troy Nave. Present to send them off were throngs of schoolchildren, local news media, race officials, and volunteers, like Nave, long ago bitten by the mushing bug.

Proof that the dog teams share in the excitement? That’s clear, Nave says, from the group howl that erupts the moment the first harness slips over a husky—a howl that continues unabated till the final sled launches from the two parking cones that serve as a starting gate.

Eagle Cap Extreme mushers compete in four races: one for juniors ages 14 to 18, a “pot race” where competitors pool money for a chance at the winnings, a 100-miler, and a 200-miler that takes upwards of 35 hours and serves as a qualifier for the sport’s most elite races: Alaska’s Iditarod and the binational Yukon Quest, both arduous, 1,000-mile backcountry treks.

Iditarod hopefuls received a good test of their skills—and endurance—at this year's race through the Wallowas. Mushers battled to stay on course through gusts of up to 80 miles an hour, thigh-high trenches of fresh “sugary” snow, and treacherous ice pack that sent several sleds sliding into trees.

“The drama was phenomenal,” says Nave. “We had hurricane-force weather and by far the closest-ever race finish, yet no dogs got hurt, no people got hurt.”

To see the drama yourself, check out the slideshow above. (And for even more dog sled action, find photos of the 2013 race here.)

Dogs, Winter Sports

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