Trail is great for racers
By JOHN PEPIN, Journal Munising BureauArticle Photos
Spectators cheered as the frost-covered faces of Galloway’s orange-booted lead dogs could be seen rounding a corner through the cold early morning darkness in Wetmore.
With temperatures sunk to near 10 degrees below zero, Galloway of Makenin, Minn., crossed under the wooden arch and over the blaze orange finish line painted in the snow at 7:24 a.m.
“It’s great,” Galloway said. “I won last year so it’s fun to come back and be able to retain the title.”
The mushers race 49 miles to a layover at Deerton in Alger County before continuing on another 42 miles to the Wetmore finish line, located just south of M-28 about four miles east of Munising.
Galloway said his eight-dog team performed well. Temperatures were cold and the trail was hard and fast. There were a couple of icy hills near Marquette, but the rest of the trail was good, he said.
“The dogs were just awesome, and they’re what it’s all about,” Galloway said. “They were dog-o-mite.”
Arriving at the finish line only eight minutes after Galloway was second-place finisher J.R. Anderson of Ray, Minn..
“It was fun. It’s a good feeling,” Anderson said. “I’m really happy the dogs did well. The trail was really great.”
Anderson said he spent a good portion of the race working to stay warm against the sub-zero temperatures.
“It was a little cold, but that’s life,” Anderson said. “I don’t know what it got down to, but there was plenty of times I was just cold.”
He laughed and said, “But nobody’s making me do this, right?”
Eight minutes after Anderson’s finish, Jerry Papke of downstate Kingston brought his team to the finish.
Papke, who has run the 91-mile Midnight Run several times in the past, talked as though he seemed to be less bothered by the cold than Anderson, although his eyebrows were crusted in frost.
“It was awesome,” Papke said. “The temperature was good. The trail was good. The weather was beautiful. There was no blizzard like we’ve had before.”
Papke attributed a good deal of his success Saturday to Frank and Laura Holmberg and dog handler Ali Dodge. He also said the efforts of snowmobilers to blaze the trail for the mushers have not gone unnoticed.
“It takes a lot of work to put together something like this,” Papke said.
Numerous spectators and volunteers enjoyed the finish of the race, huddling close to coffee cups in between musher finishes, happy to see the sun peaking up above the trees, pushing temperatures up into the low teens by mid-day.
