Pinedale Winter Carnival 2018
3rd Annual
by Terry Allen
February 20, 2018
The 3rd annual Pinedale Winter Carnival was held this past weekend, February 16, 17 & 18th. I went out to the Bloomfield property by the elementary school where the Harber family had donated use of land to construct a ski-joring course. John Haide was out there working with folks from Teletractors and Harber Construction. John competes on a ski-joring circuit in the winter so he knows a little about building jumps. Kate Dahl, the Main Street Pinedale program manager, told me they brought in 27 belly dumps of snow to build a good solid base for the horses, skiers and snowmobiles to run on.
Carnival events included ski-joring, cardboard classic race, hockey tournament, cornhole competition, live music each night, crowning of king and queen of the event, pancake breakfast at Our Lady of Peace. The ice sculpture contest was cancelled...probably due the snow. It was as dry as powdered styrofoam. I got to as many of the events as a geezer can handle. Let me know if I left anyone out.
Saturday started off with a hearty breakfast at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church which consisted of pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee and juices. You’ve got to have a hearty breakfast to ski behind a horse while going over jumps at 40 mph.
Bryanna Wackerman and her Dad Bernie were both going to ski behind a horse and rider. Bryanna said she woke up the night before from dreaming about the race. "I was weaving in and out and making good jumps," she said. "I was doing great, but then I dreamed I skied over to make a big jump on the big course and I woke up. But I’ll be okay. Chewy is going to pull me and Dad is the rider."
Jared Sare raced off down the track pulling his daughter Evelyn and I saw her jerking her head up several times trying to get Jared to go faster.
John Haide rode his Dad’s horse for the last time and then retired him. John asked if I’d take a picture or two of them together because his Dad is in the hospital and it might cheer him up a bit. No problem. It’s a beautiful horse and those reasons are too.
Darren Hull who is putting together the Drift 100 winter adventure race in the Upper Green for this March, was skiing behind John and lost his grip on the rope. "I was a bit surprised at the pull," he said. "But now I’ve got these real grippy rubber gloves so I think I can hold on."
I went by the bar on wheels and asked the bartender where I could get a martini. "Not around here," he growled. "You can try New York City." I love it when people fall for my jokes.
Alexander Hatfield, a relative of the famous Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, was all splattered up with chocolate and I wondered if a McCoy had done that to him. "Nah, I was blowing bubbles in my chocolate and I guess I got on more than I could get off."
Klaire said "hi" and introduced me to her brother Karson who was wearing a fresh penguin hat. Klaire was wearing a fresh Sublette County coyote hat and was pleased that I had noticed.
Debbie Woicesjes (Wojo) said about 8 dozen volunteers had worked to get the whole weekend together.
Up at White Pine Ski Resort for the Cardboard Classic on Sunday, I found Grace and McKenzie in an odd looking green craft that looked a lot like a dill pickle. "No, said Grace. "It was supposed to be an eagle but it turned out to be a chicken." Sure enough, there was a beak on the pickle.
A six-pack of rather giddy folks dressed as bottles of Silver Bullet Bud Lite beer said their craft was a joint effort between the Schambers, Blankenships and Swains. Let me know what you think of the shot I got of them coming down the ski hill.
I got a slight case of whiplash when I caught sight of a bearded Daisy Duke out of the corner of my eye. "She" gave me a cute little Vanna White move and pointed at the boys in the big orange General Lee. One of the guys was twisting his mustache in a sinister manner so I decided to go talk to the 5 year old's flying a black helicopter.
I can’t describe the race any better than my pictures can, so I’ll leave you to it. I’m told the results of the various other competitions will also be up on the Main Street Pinedale website and Facebook soon.
Thanks to Dawn Ballou for sponsoring this story and thanks to all the folks who took the time to pose for photos and help embellish a few tall tales.
As a thank you and a courtesy, you are all welcome to share these low resolution photos among yourselves for personal purposes. The full pinedaleonline.com story link my be shared personally and on organization sites. High resolution images are for sale. No placing of images on commercial or organization sites without talking with me, please. Copyright law applies. Please contact me for details and pricing.
Terry Allen txpartisan@gmail.com
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