Mountain Mama

Sunday, July 12, 2009 – Talkeetna, AK

Let me just start this post by saying I have the best wife who is the best sport in the whole world. Many of you will probably want to argue and I’m sure other wives are great, but mine really is the best sport and she proved it this day.

The Moose Dropping Festival continued into Sunday. While the main event of Saturday was the dropping itself, the main event for Sunday was the Mountain Mama competition. We heard about the competition and were excited to see it. We arrived at the competition grounds early and I asked one of the organizers what a mama had to do to enter the competition. I was expecting that it was only open to locals, perhaps there was a qualifying round, etc. However, the answer: “she has to be a mother and there is a $20 entry fee”. I have never reached for a $20 bill so fast in my life and after a brief, weak protest Chrissy was an official competitor in the 2009 Mountain Mama Competition.

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Contestants in the competition have to demonstrate skills unique to raising a family in the rustic, Alaska wilderness. They have to cross a log with a bag of groceries in each hand, split firewood, shoot three arrows, drive a nail, cast a spinning rod, change a diaper, and make a whipped cream pie. And, oh yeah, they need to do all that while carrying a baby on their back. It is a timed event, so the race is against the clock.

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There were a total of nine competitors, only two were non-Alaskans, and Chrissy didn’t come in last! She was 8^th out of 9 with a respectable time of 6:11. She did really well in all the events except the wood splitting. A decade-plus later I still need to give her more opportunities to practice that one. It was a great time and something none of us will ever forget.

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After the competition we took our Mountain Mama around the festival one more time, had some lunch, and then left Talkeetna behind as we traveled up to Denali National Park. We set up camp at the Riley Creek Campground in the park and got ready for the next few days of hiking and sightseeing at Denali.