American Dog Derby set to occur in Bear Gulch

ASHTON, Idaho (KIFI) - The American Dog Derby is set to take place from Feb. 17 to Feb. 19 with the event getting kicked off with a meet and greet of the Mushers registering Thursday.

This year, the race will take place at a familiar location.

"There's a kind of a lack of snow to have a good, proper snow to have it safely out of the fields and out of town there. So we're going ahead, go ahead and have it so we can still keep it growing because we have canceled a few years and it's hard to get back going again," American Dog Derby Committee Chairman John Scafe said. "So we're still going to have it up at Bear Gulch."

The main concern Scafe has this year is, "Saturday we have a shuttle because there's very limited parking up there, very limited. And it'd be kind of dangerous too, with parking along the road and things. So we have a shuttle on the north side of the North Fremont High School."

He says the shuttle will take spectators up to the starting line and back down to the parking lot.

Scafe says the race will be kept safe thanks to some help from the Fremont County Search and Rescue as well as other measures in place.

"We, with the search and rescue our Fremont County search and rescue is super for doing that, helping us out," he said. "We have flagging, we have snow fencing and make the corners, and we're just to hope the snowmobilers for that."

Scafe says the race will start 8.30 a.m. Friday and Saturday and is free to attend.