🚀 go-pugleaf

Ahh, something I can talk about with great experience... My original 
council had the longest and oldest running Klondike Derby, Tamarak,
until it was shut down by Nationals in the mid 80's (small council, 
was absorbed by surounding councils). 
The Klondike was set up with a beginning race uphill, run in heats of 10
sleds (or so).  The park we used was fairly large, so the twons were
very well spread out.  It was not unusual for the Derby to last all day
from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon.  There were usually about 
20-25 towns, varying each year.  

Some info aobut sleds...  We had weight requirements, I don't remember them
exactly, but there was a minimum weight, I want to say 70 pounds, but I 
may be off by a bit, but it was a significant weight.  This meant that 
the sled had to be pulled by several Scouts, and our set up also had a 
Scout on the back pushing.  The construction of our sled was fairly
close in appearances to the actual sleds used on the Klondike.  
For the runners, however, since we quite often had a combination of snow,
slush, ice, bare earth, rock, etc...(in other words, varied conditions)
the construct of the sled had flat ski-like runners, curving up in the 
fore, with a rounded metal runner, also curving upwards in the fore, 
underneath.  This helped in the mobility greatly.  While the metal runners 
did slow us down in some areas, because of the variability of the surface, it 
helped speed us up in others, giving a nice balance.  This helped in loose
snow and over areas like mud and bare earth (less contact points) and the
ski surface kept it on the surface in other conditions.  With lighter
sleds, this would be disadventageous.  With heavier ones, it's ideal.  

One joke we always had was that in the initial "rush" up the hill,
invariably, someone fromm one of the teams next to us would fall 
(don't ask me why, I never figured it out) and we would run over them.
Rarely owuld they be hurt any more than bruised, and it was never done
on purpose.  But, it was amusing that this always happened, every year
for over 10 years.  Different teams, different people, same incident.  

Anyway, the participants could only be up to 15 years old, so as to 
give the younger kids the experience, without having older, more 
experienced teams winning every time.  The older Scouts of course, staffed
the towns and waystations.  (as well as search teams...)  

Our Klondike seemed to run no matter what.  I remember one year in the
middle of a blizzard, we ran it with only seven competing teams because
everyone else thought we were crazy to do it in that kind of weather (when 
the storm finished, there was over 3 feet of snow in just one day and night).