Fun at the Le Grizz

Safe to say that fire season is over. It is now so wet that the Forest Service could not get their prescribed fires to burn even with gallons of diesel fuel.

Even so, we have been busy on the North Fork with the last meeting of 2016 of the Landowners Association and the 50-mile run called the Le Grizz.

As usual for October the landowners meeting was not a big meeting but it was interesting. We did collect food and money for the needy and decided that from now on our donations would alternate between the Veterans’ Stand-down and the Columbia Falls Food Bank.

Also the history committee and the social committee discussed expanding residents’ knowledge of North Fork history by conducting tours of historic sites. Sounds great to me. The homesteaders lived their lives much differently than any of us. In many ways a much tougher existence, but filled with strong family and community ties. We can still learn a lot from them. We can look forward to another action packed, fun-filled summer in 2017.

The Le Grizz fifty mile run was interesting also. I helped man the station at Trail Creek junction. By the time runners got there, they had already covered 34.7 miles if they had entered as a single. There were also several relay teams. At 34 plus miles, it was mostly easy to tell the difference between a relay runner and those that had run the entire 34-plus miles. Relay runners had a lot more bounce and were running for fun not speed.

Folks running the whole 50 miles had to be more serious and focused. Many run as a personal challenge with finishing the whole 50 miles as the main goal. I could not pick out the serious racers, except to guess that the leaders at 34 miles were the really serious ones who trained year-round.

I enjoyed visiting with them, briefly, as they came by and we were thanked often for volunteering to help. There were lots of volunteers. There were multiple stations where runners could get water and several where there were energy snacks and even one station that dispensed hot soup.

In addition, there were Aid stations and even one EMS van from Cut Bank to provide medical help, if needed. I heard one runner sprained an ankle but no other injuries that I heard of.

Mostly it just rained steadily and it was chilly, but everyone’s spirits were high and there were a lot of smiles.

Only negative thing I saw were some of the runners not moving to the side of the road for vehicles. I think many of them had sore, wet feet and were reluctant to abandon the smoothest track. Some vehicles, mostly escorting runners, did the same thing—driving slowly and not letting faster vehicles pass.

Actually, a pretty minor complaint compared to the camaraderie and fun everyone experienced. After all, you would normally have to travel to Warm Springs to see this many crazy people in one place.

Larry Wilson’s North Fork Views appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.