A girl in an Alice in Wonderland-inspired costume heads down the trail. (Photo credit: Andrew Cremata)

Weather changed the program for the 33rd Buckwheat International Ski Classic. Usually, racers come from all over to ski the 50, 25, and 10k trails maintained by Skagway’s Log Cabin Ski Society in British Columbia. This year, most of those trails were closed.

“Let’s all wish away this rain!” yelled Jeff Brady, the Log Cabin Ski Society Secretary.

Unseasonably warm weather melted most of the trails at the 33rd Buckwheat International Ski Classic. The 50k and 25k trails weren’t safe to ski. So in keeping with the Alice in Winterland theme, this year’s Buckwheat was an un-race. Would-be racers lined up at the starting line anyway.

“There are no rules,” Brady told a laughing crowd. “You can cheat! You can go right now if you want, you can eve shortcut over there. I don’t care, but we’re gonna start you on time!”

That didn’t stop over 300 participants from showing up at the Log Cabin Trails and skiing the 10k course. Some came decked out in spandex for speed, others came in costume for fun. White Rabbits lined up alongside Mad Hatters, Cheshire Cats, and a two-man Wise Caterpillar at the starting line.

“Five, four, three, two, one, go! Owwwoooo!” Brady counted down and all the skiers let out a Buckwheat howl as they took off down the course.

The Buckwheat has always been on the fourth Saturday of March, but now the Log Cabin Ski Society is considering a change. Temperatures are getting warmer earlier in the year and they want to make sure all the trails will have enough snow for racers to ski on safely.

According to The National Weather Service in Juneau, this March is among the hottest on record in Southeast Alaska. They say that due to a regional drought, the snowpack is low this year and that nights just aren’t getting as cold as they used to. That helps explain the twigs and grass starting to peek through the snow on the trail.

The aid station is an integral part of the Buckwheat race. A week before the racers come to town, Michael Yee and other snow carvers begin to build it. Yee is also part of a decorated snow carving team: Team Alaska. They have carved together for fifteen years and got their start at the Buckwheat race. This year they won first place at several international competitions in Italy and Switzerland.

The Cheshire Cat aid station the day before the race. (Claire Stremple for KHNS)

The station this year was designed by Daniel Papke. The entrance is a toothy Cheshire Cat. Yee walked through a hole in his teeth to show how the station works.

“This year’s theme was Alice in Winterland. And of course we’ve had very, very warm temperatures as you see. It’s almost like summer out here” he said.

Yee says they normally make the walls of the aid station two feet thick, but this year they had to make them much thicker because they kept melting. He says weather like this is unprecedented. They’ve had warm days in the past, but the weather was warm for the whole week they were carving. Papke says they’re usually standing four feet higher on snow that would be at our shoulders.

The warming trend isn’t limited to Alaska. Yee says he’s noticed international snow carving competitions moving earlier and earlier into the winter season, so they don’t experience melt-downs. Hard snow is better for carvers; softer snow means less definition and detail in their final carvings.

“This year it was so soft, it was basically smoothie sculpting,” says Daniel Papke. He runs a finger through the snow to demonstrate. It gives way in a deep line under his touch. He says this year the usual rules of carving didn’t apply.

“Normally, when snow is solid, there is a whole arsenal of tools, mostly different shaped picks, but this is so soft. None of that stuff applied,” he said. This year carvers used their hands and shovels. The day before the race, some carvers were so warm they weren’t even wearing gloves.

But that didn’t stop skiers from making the most of Buckwheat. The aid station was alive with music and games on race day. Kids hurled snowballs from its walls.

The station is only about 3 km from the finish line. It was easier to check out the costumes while the skiers weren’t zipping down the trail. Mary Lumbers came to Buckwheat from Whitehorse. She was wearing a wig of red curls piled on her head and a sweeping, many-layered dress.

“I’ve got a bit of a bustier, here to, you know, to lift up the girls,” she said with a smile. “I was sort of inspired by Helena Bonham Carter in Alice in Wonderland.”

Jean-Etienne Ribereau from Whitehorse had a costume with a message. He wore a lifelike porcupine caribou outfit; his antlers stretched about seven feet tall. The porcupine caribou is a subspecies of reindeer whose calving grounds are on the Arctic refuge. The US federal government plans to open the protected lands to oil drilling.

“During the race I was boiling!” he said.  This is for Alice in Winterland and to say: protect the porcupine caribou!”

A line for burgers and hot dogs wound around the aid station. Log Cabin Ski Society President Tim Bourcey was behind the grill.

“Even without a race, it’s the best race ever,” he said, while flopping a sizzling cheeseburger onto an outstretched bun. “Even when we lose, we win! Cheeseburger! Going once, going twice, going to the ravens!”

Even the grill was on skis. Bourcey said they’ll go through up to 500 burgers as hungry skiers gilde off the trails.

“So it’s kind of a celebration of spring. It’s a chance to get families out, have fun, bbq, costumes… it’s just fun.”

It is starting to look more like spring than winterland, but the party went on in spite of the temperamental temperatures. You might say it was a very merry un-race.