Cabin Fever Days

Whelp….I have a local yocal event to share with you! Today, Rich and I, along with another couple who lives in our neighborhood, when to Martin City for the Cabin Fever Days. We specifically went to see the Barstool Ski Races. We did forego the snowshoe softball game (CAN YOU IMAGINE???) because the Barstool Ski Races had us tapped out for Montanan events for the day…..maybe even the whole weekend, perhaps the week! Martin City is one of the little cities (honestly it has city in the name but it is barely qualifies as a town or village anywhere else in the U.S.) that is in the Bad Rock Canyon on the way to Glacier National Park from our spot just east of Columbia Falls. As I mentioned with Hungry Horse, these town are where we do mutual aid fire calls….Hungry Horse, Martin City, Coram, West Glacier, etc. We all have different equipment so we can help each other out…we have vehicle extrication tools like spreaders (the jaws of life) that Hungry Horse may not have….so if they get an MVA (motor vehicle accident), we go on their calls to assist. Anyhow, this event was a fundraiser for those volunteer fire departments. A local tattoo artist came up with the art for this year and I love it!

If you notice, it is the 45th annual Cabin Fever Days. The barstool ski races are the high light of the event, even though I mentioned the snowshoe softball games and there is also lots of food trucks and arts vendors on the trek up to Sugar Hill for the races, and there is also a mountain man competition and an arm wrestling contest. Later in the evening there is a doubles pool tournament, a dart tournament, and karaoke at several local area bars. We stopped on the way out at the food trucks and Rich and I had wild boar sausage on a bun with maple mustard (Rich skipped the mustard) and pineapple salsa. Interesting, right? It was messy but man, it was good!

So on to the main event of the day…barstool ski races. It is just like it sounds….you affix a barstool of your choice to some skis, sit on it and get shoved down a hill on main street. There are two racers per heat and usually the more dressed up you are, the better the crowd participation. You can always tell if someone falls as the entire crowd reacts audibly. When the two guys dressed up as ducks fell near us, the crowd cheered them on, yelling, “quack , quack, quack, quack!” The majority of the crowd is being kept warm by flannel shirts, Carhart pants and jackets, mucking boots, and the kind of liquid that warms you from the inside out….and I don’t mean hot chocolate or coffee. LOTS OF ALCOHOL. We arrived at noon and there were at least 1000 people there, all of them pretty toasty off their liquid courage. There was a lumberjack-looking woman standing near me who had her silicone collapsable cups in her backpack, along with her bottle of crown royal. Smart. She was not cold. Anyhow, back to the races…there are three categories: straight barstools on skis, a barstool-like contraption on skis that can be steered, and then the open event where people do whatever on skis to make it fun for the crowd. I took a few photos with my phone. Here they are….because I can’t make this up, folks!