Tri-Town Winter Carnival Snowmobile Races

I'd read that the snowmobile races were to be held at the "Helena Racetrack" but Google had never heard of any such place. So I asked at the Brasher Falls general store and they had no idea where it might be either. They suggested I just drive to the tiny village of Helena and look around. It was a 10 minute drive, all within the town of Brasher. Indeed, I did notice this small sign stuck into the snow bank. I turned onto a plowed farm field, paid two dollars and parked my car:

The big attraction, and very close to where I parked my car, was the food stand. They were doing a good business selling hamburgers and hot dogs:

A man out behind the food stand was doing the grilling. The flat field out behind him was, apparently, the snowmobile race track:

Nearby, some men were cutting and splitting wood. I especially liked the hat with the Viking style horns:

There was no racing going on, but there were lots of snowmobiles parked singly or in groups, with men nearby, chatting:

Occasional riders roared by on their snowmobiles:

But the big action, I could tell, was down below - on the race track. It was a difficult walk to get down there, through deep snow. Apparently I could have driven, but I didn't know that at the time - and neither did a lot of other folks I met floundering in the snow. When I got to the plowed surface, I found this check station with a giant "1," indicating, I supposed, that it was to be the starting place for the races:

There were somewhere between 50 and 100 snowmobiles in various loud colors, shapes and sizes and I was amazed at how many people owned snowmobiles in the area. But then again, we sure do get lots of snow. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised:

I walked around, checking out the snowmobiles and making occasional smalltalk:

The deep snow on the field had been plowed, though what was beneath it was a hard surface of ice on which I had to tread carefully to avoid falling:

It was colder than I'd realized, so although I hadn't seen any actual races, I decided it was time for me to begin the long, snowy trek back to my car:

Despite the lack of any actual races, I found this a friendly and interesting event. My neighbors, I learned later, had also attended, similarly finding no real races and eventually giving up. But it was time for me to drive home and get warm. But first, since I was already there, I decided to take a photo tour of the village of Helena, which I'll post tomorrow: