Borough offers outdoor events Saturday

MAT-SU — Dogsled rides, cross-country skiing and all kinds of other activities are on tap Saturday at two Mat-Su Borough events.

The dogsled rides are available from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Mat-Su Borough Animal Care and Regulation Shelter. The price is $5 for kids and $10 for adults.

Susan Fujimoto, the shelter’s volunteer coordinator, said the course the sled takes runs around the shelter building. A good-sized crowd came out the last time the shelter did this, despite bone-chilling temperatures.

“It was 10 below,” she said. “I think we should be in the 20s this time.”

Last year, money raised at this fundraiser and a few others — big ones include the Haunted Shelter event at Halloween and the annual shelter garage sale — built outdoor dog runs, paid for spay and neuter clinics and supported other shelter projects.

Further north in Hatcher Pass, the borough will be holding its annual Mat-Su Winter Trails Day.

Trails Day starts at 10 a.m. when equipment from REI in Anchorage is first available for checkout and wraps up around 3 p.m.

Events in the day include snowshoe and Nordic skiing instruction, a skijoring clinic and practice digging out avalanche victims.

The event is at the borough’s Government Peak Recreation Area on Mountain Trails Drive off of Edgerton Parks Road.

Tied up with the trails day is a ribbon cutting for the new 4,000 square-foot chalet the borough recently built there. The ceremony is set for 1 p.m.

For a full schedule of Winter Trails Day events and an interactive map of how to get there, read this story online at frontiersman.com/sports.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.