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Snowshoe Championships moved to Dewey Mountain

Volunteers needed

Village of Saranac Lake Trustee Rich Shapiro, left, talks Wednesday with a trio of Paul Smith’s College snowshoe racers who will compete in Saturday’s World Snowshoe Championships in Saranac Lake — from left, Matt Leichty, Matt Williams and Joe St. Cyr — at Dewey Mountain Recreation Center. (Enterprise photo — Chris Knight)

SARANAC LAKE — The race course for the World Snowshoe Championships has been moved entirely to Dewey Mountain Recreation Center, organizers announced this morning.

Temperatures are expected to approach 60 degrees and rain is in the forecast on Saturday. The base of snow for course has also taken a hit from this week’s warm weather.

“In light of continued warm weather and the weekend forecast, we decided to proactively adjust the competitions now instead of waiting,” village Mayor Clyde Rabideau said in a press release. “Dewey Mountain is in excellent shape. They’ve built up a good snow base this winter, and have the benefit of a heavily wooded environment to protect their snow.”

Organizers originally planned to start the 5-kilometer and 10-kilometer championship races in front of the Harrietstown Town Hall. From there competitors would have raced down Main Street — on snow that village crews have been stockpiling — over the Lake Flower dam to Lake Street hill, then entered the woods. The course then would have gone to Dewey Mountain Recreation Center and back to a finish line in Riverside Park.

On Wednesday, Rabideau said the start line had been moved up Main Street to in front of Little Italy restaurant in an effort to conserve the amount of snow and matting that would need to be placed in the street for the races.

Now the event will be held entirely at Dewey Mountain, the local cross-country ski and snowshoe center.

With limited parking in and around the town of Harrietstown-run facility, the organizing committee will provide complimentary park-and-ride locations at Petrova Elementary School and Saranac Lake High School. Athletes, officials, media and spectators are encouraged to use this service. All non-race activities in the downtown area, Friday and Saturday, will go on as scheduled, according to the press release.

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