If Judy Jurries had her way, the Arctic Warrior Race planned for St. Germain on Jan. 13 would include a fire walk. But she couldn’t find any local business owners — perhaps for liability reasons? — to sponsor that leg of the contest.
So competitors will have to be content with climbing over wooden blockades, scaling slippery mounds of snow, high-stepping and shuffling through a course of big tires or climbing up a cargo net, among other Tough Mudder-inspired obstacles, said Jurries, who designed the course and is an avid outdoors person.
More than 125 people participated in the first event last January. Jurries, a Milwaukee native, is hoping for as many as 200 contestants this time around.
“We were pleased with our first turnout,” she said. “These things tend to take a couple of years to get established. I think this competition has a good deal of potential, though a lot depends on the weather. Wisconsin winters aren’t for wimps, but If it’s really cold and snowing, most people won’t do it.
“If the forecast predicts a temperature of around 20, however, with little or no wind and sunny, we should get a lot of registrations the week leading up to the race. That’s typical of outdoor winter events up here. It can be either brutal or beautiful.”
Jurries said the race isn’t just for Tough Mudder types, who thrive on pushing themselves to extremes. Tough Mudder races sometimes include tanks of ice-cold water and live electrical wires hanging over fields of mud that participants must cross, in addition to other obstacles.
The St. Germain obstacle course is either 5 or 10 kilometers and is on the “fun, mellow and even whimsical side, including an Abominable Yeti Tire Drag,” Jurries said. In addition, there are 5 and 10 kilometer snowshoe races, as well as a 1 kilometer Little Warrior race for kids ages 14 and under, she said.
She said snowshoers will use everything from light racing models to “old-school, wooden types” similar to what hunters and trappers might have worn a century ago.
Before I spoke with Jurries, I was baffled about how contestants would manage the obstacles in snowshoes, which seemed like it would be incredibly difficult. She said the competitors will wear boots or even running shoes — depending on snow conditions — to scramble over the obstacles.
“All of the obstacles are sponsored by local businesses,” she said. “ So they build them, man them and take them down. Most aren’t that hard, but we do have some that are a little more challenging. One is a switchback climb where you go up and over a 12-foot-tall tower. The other is scaling a cargo net to a crow’s nest and then sliding down.
“We wanted this event to be user-friendly, so to speak. So while it’s Tough Mudder-esque, it’s not Tough-Mudder difficult.”
Jurries also noted that when she suggested the fire walk, local business owners looked askance.
“I can’t help it, I’m a nut,” she said, chuckling.
“I’ve seen it done, though, and it’s pretty cool,” said Jurries, who described herself as an avid cross-country skier, snowshoer and occasional racer when she’s not working.
“I like to get outside and play. And snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and fat-tire biking get you to peaceful and serene places deep in the woods that you can’t see from the roads,” she said.
All of the races follow the same route over Little St. Germain Lake and include sections in the woods and over the frozen ice. The courses start at Black Bear Lodge, proceed into the South Bay and hit a couple of obstacles, then go up into No Fish Bay, follow the edge of West Bay and return to the lodge.
“We basically follow outlines of the lake, but not the whole thing by any means,” Jurries said. “In one area, we go off the lake, up a hill and back down. The majority of the courses are on the lake, though, mirroring the shoreline with a couple of lake crossings.”
She said competitors doing the shorter routes will get rides from six- and eight-tire Argo all-terrain vehicles driven by Minocqua Zip Line guides over sections of the route. For the 5-kilometer obstacle course, that means they’ll miss one of the stumbling blocks in No Fish Bay.
Jurries said the St. Germain Chamber of Commerce came up with the Arctic Warrior contest as a way to attract visitors to the area before the snowmobile season heats up.
“This is our shoulder period,” she said. “We have snow here now, but the lakes are just starting to freeze over. A big cold snap is coming, which is a good thing for us, so the lakes should be freezing enough for snowmobiles to drive on the trails that cross them.”
More information: The main 5K/10K obstacle race starts at noon Jan. 13, with the other races starting in the morning. Registration for the main race is $53. See st-germain.com or call (715) 477-2205.
Getting there: Black Bear Lodge, 1330 Halberstad Road, the starting point of the races. It's six miles southeast of St. Germain, about 260 miles north of Milwaukee..