Oregon Coast Travel

Maybe you thought mushing was just something people did in Alaska and Yukon on snow. But there's another version that goes over sand and every year, the big event is the Dune Mushers Mail Run. This year, it's going to be on the weekend of March 10 and 11, starting in North Bend and heading north to Florence.

It's a non-competitive endurance race where each musher carries commemorative envelopes signed by that musher and carried over the trail on the dunes. The stamp on each envelope is "cancelled" at North Bend, Lakeside, and again in Florence as part of the organizers' fund raising. Teams range from 4 to 10 dogs and cover the 70 miles over the space of two days.

You can get a good look at the dogs while they are running by stopping at the Oregon Dunes "Day Use Area," formerly and more intuitively entitled the Dunes Overlook. But some bureaucrat felt this wasn't sufficient, so your federal tax money was spent changing the name and all the signs.