Track Side

About Track Side

Come the third week of January, Eagle River fills with engine noise and the Derby Track draws a crowd that does not much care what the thermometer says. Track Side works the weather that makes all of that possible — plowing drives, lots and approaches so people can actually get in and back out while the snow keeps coming down. A town built around sled trails takes its snow seriously in both directions: piled where it belongs, gone from where it doesn't. Nights run long through a storm, and there is a certain pride in a lot standing open and squared off before the first truck of the morning turns in. Winter is the busy season here in every sense of the word.