Kate St. Onge and her husband Rick moved to Utah from the New England area in 1996 with one Alaskan Husky.

Nowadays, they’re proud owners of 24 frisky members of the breed and are annual participants in the International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race (IPSSDR). This year’s race was as tough as the previous three Kate’s raced in.

“It was enjoyable and challenging,” St. Onge said. “It was a good race, but it was definitely one of the harder ones.”

The eight-day race, which started in Jackson Hole, Wyo., featured nine stage stops and ended in Park City Saturday afternoon amid freezing winds and a welcoming crowd.

“We love finishing in Park City,” said public relations coordinator Darla Worden. “It’s the perfect venue.”

Blayne Streeper of Fort Nelson, British Columbia, won his second consecutive third overall IPSSDR title with a final time of 19 hours, 38 minutes and 27 seconds.

Streeper is no stranger to winning titles. Team Streeper, owners and operators of Streeper Kennels consisting of Blayne and his father Terry, have won a combined 12 world titles since 1991 according to a press release by the IPSSDR.

Worden said one of the race’s biggest stories was four-time Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race winner Lance Mackey, who participated in his first ever IPSSDR race. He finished fourth overall all with a combined time of 21:12:15.

“We were really thrilled to have Lance,” Worden said. “He’s traditionally a long-distance musher, but he moved up every day of the race.”

Racers came from all over the world to participate in the 16th annual IPSSDR event, including Swedish musher Anna Bjorklund and Jamaican musher Newton Marshall who was a rookie musher in the 2010 Iditarod race. Marshall’s team is sponsored by Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville café chain.

Worden, who has been associated with the race for the past 13 years, said mushers enjoy this race specifically because of the companionship developed over the course of the week-long race.

“They all love that,” Worden said. “There’s something about being on the road with each other for eight days. They are all very supportive of one another.”

St. Onge, who currently lives in Millville in Cache County, said she wasn’t able to run as many dogs on a daily basis as she wished due to inclement weather. She added that running dogs in rough weather requires moer down time for the dogs.

She said that typically there are 16 dogs on the truck, and mushers will usually run 10 to 12 dogs on the tougher days, while running six around cities like Jackson Hole and Park City.

“It was good,” St. Onge said. “But it was really difficult. There were a lot of difficult stages. The snow conditions were a little tough.”

All in all, 20 racers crossed the starting line in Jackson Hole and 20 racers crossed the finish line Saturday afternoon in Park City.

“We were very pleased with the turnout,” Worden said. “The event went really well.”

Worden also said Saturday’s conditions might have been the worst of the entire race, adding that many turned up with wind burns on their cheeks.

As a 12-year veteran of sled dog racing, St. Onge singled out the event’s superb organization and friendly atmosphere

“It’s a wonderful race, it really is,” St. Onge said. “There’s such a great camaraderie between mushers and handlers and communities coming all together. There’s no other race quite like this.

“It’s really unique to the mushing world. Every body has to pull together and coordinate. Every single day is difficult.”

Worden added that stopping in a new town each night gives surrounding communities a chance to learn about the world of mushing.

“Momentum for the race and sport is really exciting,” she said.