The sled dog race that starts on our road

The directions, in their words

This is the part nobody else can write. The Sierra Nevada Dog Drivers publish directions to their Chester race site, and the landmark in them is this building:

North end of Lake Almanor on State Highway 36 near junction of Hwy 89 Go south on County Rd 324 just past Cedar Lodge

Sierra Nevada Dog Drivers, events page, read 2 October 2026

That is our corner, described by somebody who is not us. Highway 36 and Highway 89 meet three miles west of Chester, County Road 324 runs south from the junction, and we sit at 1487 County Road 324 with the race site further down the same road. One of the club’s older listings records the site’s location simply as Co Rd 324, Chester, CA 96020, and another describes it as being just minutes outside Chester, which is the honest version of the distance: it is close, and we are not going to publish a mileage the organiser has never published.

The same listings answer the question a musher actually asks next, and again these are their words rather than ours:

Don’t want to camp? Plenty of places to stay in town or at Cedar Lodge

Sierra Nevada Dog Drivers, fun run and camp out listings, read 2 October 2026

We did not ask them to write that and it was on their page long before this property changed hands. Note what their sentence does: it names two options for a musher who would rather not sleep in the truck, town or here, and here is the one on the same road as the start line.

What the club runs at the site

Reading the club’s own calendar rather than guessing at it, the Chester race site is not used once a year for one race. It carries several different kinds of weekend:

• The Chester sled dog race. The headline event, listed in some years as the Chester Winterfest Sled Dog Race. Their own heading for it invites you to join them for their annual sled dog races, and names meeting the mushers and their dogs as the thing to come for.
• The annual mushing clinic. Hands-on training over a weekend, with one-to-one instruction on teaching a dog the basics of pulling in harness and the chance to work with trained teams, followed by a Saturday night dinner. Their own description says they supply the equipment and you supply the dogs, all breeds welcome. Their listings put the 2020 clinic at Chester and the 2023 one at the Chester race site, with the 2021 clinic at Hobart Mills near Truckee instead.
• Fun runs and camp outs. Described on their page as a get-together for all levels of experience: run your dogs, meet other mushers, learn about the club. These are the listings that mention staying at Cedar Lodge instead of camping.
• Club meetings. Held at the Chester race site in past years, scheduled for the Sunday straight after the clinic ends.

The club is not only a Chester club. The same calendar has put events at Hobart Mills near Truckee and at Johnson Lane near Minden in Nevada. A race weekend brings mushers, handlers, trucks, dog boxes and families, all of whom need somewhere to sleep within a short drive of a start line rather than an hour away.

One current entry is worth naming because it is close at hand as we publish this. The club’s events page lists a 2026 mushing clinic on 23 to 25 October 2026, marked as full, with the next club meeting on Sunday 25 October at about noon once the clinic ends. The page does not state a location for either. Past clinics on the same page were held at Chester and at Hobart Mills, so we are not going to tell you which this one is. The club will.

When it has actually run

Rather than call it an annual February fixture and leave you to find out otherwise, here is what the club’s own event archive shows, read on 2 October 2026. Every line is their listing, not our inference.

Two honest readings of that table. The first is that February is clearly the window: four of the five entries sit in February, and the fifth was a December date that got cancelled. The second is that the most recent Chester race on their page is February 2024, and no Chester race is listed for 2025 or 2026. We do not know whether that means the race paused, moved, or simply was not added to the website, and we are not going to guess on a page people might plan a trip around.

Coming with dogs

Two separate things get called the same question here, so we will split them.

A pet on a holiday

Dogs and cats, two per booking. In a motel room or the house, $20 per pet per night, capped at $60 for the whole stay, however many pets. On an RV site, free. No weight limit and no breed restrictions. Service animals are welcome in every room and on every site at no charge and are not subject to the pet fee or the two-pet limit. The full wording, including the leash and unattended rules, is on rates and policies, and the law behind the service-animal line is set out in our post on dogs at the lodge.

A dog team

A race team is not two pets, and it would be dishonest to point you at a pet fee and call that an answer. A team arrives in a dog truck or a box trailer, the dogs sleep in it, and what you need from a lodge is somewhere to park the rig overnight, power, and a room for the handlers. That is a conversation rather than a tick box, and the honest reason we are not publishing a rule for it is that we would rather answer it for your actual rig than print a general claim that turns out to be wrong for you.

Email info@stayatcedarlodge.com with the length of what you are towing and your dates. We answer email within one business day. The same two questions, turning and parking a truck and trailer in snow, and RV water in winter, are the pair our winter guide already asks you to write in about, for the same reason.

What we can say now without qualification: each motel room has a portable heater and a kitchenette with a coffee maker, kettle and microwave, the rooms open onto a covered walkway where wet gear goes, the RV sites are 30 and 50 amp full hookup on gravel, and the house has three bedrooms, two baths and a covered deck, which makes it the obvious choice for a team and its handlers travelling together.

Getting here in February

Highway 36 and Highway 89 are the two roads in and they meet at our corner. Both are maintained through the winter, which is not the same as both staying clear. Chain control is enforced on these roads after a storm, and a trailer does not make it easier.

• Check Caltrans QuickMap before you set off, at quickmap.dot.ca.gov. It carries live chain control, closures and cameras for both highways. We do not publish our own road report and we are not going to tell you a road is clear.
• Know what R1, R2 and R3 mean before a checkpoint explains it to you in the dark. Our chain control post quotes the California Highway Patrol on all three levels and what a citation costs.
• The route through the national park is not an option in winter. The park highway is shut. From the west you stay on Highway 36 over the summit, and from the east you come through Susanville and Westwood.
• Allow for dark and for altitude. These are unlit mountain highways, winter afternoons are short, and you are fitting chains at about four and a half thousand feet.

The rest of the weekend

A race morning is a few hours. If you are making a weekend of it, the three things worth knowing are already written up properly elsewhere on this site rather than summarised badly here.

• Snowmobiling is what actually fills this valley in February. The Lake Almanor Area Chamber names five staging areas near Chester, and Swain Mountain is the one to start at. The winter guide covers all five, with the Forest Service’s own description of the trail network.
• Lassen Volcanic does not close in winter, it shrinks to two plowed car parks, and the entrance fee drops to ten dollars from 1 December to 15 April. The winter guide has the detail, sourced to the Park Service.
• Lake Almanor is still there and nearly empty. The lake guide covers the winter fishing rules and what the shoreline is like between October and March.

One honest note on the photographs, or the lack of them. We have no winter pictures of our own yet, because we have not been here for a winter yet. When the first real snow lands on this property it gets photographed, and a race weekend on our own road is the first thing we would want a camera for.

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