At this year's Fur Rondy, one of the biggest attractions is the snow

Organizers and attendees of the annual Fur Rendezvous winter festival in Anchorage might be excited for the classic sprint sled dog races and the carnival rides, but one of the greatest pleasures of this year's celebration is perhaps the simplest: snow.

For the past two years, a sorry powder accumulation in Anchorage around the end of February meant disruption or even cancellation of events that have been standbys for years.

"The past two years have been miserable as far as, in the minds of people, they don't feel it's time to Rondy if there's no snow," said John McCleary, the event's new executive director, who began in December. "It just wasn't the same."

But this year, it feels like things are back to what most would consider normal. As of Friday, snow near the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport measured 25 inches deep, National Weather Service meteorologist Rebecca Duell said. Compare that to a measly 1 inch of snow dusting the first day of Fur Rondy in 2015 and just "trace" amounts for the start of the festival last year.

Snow levels were pitiful enough the last two years that "many" people called asking if the whole event was cancelled, McCleary said. Snowshoe softball, sled dog races and rides, and the outdoor hockey tournament have all been compromised in recent years.

At Kosinski Field on Saturday morning, players in the annual Fur Rondy snowshoe softball tournament trudged along the baselines in an absurd slow-motion version of the sport, trying to make it to each base without falling over their massive footwear. Cans of Coors Light sat in beer Koozies, or nestled into the snow around the fields to keep cold as dogs rolled in the powder nearby.

Lauren Miller was one of many people happy to see the tournament back on in its true form. Last year and the year before, there weren't any snowshoes because there was hardly any snow. Instead, there were sheets of ice on the fields.

"(With snowshoes), you can fall, feel like a little kid," said Miller, who's from Anchorage, but now lives in Fairbanks. She's been coming to the softball tournament for 13 years. "With this, and then watching the dog races, it just feels like a real Fur Rondy."

Liz Alexander flew down from Fairbanks this year for her second softball tournament and remembered playing last year on the ice.

"This is way more fun," she said. "It's much more — it equalizes the game when everybody's on snowshoes."

Next to the ballfields, sprint sled dog teams were racing down the hill one by one on Cordova Street just after noon. In 2015, there wasn't enough snow for the Fur Rendezvous Open World Championship Sled Dog Race at all, and last year's festivities saw only a few miles of mushing instead of the traditional 25.

"Last year, we pulled rabbits out of a hat … to make a miniloop" for the dog races, McCleary said.

[Streeper, Wright return for first 'real' Rondy race in 3 years]

Sled dog rides offered by Willow-based High Country Kennels are also back on the Delaney Park Strip, after being moved to Third Avenue and Ingra Street last year, and a spot closer to downtown's Comfort Inn the year before.

"Last year, we went two days and quit," said High Country Kennels owner Robert Sexton. Typically, they offer rides throughout the whole 10-day festival. "Nobody knew where we were, kind of in bad areas. … It was dirty snow. Bad, bad, bad."

The business even took a financial loss last year after paying about $1,200 to bring in snow to make a little track, Sexton said. Usually, he said, High Country Kennels grosses roughly $15,000 during Fur Rondy, and the rides have been a part of the celebrations for nearly a decade.

Saturday afternoon, dogs barked from the kennel as a few families and groups of friends lined up on a patch of the park strip at 10th Avenue and E Street, waiting to board a sled for a quick loop — $15 for adults, $10 for kids.

"We're super happy to be back," Sexton said. "Anytime it's white out here, it feels like what it's supposed to be."

The outdoor hockey tournament is another event back to normal this year. It was cancelled last year, and in 2014, because of the weather. The tournament hit its peak with 22 teams but lost a bit of momentum when it was called off in recent years, said Anchorage Skate Club President Edwin Blair. Now, it's at 16 teams.

"We're in full recovery mode," Blair said. "Hell yes, we're delighted to have winter weather back."

In the last two years, McCleary said registrations for events "were a little bit down," though it's tough to know if that's specifically because of the low snow.

For some people, though, it's not really about the powder.

Husband and wife Nathan and DiAnna Turnbaugh live in Houston and have been coming to Fur Rondy for years. Saturday afternoon they sat at a picnic table downtown, eating a turkey leg and cowboy fries — a decadent mixture of pork, barbecue sauce and cheese — from a Smokehouse BBQ food truck.

DiAnna, who lived in Texas for a few years, said she prefers when there's not as much snow.

"For me," said Nathan, wearing a seal and beaver fur hat, "Fur Rondy is pretty much all the same. It's the spirit of the people. The snow is a little bit of the situation."