STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Dylan, Meagan and Lex Carey eschewed the President’s Day Weekend crowds on Baldy and they bypassed the Nordic skiers slicing through the corduroy around Galena Lodge.

They were bent on skiing the slush on Stanley’s Ace of Diamond Street on their Iron Throne.

The three from Hailey were among a record-setting 15 teams who took part in the Toilet Bowl Olympics that have become the key calling card for Stanley’s annual WinterFest. They fashioned together a throne made out of skinny Nordic skis to which they affixed a toilet seat and a roll of TP.

Their training consisted of raising a beer, cracking a few broad smiles and trying their best not to be  party poopers.

“It’s not about winning. It’s about having fun!” said Dylan Carey, boasting a red velvet crown on his head.

If fun was the name of the game, it seemed to abound in spades as hundreds of people poured into the town of 69 official residents to throw frozen turkeys at bowling pins, take part in three-legged races and ride whitewater rafts down a snow-covered hill in an event that gave new meaning to the term “whitewater” rafting.

The Anderson family came all the way from Burley, everyone in the family having had a hand in building a “Ninja Turd-le” seat positioned on a snowboard that Mom--Jocelyn  Anderson--had painted with the likeness of a Ninja Turtle.

Youngsters and adults alike dressed in Ninja Turtle costumes and danced around the Turd-le, as its lights flashed and the Ninja Turtle theme song played.

“We saw the outhouse races last time around and decided we wanted to try it the next time they had it. Building this occupied us for two weekends,” said Jocelyn.

And what about the turtle? After all, turtles are not normally considered the fastest things on earth. In fact, they seem a little—well, constipated.

“We’re not out for fast. We just here to have a good time,” said Jocelyn Anderson.

You couldn’t say the same for Andrew Fosbinder and Jeff Clough. The two, who work for Mountain Village Resort in Stanley, spent the morning waxing the bottoms of the skis on their outhouse with Crisco.

“Our strategy is to run fast, push hard and get people out of the way,” said Fosbinder, a veteran of the race.

As the starting line gathered, a beekeeper stuck her head out of the honey bucket. A child wearing a  hardhat took his place on a pooper scooper made out of a backhoe. A bear sat on a stump. The Stanley Fire Department turned on the flashing lights on their outhouse. And one young man bragged to those listening how his team had stolen their design from the Olympic toboggan team.

The starting gun cracked and the outhouses went on a tear, the Nina Turd-ls wiping out but quickly getting back on their feet—and the seat. Some outhouses careened wildly, unable to stay on track.

In the end, it was Tour de Heart, a not-so-flashy, low-to-the-ground toilet seat created by Bellevue’s Big Wood Plumbing and Handy Construction, that crossed the finish line first.

It may not have been the flashiest outhouse on the block. But its team definitely gave new meaning to the bathroom runs.