September 5th-7th in North Conway, NH was home to the World Mud Bowl Championships. This event consists of three days of knee-deep touch football. Very serious touch football, I should add. It feels like the whole town comes out for this fun spectacle. Even the local postman (pictured above), participates every year by performing synchronized mud swimming and then parading through the town trying to give people hugs.

The festivities kick off on Saturday with a themed parade. This year was MudAmerican Band Stand. I have a hunch that no matter what the theme each year, it usually involves men dressing up as women. This guy in pink was a player for the Hogs, the local North Conway team. The parade winds through the little town, slowly creeping past the historic train station while making its way to the Mud Bowl Coliseum.

A so-called Veteran of the games…

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The Hogs were the first team to play on Saturday. Representing their home-town and defending quite a history of championships, the pressure was on to perform well this year. I primarily photographed them through the first day.

Mud Bowl football pretty much follows all the rules of regular football, except the games are shorter and you pass double pass the football forward during a play. This championship was complete with referees, coaches, cheerleaders, fan clubs, and yes, sponsorship from a beer company. There was probably close to 500 people in attendance each day. It was quite the turn out just to watch men fall in the mud. Perhaps more entertaining were the halftime shows and belly dancers to the side of the field.

What would football be without cheerleaders? Muddy ones at that..

I entitled this woman queen of the cheerleaders.

Despite the games being very serious, the teams were very friendly with each other. I saw lots of slaps on the butt. Also, there was minimal contact. I heard from another photographer that in the 90’s a player dove into the mud and broke his neck. From then on out, stricter rules evolved over tackles and dives. I’m surprised the mud bowl championships survived a major lawsuit!

On Sunday, the Hogs made it all the way to the semi-finals but lost despite a good fight. I was rooting for them. Perhaps the loss was due to Saturday night’s late drinking and dance contest party?

Matt’s girlfriend Mandy joined us for a few days and together we camped out on a lake in Conway.  The water was clear and blue and the forest was soft and quiet with the dense growth of pines and fallen pine needles.  It reminded me of my childhood summers spent in Maine.  On Saturday night we experienced a massive storm where it poured all through the night.  The airstream leaked, and we slept huddled in our blankets next to half-filled buckets of water.  The pit-patter on the aluminum roof was a soothing sound that sent me quickly dreaming about football, mud, and unicorns.

Some excursions on Sunday led us to Diana’s Baths, a cascade hike, and Cathedral Edge, a great cliff/lookout on the outer rim of the White Mountains national forest.  What a majestic landscape!

I met a guy on the trail who was stationed in Alaska during the Vietnam war.  He repaired the radios that were used to spy on the Russians.  Somehow he was able to shoot game on the military base.  He said he shot a black bear and two moose during his 36 month duty.