by Bruce Linton © 2009

The extensive journey to get to the starting line of my third consecutive Iditarod Dog Sled race began early in the season with some fantastic news.  Cindy Barrand agreed to join our kennel for the winter.  With the many life changes that occurred for Melissa and I since leaving Nome the year before, we knew that for us to be successful in another attempt at Iditarod it would require an experienced dog musher to help us get there.  The warm temperatures and extended sunlight of 2008 brought several changes, we were new parents for the first time and I got a normal full time job that would keep me away from the kennel five days a week.

Cindy had run dogs for some of the best dog mushers in the world and had close to a decade of experience.  She was just what we needed.  She would be more then a “dog handler”, but would manage the kennel and with my input would train the dogs full time.  I would help part time when my schedule permitted it.  It was a big change from previous years and I didn’t really like it, but I had no choice given my new job.  She started in the third week of September only a few days after she left a glacier in Juneau where she ran dog sled tours all summer long.

It was immediately apparent that Cindy had a vast knowledge on how to run a kennel.  Not only did she do an extraordinary job taking care of the dogs and getting them into shape, but I learned a lot from her as well.  Her focus was unwavering.  In mid October, a second helper named Travis Fuller arrived from Oregon.  With the two of them, training on the ATVs went smoothly through the fall.

As we transitioned to sleds (and snow) and started doing the longer runs of four to six hours that were necessary in November and December to get the dogs into peak shape, it was apparent that our dogs were looking stronger then in previous years.  It was a result of Cindy’s incredible work ethic, and the maturing of some of our younger dogs.  This year, many of the younger dogs that were born in our kennel were now old enough to potentially make the race team which was very rewarding.

Cindy and Travis did the first race of the season, the Sheep Mountain 150 in mid December.  Both finished well and enjoyed the experience.  Cindy and I then completed the Knik 200 in early January which will always be remembered for the intense cold.  Temperatures on the river in the predawn hours on the return leg home were below 50 below zero and it was never warmer then 25 below.  This race, more then anything throughout the training season, boosted my confidence going into Iditarod.  I also learned how to operate my insulin pump at those extreme temperatures by keeping the pump and associated equipment next to my skin for warmth.  I managed to finish in the top 10 (the first time ever in an Alaskan dog sled race) which gave further credence to the fact that our dogs had improved considerably from previous years.  Others started noticing…

Cindy completed the brutally cold Copper Basin 300 the week after the Knik 200 and then I ran the Tustumenta 100 where I found myself chasing Dean Osmar, my neighbor and 1984 Iditarod Champion, for the lead late in the race.  Dean won the race and I came in second.  Again, I was thrilled with the performance of our dogs.  While my dogs were loping to the finish line in the middle of the night, I reflected on the fact that just a few short years before, I purchased a few dogs from Dean as a greenhorn who lived in Vermont with nothing but a dream to move to Alaska someday.  Now, with a few of those same dogs leading the charge, I was trying to overtake him for the lead.  The thrill was indescribable.  Comments from others about how well my dogs were doing this season continued.  It felt good!

                Cindy in the Copper Basin 300                           Bruce at the start of the Tustumenta 100

The front pages of the newspapers leading up to Iditarod week were filled with stories about how the Iditarod trail was completed buried in snow.  In some areas there was up to 12 feet of the white stuff and in many areas there was no trail at all.  The trail breakers were scrambling just a few days before the race start, working day and night, trying to get some sort of trail in before the 1,200 dogs started loping north.

Race start weekend was the same and different this year for me.  It was similar because it was so busy with all of the usual pre-race festivities, but it was different in the fact that I found myself feeling very relaxed.  During the previous two years, the demands of the pre-race meetings and commitments left me feeling exhausted.  This year, largely because of the help from Cindy and a friend Jon Cox, I managed to leave the chute well rested and confident that I could be more competitive then in years past.


          

                        May and Kiwi at the ceremonial start                       Frodo is ready to get going!  

Bruce, handler (Charley) and Iditarider at the ceremonial start in Anchorage

Not only was I feeling well rested and more confident, but it was evident from the start that my race dogs were feeling the same.  Having drawn position 40th out of the chute at the pre-race banquet, I left civilization behind in the middle of the pack of 67 mushers.  This quickly changed as my team would post some of the faster run times in the first few legs of the race.  Knowing that running fast in the beginning of a thousand mile journey was not necessary a good thing, I spent a lot of time in the first few days trying to slow them down and control their power – standing on the bar brake in admiration (and sometimes frustration) as they tried to lope hour after hour as they powered me over the hilly Alaska Range.  I had never experience a team like this before.    Again, my team was lead by Maya, my rock, with Click, Kiwi and a new dog named Fledgling supporting her in lead throughout the journey.

           Kiwi on fire out of the chute – she is ready             Two miles down, a thousand to go!

Leaving the chute, my team passed several others on my way to Yentna, the first checkpoint on the trail.  I blew through Yentna and took my first rest at the second checkpoint of Skwentna (as planned) approximately 86 miles into the race.  I was hoping to do the run in seven hours, but with all the fresh snow, I assumed before the start that my run times would be significantly slower.  I was pleasantly surprised to find myself only a few minutes off of last years pace.  Unfortunately, McKinley, a two year old, injured her shoulder in the soft snow and I had to drop her at the checkpoint.

The team in the early going - on their way to Yentna, the first checkpoint in the Iditarod race

With 15 dogs, I left Skwentna at 3:30 am after a rest of approximately 5 ½ hours.  Actually I was dragged out of the checkpoint when my lugging and barking canines pulled the snow hook out of the ground.  Luckily, I was standing on the brake when it occurred.  I had a magnificent night run into Finger Lake.  I again couldn’t control my team while talking to the checkers at Finger Lake and was dragged out of that checkpoint as well!  I guess my team sensed that I was not stopping there as I had done in my previous Iditarod races.  I continued onward to the famed Happy River “Steps”.  The deep snow at the Steps and my placement closer to the front of the field made the trail reasonably manageable as I took the plunge down each of them.  My dog team and I negotiated the potentially challenging terrain without incident and I continued onward to Rainy Pass passing a few more teams along the way.

I deviated from the last few years and stopped at a small cabin which was owned by “Mike and Ingrid”.  The makeshift checkpoint was not an official checkpoint on the Iditarod trail and was known to mushers as “Fin Bear Lake”. I had heard about this option before the race and I found Mike and Ingrid to be extremely generous.  They were obvious big fans of the race and a sign outside of their small cabin said “HELLO Mushers, wake us up any hour”.  I had packed straw from the previous checkpoint, since I had planned to stop there, and quickly bedded down my team and fed them.  Mike and Ingrid had a fire going and even had hot water for the dogs!

The cabin at Fin Bear Lake

Ingrid heating water for the dogs

There were six or seven teams parked on the lake besides this small cabin and as I entered the structure, I soon realized that I was running with the front of the pack.  This awareness that I was running with the best in the world in my sport would continue to stun me for days and hundreds of miles down the trail.  I continued to see the faces of many that I often read about in newspapers and magazines from the past decade, but never raced with.  I am sure many of them upon seeing me wondered to themselves how I got to be where I was up in the front of the pack.  Sebastian Schnuelle (who would finish 2nd), John Baker (who would finish 3rd), Mitch Seavey (who would finish 4th), Jessie Royer (who would finish 8th), Ed Iten, Hugh Neff, Paul Gebhardt and I were all crammed into this extremely small space.  I managed to get one hour of sleep (the same amount I was able to get during my stop in the checkpoint of Swentna the previous night) before thanking my gracious hosts and pulling the hook in the mid-afternoon sun.

Life is a dream in the early going

My team (in foreground) resting at Fin Bear Lake.  That’s Maya (far right) not sleeping!

I ran into Rainy Pass without incident, quickly filled my sled with some food, and headed out to conquer the climb up Ptarmigan Pass and then the subsequent drop into the famed Dalzell Gorge.  Apparently, when I did this, it caused me to jump in the standings all the way up to 8th place!  A top ten in the Iditarod?  I must be dreaming.  I thought that would never happen - and I knew it wouldn’t last… 

I had modified my feeding program this year (thanks to Cindy and some experimenting) and it was working beautifully up to this point.  Besides feeding all of the normal frozen foods like meat, salmon, and tripe, this year we were feeding more kibble and fat.  The kibble was in my cooler and was soaking with hot water from the previous checkpoint.  It would slowly cool when I was traveling down the trail.  My feeding program consisted of feeding them every 1 ½ hours and my first two feedings would be the warm hydrated kibble.  Not only would this provide a great base for the dog’s nutritional requirements, but because it was soaked, the kibble would help the dogs maintain hydration which is critical in these long distance endurance events.  The fat would be fed at 4 ½ hours and 6 hours into the run while other frozen foods (i.e., tripe, meat mix, salmon, etc.) were occasionally thrown in for variety.  These foods were also added to the larger meals that were fed to the dogs when they were bedded down at the checkpoints.  The greater emphasis on feeding the dogs straight fat would provide them with a lot more calories then other food sources and because of the makeup of how these incredible athletic machines metabolize the fat would, in theory, provide them with more energy.

A few hundred yards out of the Rainy Pass checkpoint, I stopped to feed the dogs soaked kibble and the dogs devoured it as they had been doing all season long.  Ken Anderson and John Baker went by me as I put some booties on a few of my dogs that lost one or two along the way.

On the trail again, a familiar situation occurred with my dogs – they began loping again - this time during the climb up Ptarmigan Pass.  It was a beautiful evening and the time of day (near dark) really caused the dogs to become energized.  We quickly passed John Baker and before I knew it, I saw Ken Anderson in the distance.  Ken looked back a few times as I was approaching and eventually pulled over on the side of the trail to let me pass.  He nodded and said “nice job Bruce” as I told him to let me know if he wanted to pass me a little later.  I reasoned since my dogs were not chasing anymore and Ken’s dogs were that my dogs would probably slow down and Ken’s would probably speed up.  This is a common occurrence on the trail.  Also, he was known to have some of the fastest dogs in the mid-distance dog racing world and had won numerous 200 to 300 mile events (like the Knik 200 that I participated in earlier in the racing season) so keeping up with him I figured would not last long.

                The dogs start the climb up Ptarmigan Pass.  John Baker is in the far distance ahead.

Headlights were illuminated in the impending darkness and by the time I reached the treeless top of the largest climb in the race, I turned my head to see John and Ken’s headlights appearing as faint dots in the far distance below me.  I will never forget that moment.  I looked down on them and was again in awe of my team.  I laughed to myself and praised my team right before I began my decent into the Dalzell Gorge.  Although early, I couldn’t believe how well the team and I were doing.  I should have known better…

In my previous two runs down the Dalzell Gorge, I have always for some reason had a problem with the upper section.  This doesn’t exactly fill one with confidence as you enter the more technically challenging lower part were the walls turn into cliffs and crossing razor thin man-made ice bridges that crisscross a small frozen stream is the only way out.  I knew what immediately lay in front of me would require 100% of my attention and I couldn’t have any distractions so I stopped and quickly unhooked the tubing that was attached to my insulin pump from my body.  My body would be fine if it wasn’t getting insulin for an hour or so - I couldn’t risk going hypoglycemic while in the gorge!

I had just dropped below tree line when I came up over a small ridge and saw a small “X” on the right.  The trail obviously went to the left, but I couldn’t see it.  Two wooden stakes in that pattern indicates a wrong way, but before I had time to react and yell “haw” to my leaders, the dogs went past the stakes and turn sharply right down a steep hill.  They had followed a snow machine trail.  By the time my sled got to the stakes, my entire team was in a small steep gully. I quickly saw the trail to my left which crossed a steep hill at a 45 degree angle to the fall line.  I hastily jumped off my sled and immediately found myself in waist deep snow.  I floundered as quickly as I could to my lead dogs which took several minutes.  Maya, being hypersensitive to my every command and situation, sensed that something was wrong while many of the other dogs continued to try and pull the team down the steep gully.  Who knows where that gully led too or what cliffs lay ahead of the next bend?  I rapidly turned the lead dogs around and did a sharp buttonhook.  With the dogs now virtually in a ball, I tried to get the sled moving back up the steep incline.  I struggled there for what seem like an eternity and finally managed to get the dogs lined out and going in the correct direction.  It took all I had with the dogs pulling as hard as they could to get back on the trail.  Once on the trail, I set the hook and quickly tried to untangle the dogs.  The dogs wanted to go and were getting inpatient when Ken came on the scene.  The trail going through the gorge is inherently very curvy and Ken couldn‘t see what I was doing a head of him in the darkness.  He was yelling to me because he wanted to pass and I finally found a small straight section where I stopped my team so he could get his wish.

ride.  I was now careening down the upper section of the gorge trying to maneuver around small alders.  At the same time, I was trying to pick up my snow hooks while trying to once again control the incredible power of this team.  It was extremely frustrating and I was exhausted when I came around a sharp left turn.  The force of the dogs threw me to the left into a small gully.  The sled was now on its side facing upward as my dogs were facing down the gorge wanting to go.

As I flung my sled right side up, I immediately found myself in waist deep snow again.  However, this time my footing was short lived and all of a sudden the bottom of whatever I was standing on dropped out beneath me and I found myself in snow up to my armpits - my feet dangling in mid air.  I quickly realized that if the sides of the snow that were supporting my arms gave away that I would be in a life threatening situation.  In panic mode, I screamed to my dogs to “let’s go”.  Luckily, they were on the trail for the most part and were facing down the gorge.  They began pulling and barking.  I was at the mercy of my dogs since I could not push on to anything – I was just hanging there holding on to my sled wondering how far the fall would be if the ice ledges that supported my arms gave way.  I would never find out because with a tremendous amount of effort, my faithful team managed to extract me from the crater that I had just created.  I will never forget the moment that my sled and body slowly began to move – the team’s incredible power lifting the sled, all of my gear, and me.  We generated some serious momentum as I reached the top of the small ridge that the dogs pulled me out of and I shot out of the self-created cavity like a missile.  Now plunging uncontrollably downhill once again, it took me a while to regain control and stop the team.  Dripping wet with sweat, and emotionally and physically exhausted, I was happy to be unscathed from my ordeal and immensely grateful to my loyal sled dogs.

When I talk about the Iditarod and people ask about it, I always fine it extremely difficult to adequately and accurately describe the experience.  One thing I do often say is that, with all of the physical hardships and the sleep deprivation (which inevitably leads to incredible mood swings) that the Iditarod is profoundly “intense”.  It is an extraordinarily raw experience that few in this day and age will ever know.  What I had just experienced in the last hour or so will be replayed by others on the trail.  Other mushers will obviously not have the exact experience as what I just went through, but frequently they will find themselves in some of the most satisfying times (like when I passed John Baker and Ken Anderson during the climb up Rainy Pass) only to find themselves a short time later in some of the most challenging times imaginable in their lives.  In an odd, hard to describe way, it is one of the reasons why the small few that dare to run this race do it every year…

I finally gained my composure and dropped into the lower section of the gorge.  The trail crew had done an outstanding job creating a pathway and I exited the canyon without further incident.  The dogs loped down the river.  I found myself reuniting myself with Jasper who has been the checker at the Rohn checkpoint for the last decade or so before midnight.

I left Rohn in the predawn hours after a five hour rest and successfully crossed the Rohn River.  The first twenty miles or so out of Rohn is notorious for being some of the most difficult trail in the entire race.  It always has little snow and the musher gets no time to mentally prepare for the challenge ahead since crossing the Rohn River occurs almost immediately.  Eroded by the wind to a rock hard surface and often inundated with boulders and driftwood along with sections of sheer ice, the ¾ mile crossing can test even the most experienced musher.

I managed to cross the river without any serious problems in the darkness this time around.  As I was doing so, I reflected on my experience last year on the river.  One of the volunteers had lost one of my dogs named Merri when she was trying to lead her onto a small plane for her ride home.  Merri was dropped at the Rohn checkpoint because she was in heat and got scared when she heard the engine of the aircraft.  She managed to slip her collar and was scared of everyone and everything.  I was abruptly awoken from my coma in the small rustic cabin at the Rohn checkpoint with the news and was told that she would not come to anyone and that she “ran away and was lost in the wilderness”.  I spent about an hour or so walking out on the river calling her name as dawn greeted me.  She finally heard my voice and, although unsure at first, realized it was me and came running over, jumped up on me, and gave me a big lick on my face.  It was obviously a very memorable moment in last year’s race.  I looked down at Merri in wheel position during this crossing, remembering the moment, and just smiled…

The team was shrugging off their drowsiness and began to wake up.  The power and speed were back fairly quickly and I found them loping as I entered the “Buffalo Tunnels”.  This section of the trail is extremely curvy, thickly forested, and not much wider then two typical dog sleds.  It often has very little snow cover which was the case this year.  I ended up colliding with several trees as I tried to control the power of my team.

A short time later we loped down a hill and quickly came to an opening in the dense forest cover and began to cross a lake.  Often, crossing frozen water bodies is manageable, particularly when they are salt water, because the dogs can obtain traction from the uneven surface.  However, occasionally, fresh water lakes can freeze into a glass-like structure where the surface becomes almost impossible to maneuver on if the wind has scoured the ice bare.  As we began our crossing, the wind began to pick up and I found myself and my team being blown off course.  Once I got to the middle of the lake, the wind was absolutely howling and the dogs started sliding all over the place.  I despondently watched the tracks of the bar brakes that were craved in the ice beneath my sled go further and further away from me to my left as I tried unsuccessfully to steer my team back on course.  I started yelling “haw” to Maya and she tried to steer the team to the left, but the wind was too strong and she could not get any traction. We ended up hitting a small island that we got blown into and my team quickly balled up.  Maya looked back at me with a look of bewilderment.  She was looking for guidance and at the moment I didn’t have any.  I had no idea what to do.  All I knew was we better do something.  With the dogs becoming increasing frustrated and a few starting to growl at each other and Jake trying to breed with Merri, I knew this situation could turn from bad to worse very quickly without warning.

I tried several times to lead my team into the wind and get them back on the trail.  With every failed attempt, the dogs got blown further off course.  I literally had to crawl on my hands and knees to get to Maya, but couldn’t get any traction on anything when I tried to get them going.  They continue to lose their footing and get balled up.  It was a real mess.  The wind chill was probably 40 or 50 below and we sat there completely unprotected, naked in the ferrous winds that sounded like a freight train, in the absolute darkness.  To add to my misery, a musher would occasionally come by.  A few of them had similar issues with the wind, but all were able to correct themselves before being blown completely off course.  The mushers couldn’t even see me in the darkness.  I just sat there watching each successive musher pass me getting increasing frustrated as my headlamp died.  After putting in new batteries, I realized that I needed to do something immediately or we would be in serious trouble.

I did the only thing I could do at the time.  I unhooked one dog and crawled on my hands and knees across the lake and tied the dog to a small tree next to the trail.  I crawled back and got a second dog.  This process took quite a while and in about a half an hour or so, I had managed to have five dogs off the ice and tied to trees over near the trail when Jessie Royer came down the trail.  Unlike the other mushers who had passed me in the last hour or so, she was not as lucky and got blown off the trail like I did.  Her team ran into mine, but since she had just gotten there, her dogs had not had the opportunity to ball up yet.  I realized almost immediately that she was going to end up getting into the same mess that I was in if I didn’t help her.  I yelled out to her that I would grab her leaders since her team was still lined out.  I took them and crawled on my hands and knees across the lake and got her on the trail.  She saw my dogs attached to the trees there and told me that she would help me.  She tied her team down and we eventually got my team untangled and she helped them across the ice.  She stood on the bar brake as I pulled Maya on my hands and knees across the lake.  Once finally safe on the other side, Jessie quickly took off as I reinserted the dogs that were attached to the trees back on my team.  After about 1 ½ hours and after we got passed by six or seven mushers, I finally continued on down the trail…

My mood and, more importantly, the dog’s mood had changed from this incident.  The sun finally came up and the wind died down as we went over the glacier and entered “The Burn”, but I was tired and I knew I had a very long run in front of me.  The glacier and the Burn were not too bad this year and there was adequate snow cover over most of it.  However, a few hours into the run, I realized that my dogs were not performing as they had in the past.  Looking back, that incident seemed to snap the energy from my team.  About six hours into the run, I stopped to snack the dogs and Juneau sat down just as Martin Buser, a four time champ and record holder for the fastest finishing time in Iditarod history, came up from behind me.  I let him pass while I dealt with Juneau.  He had been experiencing stress diarrhea and was pooped (no pun intended)J.  I put him in the sled bag and he did not resist.  Several hours later, I put him back in the team, but he still wasn’t performing so I put him back in the sled.  The added weight slowed us down even further.  It was now warming up and I was traveling through the middle of the day which slowed us down even more.  It was a very long day and it took me almost 12 hours to get to the checkpoint of Nikolai.  This is a run that I did in less then 10 hours the year before.

After consulting with the veterinarians, I decided to drop Juneau.  Even after that long rest in the sled he still seemed tired and I surmised that he was probably seriously dehydrated from the stress diarrhea that he had been experiencing.  I stayed in Nikolai for six hours and got ready to depart at about 2:00 am.

Rumors were swirling that a heavy snowstorm was occurring in McGrath, the next checkpoint down the trail, which would further slow down my progress.  As I was putting booties on Click, I noticed that she was making noise when she was breathing.  I immediately called the veterinarians over and they told me that she had the first signs of phenomena.  They informed me it could be life threatening so I immediately dropped her.  Click was my star lead dog the year before in Iditarod and she had an extremely strong run the day before from Ophir to Nikolai.  She was looking really solid in swing position and I had planned to put her in lead later in the race particularly if we encountered any snowstorms or blizzards because I knew that she was my superstar in those conditions.  It was obviously a big blow for my race to have to drop her.  I tried to not let it effect me as I pulled the hook and left Nikolai with two less dogs that I arrived with.  I felt exhausted.

We had been warned in the pre-race meeting that there could potentially be a lot of moose on the trail on the way to McGrath.  It was a dark night and I was somewhat fearful when I went around sharp turns in the woods.  There was so much snow that the banks on the side of the trail were five to six feet high.  I had never seen so much snow.  The trail itself was only about three feet wide, just a deep trough.  There were moose trails, which were four to five feet deep, crisscrossing the trail everywhere.  As it started snowing, I wondered what would happen if I encountered a moose.  There would be no where for the moose (or my dogs) to go…

The snow got progressively heavier as I made me way to McGrath and I experienced a full-on blizzard, by the time I got there.  What is usually a 5 ½ hour run in an average year took me seven hours.  I felt like I was in a Gary Paulson novel.  It was an all night run and I was very tired, but I continued through McGrath to Takotna, another 18 miles down the trail.  I came into Takotna in 14th place.  No mushers had left the checkpoint.  All of the big name mushers of the distance mushing world were there.  Everyone was taking their 24 hour rest since reports were that MORE heavy snow (another two to three feet) was falling between Ophir and the desolate ghost town of Iditarod.  The trail crew was struggling, yet again, to put in a trail.
   
It was nice to take the extended rest at Takotna.  I was able to get three full meals, which was about 100 pounds of food, into my dogs during their 24 hour rest there.  They continued to eat very well and, unlike last year, they did not have any virus’ or stress diarrhea.  I got a decent amount of sleep and really enjoyed the camaraderie of the few mushers that were resting there.  I was extremely hungry as well and ate at least twice as much as I would normally.  The pies and steaks were wonderful!  Mushers continued to arrive as I took my 24 hour rest and it was quite crowded in Takotna when I pulled the snow hook in the late morning sun.

The team snoozing in Takotna on their 24 hour layover

It took a while for the dogs to get moving after their extended rest, but eventually they shrugged off their drowsiness and picked up the paced.  Two of the dogs on my team this year were not mine and were leased from a friend.  One dog, named Russell, hadn’t really been pulling during the entire race.  I had included him on the team because he was supposed to be a good leader, but I knew the stretch from Ophir to the ghost town of Iditarod was the longest leg in the race.  I had decided in Takotna, that if Russell didn’t improve during the short run from Takotna to Ophir that I would drop him.  With a soft trail and potentially a lot of fresh snow ahead, I couldn’t risk having to put this large 60 pound male in my sled bag for an extended period of time.  Russell did not improve upon leaving Takotna, so I ended up dropping him in Ophir as planned.  I was now down to 12 dogs.

The run from Takotna to Iditarod is best accomplished in two legs since it is about 120 miles.  A rustic cabin with no windows or a door, called Don’s Cabin, is located approximately half way.  I decided to stop there and after 8 ½ hours, I finally reached the cabin.  Jessie Royer, Dallas Seavey, and Warren Palfrey were there when I arrived.  Martin Buser arrived shortly after I had fed my team.  This country is some of the most remote terrain in the world.  People only travel in these parts for the Iditarod race so no one had been in the area for virtually two years.  The trail had an incredible amount of snow this year and the trail crew did a remarkable job packing the snow so it wasn’t too soft.  That was critical for us in the race.  If the trail wasn’t groomed well, this section could have quite possibility taken days to cross.

It was a far cry from two years ago when, as an Iditarod rookie, there was absolutely no snow on much of the trail for 56 miles.  I struggled to find the markers all by myself in the back of the pack and looked for the matted grass that was the only sign that the trail existed as I bounced from one frozen tussock to another for two full days.  With bruised knees from being flung over the sled numerous times and seriously dehydrated, I finally reached Iditarod checkpoint…

I stayed at Don’s Cabin for about five hours and continued on to Iditarod.  It was another long night run.  I arrived in Iditarod in the early morning and was pleased to be resting the team during the heat of the day.  I continued to maintain my high standing in the race field and found myself in the rustic musher’s cabin at Iditarod with Rick Swenson, Dee Jonrowe, Martin Buser, and Sonny Lindner, some of the sports most famous and experienced mushers.  From a guy who 10 years earlier was working at the State of Vermont with a distant dream, and who read all about these famous mushers in newspapers constantly, the moment was very surreal.  I lay down in the far corner bunk and listened to the conversation for quite a while and reflected on how far I had come in a few short years.  It was a moment that I’ll never forget.

In the banter that was being flung, Rick Swenson all of a sudden burst out.  Wait a minute, what day is it?  Martin or Dee Dee told him the date and he said.  In 1975, I won this race on this day and I did it with a 12 hour lead!  I stifled a giggle at that and with a big grin on my face closed my eyes for a few moments...

The run from Iditarod to Shageluk continues over some of the most remote terrain in the world and the first half of it has many very steep climbs.  It can be extremely difficult since the dogs (and musher alike) don’t get to shake off their drowsiness before hitting them.  Martin Buser passed me like I was standing still on one of the steeper climbs as I struggled to push my sled and team up and over them.  About half way into the leg the trail finally goes up above the tree line and I remembered from my rookie run this section can be extremely windblown and exposed.  I went over this area in the mid-afternoon and as I expected the trail was non existent.  Maya somehow knew where to go as I constantly search for any signs of the trail markers.  The wind was howling and the blizzard conditions made me nervous.  I was relived to find the trail on the other side of the ridge as I scanned the horizon for a little break in the dense trees on the other side.  I knew from memory that the second half of this long leg was more sheltered and less hilly.  I made it to Shageluk and the Yukon River as the sun was setting.  Two days later, on that same ridge, a few of the mushers that were in the back of the pack were not as fortunate as I.  They got stuck on that same exposed treeless ridge in a blizzard and had to take cover overnight.  Several dogs died of exposure there and they had to be rescued.  Lifelong Iditarod dreams were once again crushed by the devastation of Mother Nature…

The team picking up the pace during sunset before Shageluk

The long run up the Yukon River starts at Shageluk and I began this part of the journey in the early morning hours.  I left Shageluk at approximately 5:00 am and ran through Anvik to Grayling.  I ran with Martin Buser and Ed Iten and ended up getting into Grayling about four minutes after Martin.  The trail was well groomed and there was little wind as I experienced a beautiful sunrise.  The trail and weather conditions were almost too good and I was pleased to continue to run with Martin, one of the world’s best mushers.  Often, like two years ago, when the race is run along the Southern Route up the Yukon River, the winds will blow right into your face.  The river acts as a wind tunnel and it always blows down the river.  This year there was no wind at all.  It was completely peaceful and calm.

Enjoying the mild weather and the sunrise on the Yukon River on our way to Grayling

I rested for eight hours in Grayling choosing to take my mandatory eight hour Yukon River rest there.  The town opened the school for us and it was nice to have a large heated building to briefly sleep in.  I managed to get two hours of shut eye.

The 70 mile run to Eagle Island was long and I was a little discouraged because I felt that the dogs were slowing down some.  That was expected since we were well into the second half of the race.  I spent the night in a wall tent that was set up at Eagle Island for the mushers.  The checkpoint is literally just an island and there is no civilization or structures anyway near the checkpoint.  I found the tent uncomfortable and I didn’t sleep well at all.  I left early in the morning just after sunrise and I felt exhausted.  The race was taking its toll on me.

As I was preparing to leave the checkpoint, I could see in the distance up river that there was what looked like white clouds on the river.  It looked like there may be a little wind up ahead, but I was not too concerned.  The first mile or so was fine, but as I went around the first large bend in the river, all hell broke loose.  The wind started howling right in our faces.  With temperatures at about 10 below zero, the wind chill immediately dropped to about 50 below.  The dogs continued their march onward, but we were reduced to a crawl as they struggled with the wind.  I had never experienced conditions like that before and the only thing I could think of was that I still had 60 miles to go until I got off the river in Kaltag and there would be no shelter along the way.

Thus, began one of the longest days of my life.  For 16 hours my dogs tirelessly fought the wind as we crawled extremely slowly up the river.  I spent a large amount of the time bent down on my runners and tried to help Maya find the windblown trail ahead of her by yelling verbal commands to her.  The wind was so strong that if I stood fully erect, the dogs would come to a complete stop.  For the first half hour or so after the wind exploded, I was fearful that the dogs would just stop and quit in the wind and we would be left out there fully exposed in the life threatening conditions.  This did happen to one musher and he spent the night on the river and almost died.  However, my dogs never stopped, they never waivered, but continued all day long.  They were truly remarkable and I will take the experiences of that day to my grave.

The wind begins to blow on the mighty Yukon River (although you can’t really tell from this picture)

I was careful to snack them, and I stopped several times to try and provide them with some rest.  I stopped with Gerry Willomitzer and Linwood Fiedler for about 45 minutes and fed my dogs on an island that was partly sheltered, but most of the food (as well as the plastic dog bowls) just blew all over the place.  I also stopped for about three hours with Matt Hayashida and Judy Currier in an area that was sheltered from the wind approximately 20 miles from Kaltag.  This last section, after the brief sheltered island that we rested at, was the most exposed and we were hoping that the wind would die down once the sun went down.

The three of us continued our slog at around 6:00 pm and the wind mercifully did die down for most of the remainder of the run.  Matt and Judy’s dogs were a lot faster then my team.  They quickly left me behind which I found in my sleep deprived state very discouraging.  I was also fearful that my dogs would be completely burned out after their struggle.  I was afraid that they would not recover and that we may have to scratch from the race.  I didn’t want to run them so long, but there was really no where to rest them that was out of the elements.  We needed to get to Kaltag as soon as possible.

I FINALLY saw the lights of Kaltag in the distance and it seemed like an eternity until we actually got there.  Before arriving in Kaltag, we had to cross the entire river and the winds were just unbelievable.  My dogs were astonishing as they saw the lights and powered through the storm.  Visibility was nil.  There was no trail, no markers, just a vast windblown lunar-like landscape as the 50-60 mph winds swirled all around us and pounded us at a 45 degree angle.  Miraculously, the dogs, with Maya never wavering, powered through the storm and found their way.

I quickly parked my team and tried to get them out of the elements the best I could.  I put the straw down, loosen their dog coats and left them on, and put a layer of straw on top of them as well.  I went inside the community center to take a nap and I set my alarm clock for 10:00 am.  Before I fell asleep, I cut off a bandage that I had put on too tight on an infected finger a few days earlier.  It had bothered me some, but I didn’t realize that my finger lost circulation because the bandage was applied too tight.  That, and the resulting cold that I just endured, caused some serious frostbite.  My figure was completely white.  I stuck my finger in warm water for about an hour and tried to slowly warm it.  The pain was excruciating.  It was definitely damaged badly and would take a long time to heal.  I just hoped I wouldn’t have any permanent damage.

In a lot of the checkpoints, there would be checkers or volunteers around so that you could ask them to wake you up at a given time.  As I lay down in the rustic confines of the Kaltag Community Center, I didn’t see any so I set my alarm clock for 10:00 am.  I was absolutely exhausted and fell asleep immediately.  I occasionally heard a few noises when I was sleeping and slowly woke up without the alarm.  I looked over at my clock and it took me quite a while for me to realize in my sleep deprived state that I had set my alarm clock, but failed to turn it on.  It was not 10:00 am, but 4:00 pm.  I had overslept for a full six hours!

I quickly got dressed as I tried to shake off the coma that I just came from.  I was really hurting and felt absolutely terrible.  I staggered outside and was astonished to see that the blizzard still raged.  All I could think about was those poor mushers behind me still on the Yukon River.  I couldn’t imagine what they were going through.  As I approached my team, I realized that my camping spot was totally decimated and there were few signs of my dog team.  Most of my dogs were completely buried by the blizzard.  I spent a good half an hour trying to retrieve all of my gear that had blown away into the woods.  I then spent a considerably amount of time trying to extract my dogs out of their make shift snow caves.  These caves were cemented around their bodies - constructed by a combination of the warmth of the dogs that melted the snow and the madness of Mother Nature.

                                                      The team buried in Kaltag

Two of my team members buried in the snow (yes, there are two dogs there!)

                                            My leaders Maya and Fledgling hunker down

Ruby and Merri patiently waiting out the blizzard as the winds continue to rage in the distance

The team and I slowly got moving and I knew soon we would thankfully be in the sheltered woods on our 90 mile run to Unalakleet.  I ran for about 8 hours and made it to Old Women’s cabin.  Because I had overslept and spent so much time at Kaltag, there was no one close to me that was in front of me.  I parked my team at Old Women’s cabin and much to my amazement found it completed deserted.  I spent some time screwing around with the stove, got it started, and slept for 1 ½ hours.  It was a far cry from last year where I shared the place with eight mushers and the temperature was 50 degrees warmer.  Most of the teams, including mine, were sick with viruses back then.   Before I pulled the hook in the predawn hours, Gerry Sousa pulled up, fed his dogs, and left.

The run to Unalakleet started off slow, but the dogs knew where they were.  By the time they hit the river five miles from the checkpoint they were in a full lope.  Given the sickness that I experienced the year before, it was fantastic to see them in such good shape.  I was reflecting on that when I spotted Gerry in the distance.  The dogs must have spotted him as well since from a lope they started running even faster.  We past him a few miles out of town and upon his arriving he said that he tried his hardest to beat me into the checkpoint.  He was poling with two ski poles when we went flying by.  He said he couldn’t believe how my team looked - like it should have been in the top ten!

Upon my arrival at Unalakleet, I was immediately struck at the amount of dog teams that were still resting there.  I couldn’t figure out why so many teams were still there until I went inside.  Apparently, at the next checkpoint at Shaktoolik, the teams were all backed up.  ANOTHER raging blizzard had pinned down all of the front runners stopping them from venturing onto the sea ice of Kobuk Sound and the long journey over to Kobuk.  I reminisced back to my days in Vermont when I read all about the epic battles among competitors and Mother Nature in the 80s.  It had been decades since the Iditarod race had seen such an epic battle, but this year the contest was on.  This was one race for the ages!

Upon entering the confines of the mushers resting place, I was met by Rick Swenson again.  He had been there for over 24 hours.  He had prepared to leave three times.  He had bootied and unbootied his dogs each time.  He had run this race more then anyone in the world.  He completely understood, through a lifetime of experience, the dangers that potentially awaited him.  Thus, he was very cautious.  He informed me that one of the problems was how the Shaktoolik checkpoint was set up.  It is an incredibly exposed place.  I never understood why a community of approximately 300 would try to build a town on an outcropping of rocks between two water bodies in the remote frigid interior of Alaska, but that is what they did and right now the place was getting pounded.  To make matters worse, the parking of dog teams at the checkpoint in the small community was extremely limited, thus the reason why there was a log jam at Unalakleet.  There was just nowhere to park our teams at Shaktoolik if we arrived there now because 15 or so of all the best in the world were hunkered down there.

It was ironic because, even though we were only approximately 42 miles away, our dogs were basking in a beautiful sunny evening with virtually no wind and an ideal temperature of about five degrees.  For the welfare of the team, it made it all the harder to leave the checkpoint.

Word finally came that the logjam had been broken and the teams were finally leaving Shaktoolik.  So, after an unexpected extended rest of 10 hours, I left Unalakleet.  The dogs quickly picked up the pace and started the climb over the Blueberry Hills.  The “Hills” are more like mountains and they are made more magnificent by the views that can be seen from them since they over look the Bering Sea which is located 2,000 feet below the higher climbs on the trail.  It is always an emotional moment to see these incredible vitas and realize that you are only a few hundred miles from Siberia and more importantly that your incredible faithful dogs have just succeeded in pulling you across the entire state of Alaska.  I have always shed more then a few tears when first getting a glimpse of the vast frozen Bearing Sea.

My team loped most of the night as they powered up and over all of the mountains in our way.  We came upon Shaktoolik in the predawn hours.  I had worked up quite a sweat on some of the more significant climbs on our way up and once on the back side with the sweat clinging to my body, I quickly realized how cold it really was.  I was completely chilled as I made the long 10 mile march on the flats along the sea into town.  I had to stop for a while and warm my bones.  I quickly snacked my dogs and bedded them down and when inside.

And finally, a congratulatory kiss from my faithful leader Kiwi in the Nome dog lot