IDITAROD 2004
For previous year's stories, click here
Iditarod. It's called the "Last Great Race". You could combine the Ironman, the Boston Marathon, and the Indy 500 and you would still come up 455 miles short. At almost 1200 miles the Iditarod puts man (or woman) and dogs against some of the harshest and most rugged country that God has created and then to top it all off Mother Nature has a hand in throwing all kinds of challenging weather into the picture.
This will be my 3rd Iditarod. So why do I keep coming back? There is something very mysterious about the Iditarod that draws people back year after year. For some it is the chance to go back in time and travel by dog team like our ancesters during the gold rush over some very awesome country. For others it is to take on the challenge of doing better every year and maybe some day win the "Last Great Race". But for all who run there is always the dogs. There is a bond that grows between a musher and their dogs that is hard to explain. The dogs trust me to care for them and I trust them to help me find the trail in a storm when I can't see my way.
This year's Iditarod started back in Anchorage again. After last year's start in Fairbanks it will be nice to get back on the original trail. The week leading up to the Iditarod is always a very busy one. Every dog must go through a complete veterinary examination, EKGs (listen to their heart), and get a full blood work up done. There is always the musher meeting to go to, along with the beginning banquet and of course all the last minute details to get ready before the big day. Saturday is the ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage. I always really enjoy this day. There is an excitment in the air yet I always feel pretty relaxed and just try to enjoy and visit with all the fans watching and cheering the mushers and their dogs on. With 87 teams starting the race there is almost 1400 dogs lined up on 4th avenue. I drew bib # 35 which is a pretty good number to have, the closer to the front the better. At the ceremonial start each musher starts with 12 dogs and has a handler that rides along for the 11 mile run. We also have an Iditarider that rides with us too. I had quite the allstar crew this year. My Iditarider was a really nice girl (13yrs old) from San Francisco. Her name was Katie Chabolla. And my one of a kind handler, that I don't know what I would do without, also rode with us. She was Alea Robinson (8yrs old). I had the best ceremonial run ever with these two along.
With the ceremonial start out of the way, it was time to get serious and get ready for the real start in Willow (about 60 miles from Anchorage). I arrived at the stagging area for the 10am start at about 7:30 am. I started pulling out my sled and getting it packed with all the supplies that I would need along the trail. The mandatory items were an axe, snowshoes, sleepingbag, cooker & fuel, booties, promotional material, vet book, and 8lbs extra food for the dogs. Besides all that I also carry snacks for the dogs, 2 headlamps, vet supplies, sled fixing kit, extra dry clothes (socks, gloves, boot liners, ect.), 16 dog coats, shoulder and wrist warmers for the dogs, a cooler to carry the dog food and water in, 16 dog bowls and dipper, a couple extra harnesses and neck lines in case one gets chewed, my snacks, my parka, and of course sunglasses and a walkman. That is alot of stuff to fit in a sled that is only 22 inches wide and 5 feet long. And I still have to have extra room for more dog food and straw for the times when I camp out on the trail. After I got the sled packed I started watering my dogs with a meat broth and kibble. I wanted to make sure the dogs were really well hydrated for the start. About this time I also started to stress out alittle bit because my handlers that I had planned on for help had not shown up yet and it was only an hour before I started. They had gotten stuck in traffic that was backed up for miles from all the fans coming to watch the start. They finally arrived in time to help me bootie my team and get them to the starting line. In fact it was so close that Libby Riddles (1st woman to win the Iditarod) came by to help me bootie my dogs too. I think she felt sorry for me, but I didn't care she was great help. My 16 huskies were very excited to get going. It took 12 people to keep them slowed down moving up to the starting line and they still were dragging us along. They are so strong! The count down was on! Five, four, three, two, one, GO! We were on our way to Nome! Kuling and Sawyer were leading us down the trail with Spider, Kate, Leo, Dusty, Hopi, Maya, Asics, Judd, R2, Dottie, Nike, Brave, Peanut, and Souix following behind.
Ahhhh!! It felt good to get on the trail. No more details getting ready. If it's not done now, it's too late anyway. It's just me and the dogs. The dogs were feeling good too. They were all stretched out moving nicely. I waved to all the cheering fans along the way and said thank you as they all wished me luck. It's great to see so many people out supporting the race. There were groups of people for miles along the trail. They all rode their snowmachines out to the lakes or rivers that we travel on, built camp fires, roasted hot dogs, and had a good time cheering all the dog teams on. Sometimes I think it would be fun to pull over and watch all the teams go by too. When you are a dog junky like I am, you can never get enough of watching dogs run. I like to keep my dogs slow to start so several teams passed me right away, but it wasn't long before some of them slowed down and I caught them. It was about 35 miles to the first checkpoint--Yentna Station. My plan was to run about 4 1/2 hours and then pull off the trail for a break. It was a beautiful day out but a little too warm for the dogs so I wanted to be careful and not run them in the hot afternoon. I made it to Yentna in just under 4 hrs so I checked in, grabbed a bale of straw and kept going down the trail. In the early part of the race I don't like to rest the dogs at any of the checkpoints because there is too much commotion going on with teams coming and going so I just camp out on the trail where the dogs will get more rest. After 4 1/2 hrs of running I pulled the dogs off the trail, fed them a beef stew from my cooler, took off their booties, and then spread the straw out for them to lay on. While they were resting I pulled out my sleeping bag and tried to get a few minutes of sleep myself but it was a nice afternoon and I wasn't that tired so I ended up just leaning back on my sled and watched the passing teams go by. After I had been there 4 hrs I started booting all 16 dogs again, hooked up their tug lines, and lined them out to go. They were all too anxious to go and pulled the snowhook before I was back on the sled. The back dogs took off and ran over the front dogs who were still waiting for me. Well you can probably imagine the massive tangle that I had. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that all my females were in heat; so that only added to the mess of unruly dogs. After a few minutes of untangling and a few threats from me to the dogs I was able to get everyone lined out again and headed down the trail. It was getting dark so I pulled my headlamp out and turned it on.
The 30 mile run on the river to Skwentna went good and as planned I pulled into the checkpoint signed in, grabbed all the gear, dog food, and straw that I would need for my next rest stop and headed down the trail again. It was 45 miles to Finger Lake but I planned to only run halfway there and camp out. So far the terrain we had been running on had been all on a river or flat swamps, but once we reached Finger Lake the trail started to climb into the Alaska Range. As we traveled along we passed several dog teams camped off the trail. I recognized a few friends and said 'HI' as I passed. There is something so mystical about traveling at night by dog team. The only sounds are the panting of the dogs and the runners gliding along. The moon was almost full so there were shadows across the trail and you almost didn't need a headlamp.
I found a nice camping spot and pulled off the trail about 12:30am for a well deserved 6 hour break. I snacked the dogs, took their booties off and bedded them down with straw. I then pulled out my cooker and started melting snow to make a nice hot meal for the dogs. While that was heating, I started going through the dogs checking for any sore muscles and giving any medications that were needed. I found that Kate had a sore tricept in her left shoulder and Sawyer was a little stiff on her left shoulder too but it didn't seem to bother her at all. Kate was also coming down with kennel cough which was going around the other teams too. My team had managed to not get it before the race but once we got around the other dog teams it was hard not to get. Dogs catch colds from each other just like people. I rubbed some Algyval and Traumed (muscle linaments) on both Kate and Sawyer and put shoulder coats and heat packs on them to keep their muscles warm. Once I ckecked all the dogs out I finished preparing their meal of soaked kibble (Purina Pro Plan), turkey skins, and beef and then spread the bowls out to feed them. They were all hungry and ate well. While they all layed back down to sleep again, I cleaned up my camp alittle bit, got out my sleeping bag and tried to get a few hours of sleep myself. We had already been here a couple hours so I would only get about 2hrs of sleep before I would have to get up. Kate was coughing alot and not resting at all so I layed down on the straw next to her and covered her up with me under my sleeping bag and just held her. She quit coughing as much and did seem to rest alittle bit, which is more than I can say for myself. I kept waking up from her moving around and coughing. My alarm went off all to soon and I had to get up to fix another meal for the dogs, feed them, repack my sled, eat something myself, then rebootie the dogs to get ready to go again. This would be our routine for the next 10 days.
It was just starting to get light when we got back on the trail again headed for Finger Lake. The dogs were all running good, Kuling was in lead with Spider now, and Kate seemed to be doing much better. We checked in and out of Finger Lake and kept trotting down the trail, now headed towards Rainy Pass. The next 30 miles would soon prove to be the most hair raising part of the trail. The trail was very windy and we had to descend the famous Happy River steps. A 16 dog string is about 70+ feet long, so at times it was so curvy that my team would be going in 3 different directions all at the same time, just like a snake. That kept me on my toes trying to keep the sled from bashing into the big birch and spruce trees along the way. I was working up a sweat when we came to "the steps". My dogs started going around a 90 degree corner with a big birch tree on the inside and then started to drop out of sight (down the first step). I had to let my sled go fast to whiplash around that big birch tree on the corner, but then I launched off the step and was headed straight for another big tree around the corner and down the hill. I almost had a heart attack when I thought I was going to plow right into that tree in mid air. Thankfully my wheel dogs pulled me back on the trail just in the nick of time. I missed that tree by an inch or two. The next two steps were alittle hairy also (sharp corners and steep side hills) with the last one being almost straight down. It was a big relief to get to the bottom. Talk about an adrenaline rush! It didn't get any easier either. It was still windy and steep with big side hills all the way to Rainy Pass. It was terrain that I would take a pack string of horses or mules over but certainly not dream of taking 16 charged up,out of control huskies over it unless I was crazy...........well I guess that must mean I am crazy. As difficult as the trail was, the surrounding beauty was even more overwhelming. The white snow packed mountains were amazingly beautiful against the blue sky.
Rainy Pass! We made it.... alive and no broken sled! It was about noon when we pulled into the checkpoint. There were already about 45 teams there. This was the first checkpoint that I would stay at for a rest and boy, did I regret that decision! It was so noisy with all the teams coming and going and planes landing and taking off that I wished I had grabbed my stuff and gone on down the trail to camp. But I was already parked and going through my normal routine of taking care of the dogs. The race veterinarians came over and checked out the team. I told them about Kate so they listened to her lungs and said she sounded ok. She was doing alot better and seemed to be getting over the kennel cough fast. All the other dogs looked good and were eating great. I stayed 6 hours and again didn't get any sleep myself because of all the noise. I had been on the trail almost 2 days and had gotten very little precious sleep. Maybe it was from all the adrenaline but I still felt pretty good.
The next 35 miles to Rohn would also be a very challenging section of trail. We pulled out of Rainy Pass just as it was getting dark and headed towards the actual "pass". After we climbed up to the top of the pass and started heading down things got quite interesting again. It was dark now and with only my headlamp to see by, it was sort of like riding on a roller coaster blind. But maybe not being able to see was a good thing. I couldn't get too scared if I didn't know what was coming. Descending the pass, the trail goes through some very narrow, rocky draws that were thick with willows. If you were not dodging rocks or ducking willows, you were tryng to keep your sled from falling into a hole in the ice from the creek we were traveling down. This section was a small gorge at the top of Rainy Pass I always think is harder to negotiate than the actual Dalzell Gorge that was coming up very soon. At one time I came around a corner thick with willows and landed right in a big hole in the ice which brought my team to a sudden stop with me almost flying over the handlebars. Thank goodness the water was shallow so I didn't get very wet. There were also alot of icy side hills to cross. My dogs were behaving very well and I was able to keep all 70 feet of them at a slow speed. I was working up quite a sweat again, but this time I think it was more from nerves than anything. We still had to descend the famous Dalzell Gorge. Just before we got to the gorge the trail goes down a very steep hill that winds around some pretty big trees. Trying to steer the sled around the trees I tripped and fell, dragging behind my sled. With me not on the brake now, the dogs started going way too fast down the hill. I quickly pulled myself up while we were going and got back on the brake. It was just in time too as we came around the corner and landed right on the icy creek bottom. We were now in the gorge. It was certainly living up to its reputation. My team was weaving around all the holes in the ice and I was trying to hang on and keep the sled upright on the icy side hills and not bash into too many trees. At one time R2 actually fell into a hole in the ice, but the team quickly pulled him out. Boy was I relieved when we hit the bottom of the gorge and came out on the Tatina River just a couple miles from the Rohn checkpoint. Besides some fried nerves I had faired the whole thing very well. Some teams had stories of broken sleds, tipping over, or rolling down hills. Even a few had fallen off and lost their teams. Thankfully, their snowhook fell off too and stopped the team for them.
Rohn is always one of my favorite checkpoints. It is just a little cabin in the woods along way from anything and taken care of by a really neat guy named Jasper. He is always so helpful to all the teams. Unfortunatly I was not planning on staying so I just pulled in, snacked my dogs, grabbed my gear, dog food, and straw and took off down the trail again. Leaving the Rohn checkpoint, the trail immediately drops onto the Kuskokwim River which is always wind blown and very icy. It only follows the river for a few miles then turns off into the hills. But those few miles can seem very long. This year was not as bad as the last time I came through here but it was still glare ice and my dogs took a wrong turn. In order to get back on the trail I ended up falling off about a 3 foot ice ledge onto some very questionable looking ice. I was glad to get off the river into the hills.
This next section of trail was called the Buffalo Tunnels because the trail was so well used by the buffalo that it actually made a deep cut into the hills in places. Three years ago when I came through here there was no snow so it was very challenging. There was plenty of snow this year so I had a very enjoyable ride. The wind was blowing now and I had to work behind the sled to help the team out. I did not realize how cold it was out until later when I found it was about -35 below. At one point along the trail, the dogs all started to jump over something. It wasn't until I had run over it too that I realized what "it" was. There was a dead moose calf laying in the middle of the trail. The wolves had just killed it there. It was still soft (not frozen) when I ran over it with the sled so I knew it had not been there long. I thought it was very interesting that the dogs never hesitated when they jumped over it--as if it were just a stump in the trail. No big deal. Those wolves had sure picked a bad spot to kill that moose with 87 dog teams running over it. A few mushers reported actually hearing the wolves howl off in the trees.
I ran the dogs about 2 1/2 hours out of Rohn. Then I found a nice spot with an open creek for water and pulled my team off the trail for about a 7 hour break. It was about 2 in the morning. I was not the only team that thought this was a good spot. Paul Gebhart was already camped there too. I did all my normal dog chores and then went over to visit with Paul. He had a fire going and was huddled around it trying to stay warm. He had all his cold weather gear on and said that it had to be at least -30 below. I didn't even have my parka on and thought that it couldn't be that cold. Maybe -10, but surely not -30. Well, as it turned out he was right. After I had been there awhile and had crawled into my sleeping bag to try and get some much needed sleep, I started to agree with him. I was so cold laying there that I didn't set my alarm clock because I figured that I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway from all the shivering I was doing. Well, I was wrong again. I was so tired from not having gotten hardly any sleep the whole race that I did fall asleep shivers and all. I woke up about a 1/2 hour late with the wind howling. I had only wanted to sleep 2 hours but ended up getting 2 1/2. I fed the dogs again and packed my sled to go.
Back on the trail it was about another 55 to 60 miles to go to get to Nikolai. The trail winds through the Farewell Burn (named for a big fire here several years ago) and then goes through endless miles of swamps. On normal years the wind blows all the snow away down to bare dirt. But this year there was so much snow that instead the wind had blown all the snow in big drifts across the trail. I almost prefered no snow to fighting the sled over all the drifts. The wind was blowing so hard from the side that it kept blowing my sled off the trail. It was a very bitter cold wind all the way to Nikolai. I was now carrying a dog in the sled so the extra weight didn't help any. Souix was a young two year old dog that had also come down with kennel cough on the way to Rohn and was not eating good. He is a very good dog and even though he wasn't feeling well he was still pulling. The cough was definitely affecting him alot more than it had Kate so I had decided to carry him in the sled to Nikolai. He would then be sent home from there. I still felt pretty proud of my team. We were 350 miles into the race and I still had all 16 dogs.
It was afternoon by the time we pulled into Nikolai. There were several teams all bedded down on straw resting and the checkpoint officials helped me get my team parked for a nice long break too. We had been running almost 7 hrs from our last camping spot so I planned on giving the dogs about an 8 hour break. I had sent out a second sled here so I unpacked my current sled and piled everything into the new sled. It was still very windy and everything kept blowing away in the process. Even the straw the dogs were bedded down on kept blowing away. I did all my dog chores again--feeding, massaging any sore muscles, applying linaments, giving any meds, and just checking all the dogs over well. I had also put dog jackets on the dogs to try and keep them warmer and resting better in the wind. The race vets came over and looked through all the dogs again. I told them that I wanted to drop Souix, so they filled out all the paper work and led him away. I was kinda sad about losing him but I knew he was going to get a plane ride back to Anchorage where Alea would be waiting to take good care of him. I know he'll be a main dog on my team for next year.
After a nice 8 hour break I bootied up the 15 dogs I had left and headed down the trail to McGrath. It was going to be an easy 50 miles all on the river. Takotna was just 18 miles beyond that so I planned on just running the 68 miles straight to Takotna and then take my mandatory 24 hour layover. The dogs were running good, but the trail was soft so we were not making good time. It was punchy in places and I could see R2 having alittle trouble with a back leg. Hopi also started limping on a shoulder just before the McGrath checkpoint. This was a real bummer as both dogs had been doing so well. This was Hopi's first race ever at 2 yrs old (she is Souix's sister). When I pulled into the checkpoint I immediately dropped Hopi and then kept going. Alea would have two dogs to care for now.
The 18 miles over to Takotna from McGrath was very slow. It had just snowed several inches so it made for a very sticky trail and we were now climbing hills again. After 8 hours of running on the trail from Nikolai we pulled into Takotna. Ahhh!! Our mandatory 24 hour layover! It was going to feel so good to finally get some sleep for myself. I found a perfect spot away from all the other teams next to a church building and parked the dogs. I pulled their booties off and bedded them down on big piles of straw for a nice long rest. The town's people of Takotna had a fire going with big barrels of hot water on them so I didn't have to get my cooker out to prepare a hot meal for the dogs. I just filled my cooler full of dog food and went over to the barrels and dipped out the steaming hot water. WOW - this was great! After feeding the dogs I once again went though everyone looking for any sore muscles or any other problems. The vets were also there going through the dogs and asking me if I needed help with anything specific. We talked about a few of the dogs and I told them about the problem I was having with kennel cough. It was still going through the team but it only seemed to be affecting each dog for about 12 hours and then they seemed to be much better. The vets gave me more medication for their coughing and then looked at R2's hind leg. There was alittle bit of swelling on the hock so I rubbed in muscle linament and then put a sweat wrap on it. If the swelling went down I could possibly take R2 on, but if it didn't show improvement I would need to drop him here. We had 24 hours to work on it. While the dogs slept I got my sleeping bag and went inside the church which had been designated for a musher sleeping area. I picked a spot between all the other sleeping mushers on the floor and crashed. Three hours later, I was back up and feeding the dogs again. Once that was done, I immediately went back to sleep--this time for a longer nap. When I woke up it was time to feed the dogs again. (It is important to get as many calories as possible in them for energy. They will consume 10-12,000 calories per day.) They were all looking perky from their long nap and were eating great. I spent more time massaging the dogs. Kate still had that sore tricept muscle, Sawyer was stiff in the shoulders (even the vets couldn't find anything wrong), and I was also sweat wrapping Judd's and Kuling's wrists. Both dogs had a little bit of swelling in them and neither showed any sign of pain. Asics had a couple of splits on the bottom of his front feet (typical for him) so I medicated them too. Asics is one of the oldest members of the team this year at 9 years old. Normally he is one of my main leaders but so far he has just been running in the team. After I finished caring for the dogs, I walked down to the local community center in search for some food for myself. The people in Takotna put on quite a feast for the mushers. You can order almost anything that you want--steak, eggs, pancakes, sausage, pie--you name it. This is by far one of the best checkpoints on the whole trail. They spoil mushers something terrible. I did this routine a few more times during my 24 and was starting to feel pretty well rested and so were the dogs. I took them all on walks in between naps so they could stretch out their legs. Everyone but R2 was looking good. The swelling had gone down in the back leg that I had wrapped but now the other back leg was swollen too. It was time to send R2 home. The vets looked him over again, gave him some anti-inflammatory meds, filled out all the paper work and then led him away. He would get a plane ride back to Alea and join Souix and Hopi.
With my mandatory layover almost up I bootied the dogs and lined them out to go again. It was almost 11am when we headed down the trail towards Ophir. The sun was out and it was starting to get pretty warm, too warm for the dogs in fact. The trail to Ophir climbs a big hill right out of Takotna and then is a long gradual down hill the rest of the way. With the heat I wanted my team to take it pretty easy for the 25 mile run. It was getting down right hot when we reached Ophir 2 1/2 hours later. Even though we had just come off our 24 hour layover and had only been running a couple hours, I decided to stay and rest a couple hours until it cooled off a bit. Ophir is such a great spot. There are only a couple cabins left from the old gold mining town, but it sits in some very beautiful country. It is definitely another favorite spot of mine. There were several other mushers there, including Cim Smyth who my team was parked next to, so I had fun visiting with them and soaking up alittle sun too.
Once we left Ophir it would be 90 miles to the next checkpoint of Cripple. I did not plan on going that far before stopping so I loaded my sled with the gear I would need to camp out and headed down the trail after having given the dogs a 2 1/2 hour break. It was still very hot when we pulled out of the checkpoint. The trail was soft and sticky so our travel time was not very fast. The country side was quite pretty as we worked our way down a long valley with mountains on both sides. For 90 miles we traveled through the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge with rolling hills and occasionally crossing the Innoko River. Just before dark I passed Joe Garnie, Mike Williams, and Nels Hahn camped along the trail resting their dogs. Ahead of me I could see we were catching a team traveling in front of us. It is always fun to see other teams along the trail--especially when you catch up to them and pass them. It was after dark when we crossed the Innoko River and were winding through some very dense woods when I heard a very eerie howl. It sounded so close that it was kinda spooky at first. I definitely looked a little harder at all the dark shadows across the trail. We traveled along for about another mile when the trail came out of the trees into the open and there was Ray Redington and his team camped along the trail. Just as I spotted him I heard the howl again. It was then that I realized it had been one of Ray's dogs howling. I had to laugh at myself for having been so jumpy. It is amazing how sounds carry. I thought it had been close and even behind me when it had actually been a mile in front of me.
We traveled about 5 more miles then found a nice spot to pull off the trail and camp. The snow was about 3 feet deep so I had to stomp it down to make a nice spot for the dogs. I like to get far enough off the trail so passing teams don't disturb my sleeping dogs. The dogs were all pretty cozy in our new spot and resting well after a nice hot meal and a good message. Now and then a team would pass by with only the mushers headlamp to guide them. I love to watch teams come out of the dark trotting down the trail towards you with the only sounds coming from the panting of the dogs as they travel along. I manage to get a couple hours sleep before our 6 hour break is up and then it is back to work-- feeding, packing, and rebooting. Even though it is dark as we head down the trail the weather is still too warm. I am hoping that it will only be about 3 more hours to the Cripple checkpoint but the soft trail has been keeping our traveling speed down. It takes us 4 more hours to get to Cripple. This is the first time I have gone this route in the Iditarod so everything from Ophir to Ruby is new to me and I have to guess at how far along we are.
Cripple is just a couple of tents set up in the middle of nowhere but it is still a welcome sight after 16 hours on the trail. As I pull in I can see several teams all parked resting beside a meadow. Large piles of straw and drop bags were all lined up beside the tents for the mushers to use. As I signed in Susan Butcher, who had been flying along the race trail watching the teams, came up and chatted with me alittle bit and the checker asked me if I was staying or going through. I told him that I was going through and he helped me pull my team over to the pile of drop bags so I could resupply before heading out again. I had decided to drop Asics here as his foot is starting to bother him and I think his neck is too. He has always been one of my best dogs, having finished both of my prevoius Iditarods as a main leader. But at 9 years old he is starting to slow down. I will definitely miss him alot. After this race he will retire from the team and spend the rest of his days helping me train puppies at home and keeping the couch warm when I am out on training runs. For now he'll get a plane ride back to Anchorage.
I can't believe how warm it is even though it is still early morning as we head down the trail. My sled is heavily loaded leaving Cripple with more food and straw so it is slow going with this heat and soft trail. It is another 80 miles to Ruby and the Yukon River. This section of trail climbs through bigger hills and goes through a burn area from a wildfire a couple years ago. The burned trees don't provide much shade from the hot sun beating down on us. It is probably only 35 to 40 degrees out but the dogs run much better when it is below zero. The direct sun makes it feel like it is 60 degrees out. Coming from Fairbanks my dogs are especially not used to the heat as it has been below zero most of the winter. The 12 dogs left are all working good. The kennel cough has still been working its way through them but it doesn't seem to be affecting their performance at all.
At about 11:30 am I decide to pull the dogs off the trail for another 6 hour break. We found a nice sunny spot and I tromped around in the 3 feet of deep snow until I had a nice spot packed down for the dogs. Then I called everyone over to me. The dogs all eagerly jumped off the trail and started scratching around looking for a good place to curl up and sleep. Although I might complain about the sun when we are running, it is really good for the dogs while we are resting. Their muscles can relax more in the warm sunlight. I fed them liver ice snacks, which they gobbled right up, and then spred their straw. While the dogs were resting I got the cooker out and started making a hot meal of beef, lamb, and kibble for them. After a few good massages (to the dogs of course) I was finally able to get about an hour of sleep myself. Six hours after we pulled off the trail we were bootied up and rolling again.
The trail to Ruby continued on through the burn, and wound through some old mining camps, all the while climbing up and down what seemed like long big hills. The worst part of the whole trip was the last 28 miles to Ruby. We traveled down a mining road that had mile markers on it. When it is really hot, the trail sticky, and you are climbing big hills you are never going as fast as you would like to. Seeing those mile markers was sheer torture. I timed our speed for a couple of miles then after that I didn't want to know. Just seeing how far we still had left to go when we had already been on the trail a long time was bad enough. It was all a mental game at this point in the race. It is so important to keep a good attitude. And there is nothing like a good attitude booster for both me and the dogs when you think you are going slow and then see that you are catching a team in front of you. Somebody else was going slow too. It was getting dark as we caught up to Paul Gebhart, so I turned off my headlamp so he wouldn't know I was there for awhile. The dogs picked up their pace and we loped past him just a few miles before we came into Ruby.
Ruby is the first checkpoint on the Yukon River. Every team must take an 8 hour mandatory rest somewhere on the river and I decided to declare mine at Ruby. We came through Ruby in last year's Iditarod (Fairbanks start), so I will now be back on familiar trail. After all the regular dog chores and vet approval, I walked up to the checkpoint building for some food and sleep for myself On the way I ran into Shannon Brockman and visited with her awhile. Shannon is a rookie in this year's Iditarod but not a rookie to racing as she has also run the Yukon Quest 1000 mile race. I had been seeing her all along the trail as we were leap frogging each other with our different schedules; but this was one of the first times that I had gotten to visit with her much. I enjoyed racing with her as she is alot of fun to be around. Once I finally made it up to the building to sleep I think I got too comfortable in the warm room. I never did hear my alarm clock go off, or I possibly shut it off while still asleep (I'm pretty good at that). Either way this was the first time I had slept inside a building for almost 2 days and I over slept. When I did wake up and realized my mistake I really started hustling to get ready and leave on time from the 8 hour mandatory. I was thankfully pretty organized before going to sleep so I was able to leave only 5 minutes late.
For the next 150 miles we would travel down the Yukon River. This northern route of Iditarod goes down river with a tail wind, which is much easier than the southern route with a head wind. Either way though, the river gets pretty tiring after awhile. It was 55 miles to the next checkpoint of Galena. When we first left Ruby the dogs were traveling pretty well but after about 8 miles six snowmachiners passed us and totally tore up the trail with their paddletrack machines. I could have rung everyone of their necks, I was so mad. I normally don't mind snowmachines but when it effects my dogs I do mind. It is very frustrating when you see the dogs having to work harder through soft torn up trail and not going any faster for their efforts. As the morning went on it started to get really hot again. Traveling down the mile wide Yukon River, I thought we were going to fry with no shade and the sun beating down on us. It sure felt like we were, and I couldn't find my sunglasses. I took it very easy for the dogs stopping and giving them ice snacks often to cool them off. At these temps it is really easy to over heat them. Just before Galena I passed Ray Redington. He had stopped on the trail trying to cool his dogs off too.
Galena was a welcome sight to see on the horizon. As we climbed up the river bank into the village, there was a big crowd of villagers waiting for us and cheering us on. Galena is where I took my 24 hour mandatory layover last year and is a very nice village. As soon as we stopped, the dogs all started rolling in the snow to cool off. The villagers were so nice they brought all my food bags, straw, and a bucket of water right over to my sled. I was able to feed the dogs right away since I didn't have to wait for the cooker to melt snow. Dee Dee Jonrowe was parked right next to my team so we got to visit abit. She is such an amazing lady--always ready with a smile and an encouraging word for you! She completed chemo therapy for breast cancer just before last year's Iditarod and still did great in the race. She is so tough! Susan Butcher was there too so DeeDee had a bystander get a picture of the 3 of us. I felt pretty humbled to be in the company of such great ladies. Later before I left the checkpoint I was able to call home and talk to my mom. I had called her in Takotna too. It is always refreshing to talk to my mom. She is so encouraging.
I came into Galena with 12 dogs but decided on the trail I was going to drop both Sawyer and Dusty. Sawyer was still running stiff in the front shoulders, and no one could ever figure out what exactly was bothering her. Dusty had developed a slight limp on the soft trail coming into Galena and wasn't handling the heat well either.
Before leaving Galena, I met some teachers that had flown out along the trail to watch the race. They overheard me talking to some friends about trying to find a new pair of sunglasses as I had lost my mine. They immediately wanted to help and took off to the local store a couple miles away in search of a pair. Their trip was successful and I was indeed grateful. Now I would be able to see in the bright sunlight. The glare from the snow on the river was almost blinding. Thank You!
Six hours later we were back on the trail again, this time headed to Nulato, 52 miles away. The trail was very soft and hard going and was getting pretty old by now. It would take almost 7 hours running time to reach Nulato. At about 1 in the morning we reached the checkpoint tired and ready for a rest. We stayed less than 6 hours (I got an hour of sleep) before tackling the last stretch of the Yukon. Forty-two more miles and we would be in Kaltag--leaving behind the windy, soft trail of the Yukon River.
Thankfully it only took us 4 hours to do that run and we came into Kaltag at about 11:30am. The sun was out and temperatures were heating up again. During the run over, I had been trying to figure out my next move--stay in Kaltag or run right through. It was getting too warm for the dogs but I hoped that once I got off the open river and into the trees that it might cool off alittle bit. So I decided to make a bold move and go through Kaltag. After checking in, I fed the dogs some chicken and fish along with some ice snacks. While they cooled off in the shade, I rummaged through my drop bags and got new supplies, straw, and fuel for my cooker. Several other teams were resting beside the buildings as I pulled my team on to the trail and headed out of town.
It was nice to be off the river and on land again. The dogs were traveling pretty slow in the heat but that was just fine because the bumps from all the snowmachine traffic were horrendous! They were so deep and big I thought I was going to get sea sick. Just kidding, but some of them were about 4ft deep. As we left Kaltag we started to climb over a small pass. My plan was to make it to the Tripod Flats cabin but with our slow speed I knew that was not going to happen. I did not want to run the dogs over 7 to 71/2 hours before stopping to rest. Tripod cabin is a really nice spot about 27 miles from Kaltag. I stopped there last year and loved it. As we traveled along we passed 4 more teams resting along the trail. That was looking more and more like a good idea in this heat. So about 3 hours out of Kaltag (7hrs from Nulato) we found a good spot to camp too. I thought that if I gave the dogs a good 7 hour break here we could run the rest of the way to Unalakleet in one run. After all my dogs chores I managed to get 3 hours of sleep too. That felt so refreshing! Several teams passed me while I was camped but I knew most of those teams would have to stop at Old Woman cabin to rest which was just over halfway on the 90 mile stretch to Unalakleet.
Back on the trail it took us about 4 hours to reach Old Woman cabin. This is where I made a mistake. Instead of running by the cabin on the way to the coast (Unalakleet), I miscalculated the time it would have taken to get there. Since I had already been running 4 hours and didn't want to run them another 5-6 hours (making it 9-10 hrs total), I stayed at the cabin for a short 2 1/2hr break. There were already 5 other teams there including Bill Cotter. A local native man had come to the cabin by snowmachine to watch the teams and I visited with him for a few minutes at about 2:30 that morning. He told me it was only 36 more miles to Unk where I had been thinking it was another 45 miles. The snoring from the other mushers was so loud anyway I couldn't sleep so I just headed out again. Bill Cotter was up and left the same time I did. My team was quite abit faster than Bill's so we quickly pulled away. To my pleasant surprise it only took us 4 hours running time from the cabin to reach Unk. That meant I could have made the run from my camping spot in 8 hours--which the dogs could have done. So I rested 2 1/2 hours longer than I needed to. At least it was a good mistake. More rest is always better than not enough.
Unalakleet is the first checkpoint in the Iditarod that is on the coast. Since leaving Kaltag my team and I had been on the trail for 20 1/2 hours, of course half of that was resting. I was only going to stay in Unk for 5 hours which would mean that I would only get about 25 minutes of sleep myself. I felt really tired so I was pretty surprised when people kept coming up to me asking how I did it. They didn't think I looked tired at all but actually quite happy. I admit that I can handle a lack of sleep better than most but I sure didn't expect all those compliments.
All my dogs except Peanut were doing very well. They seemed to be getting over the kennel cough now and were eating good too. Peanut had a sore wrist that had started bothering him on the river but it was not until this last stretch of trail that it got bad. He had a flexor tendon on the back of his wrist that was swelling up. These tendons are harder to work with than just a regular joint problem, so I decided to send Peanut home too. Peanut is just a 3 year old in his second Iditarod. I was very pleased with his performance as he had improved a 100% over last year. It will be sad to see him go home.
It was cloudy when we pulled out of Unk at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I had hoped that our trip to Shaktoolik would be cooler since this was not a great time to be traveling. No such luck. As we started to climb into the Blueberry Hills out of Unalakleet, it was very hot with absolutely no wind. I stopped the dogs often at the top of hills to cool them off, but the air was so stagnant there was not much cooling off to be done. It was just plain hot. I ran up all the hills that I could to help our speed--which still seemed awfully slow. Even when the trail dropped out of the hills onto the ocean shore for the last 14 miles to Shaktoolik, there was no wind. That stretch is always so miserable with an icy cold wind. When I got to the checkpoint I teased the checkers by asking them if I was lost. The Shaktoolik I knew always had the wind blowing and now there was not even a hint of a breeze.
The local people helped me park my team behind some buildings and I went about taking care of my 9 dog team. I love the locals here. They are all Inupiak Eskimos and so friendly. I work in the summer time with a girl (Ginger) from here so all of her relatives came over to say hi. When you are tired it's great to see friendly, smiling faces. I went in to get some much needed sleep having had only a few minutes at the last stop. The officials told me they did wake up calls so I said what time I wanted, layed down, and instantly fell asleep. They woke me up 45 minutes late! I was not happy as I had wanted to leave 15 minutes from now. I was definitely kicking myself for not using my own alarm clock. After feeding the dogs again I left Shaktoolik much later than planned.
We crossed Norton Sound on the way to Koyuk 60 miles away. The ocean was so open this year that instead of going straight across the ice to Koyuk we had to stay closer to the shore making the trail longer. It felt like we did a big U in the trail. The sound can be difficult to cross as it is in the open and can be very windy with very poor visibility. Alot of lead dogs have a hard time with this section of trail. It takes a very tough headed dog to do well. There is nothing but white in front of them--no land marks or even bumps in the trail, just nothingness and a whole lot of wind.
Arriving at 9:30 in the morning after 6 hours and 50 minutes on the trail, we finally reached Koyuk. We passed Ali Zirkle on the way here as her team seemed to be slowing down alot. I wanted to leave after 5 hours rest but that would put me out at 2:30 pm. It would still be too warm so I decided to stay until 4:30 pm. It would still be warm but it would not be long before it started to cool off. I hated to give too much time up this late in the race but I knew it would be better for the dogs in the long run. Ray Redington pulled into the checkpoint right behind me. We were running similar schedules so I saw Ray alot. After taking care of our dogs we visited alittle bit about our plans for the next section of trail. It was exciting to get down to the last part of the race. Everyone watches each other carefully to see what the other is doing and will either try to out plan or out run them. Ray and I had alot of fun traveling together with our teams closely matched. Ray's team was slightly stronger.
After a 7 hour rest I headed back down the trail with Ray just 10 minutes behind me. Elim was 48 miles away. The trail followed the ocean shore for about 10 miles, climbed over a big hill, dropped back down and crossed a long open flat. There were several old fishing camps along the way. The wind was blowing now and the trail was soft so I worked alot behind the sled. I either peddled or did alot of skipoling. In fact I worked so much in this race my feet were getting sore from sweat inside my boots. Back in Shaktoolik I had asked if anyone had a pair of tennis shoes I could buy. I was sick of wearing big boots. Palmer Sagoonik, a local and Iditaord veteran, gave me a pair of his son's basketball shoes. When I left Koyuk, I put them inside a waterproof shell and wore them the rest of the way to Nome. Boy, did my feet ever thank me!
I came into Elim just under 6 hours on the trail and only 5 minutes behind Ray. We traveled within sight of each other the whole way here. Elim is always a very tricky place with some people staying 2 to 4 hours and others going straight through. I have always stayed about 3 1/2 hours. Ray and I fed our dogs then went inside the firehouse now a checkpoint. We looked at race times of people ahead and behind us. We were trying to figure out who in front of us we could catch and who behind us we had to stay ahead of. It was fun playing mind games with only 125 miles left in the race. We figured there were two teams in front of us that we could catch pretty easily (Hugh Neff and Melanie Gould) but there were also two teams behind us that had been cutting their rest and could catch us (Lance and Jason Mackey) . So just how long could we rest our dogs before we had to take off again? Lance and Jason came into the checkpoint and appeared as though they were going straight through. Ray and I got ready to chase them out of the checkpoint but they must have changed their minds or something because they bedded their dogs down instead. Maybe they were playing mind games too, I'll never know. Either way I got antsy, bootied up my dogs and left after staying less than 3 hours. Ray was only a minute behind me.
Leaving Elim, with 48 miles to White Mountain, the trail ran on the sea ice for 8 miles before climbing Little McKinley. This was a big hill the locals nicknamed because it was so steep and long one might think you were climbing Mt. McKinley. I had to agree after traveling over 1000 miles and 10 days on the trail. It was plenty steep enough for me. The dogs did great though and I ran as much as I could to help. We traveled up and down some big hills for the next several miles, passed Melanie Gould, then dropped down onto the sea ice again. As we came onto Golovin Bay, the wind hit us with full force. We traveled about 9 miles across the ice to the village of Golovin. A quick sign in and out, I snacked my dogs and we took off again. I was very proud of them as they trotted out of town never hesitating. Some teams don't like leaving here because it is late in the race, they are tired, and they think checkpoints are for stopping and resting.
Eighteen more miles across the sea ice and we would be in White Mountain. This time though, it was a very coooold 18 miles. The wind was blowing very hard and it was icy cold--cutting right through you. Dummy me--I didn't have my parka on because of all the running I had done back in the hills. And I was sweaty to boot. With only 18 miles to go, I thought I could tough it out (or maybe too lazy) so I didn't bother putting it on. Two miserable hours later, we reached White Mountain. Maybe some day I'll learn to put my coat on.
We trotted into White Mtn. after 5 hrs and 47 minutes on the trail. This would be our last stop before reaching Nome. Every team is required to take a mandatory 8 hour layover here before the final dash to the finish. The village sits on the banks of the Fish River. There was not much protection from the wind as the teams were parked away from the buildings next to the water. My dogs were looking a little more tired than normal. The wind can really hammer and wear them down. All the dogs ate but not as well as I would have liked them to. I still had 9 dogs and did not plan on dropping any here. I did my normal checkpoint routine--massaging muscles with linaments, putting on heat packs, feeding them along with the many other countless tasks. This time though I can empty my sled from anything that is not mandatory because there is only 77 miles left in the race. I did manage to get about 3 1/2 hours of sleep which is considerably more than I had gotten for quite awhile. It sure felt good.
Just before our time is up, I get all the dogs up and rub them down good to warm and loosen them up. The checker gives me the ok and off we go. The going was not easy though. It was still blowing extremely hard. The trail was blown over so there were no tracks to follow and the side wind felt like it was going to blow us over. The tracks of the lead dogs were blown away by the time the sled reach them. The snow was so grainy that it felt like I was trying to push the sled through sand. To top that off, the first 26 miles out of White Mtn. climb over the Topkop Hills, a series of big, long, and steep hills. Visibility was very poor, yet you could look straight up and see blue sky. That's what you call a ground blizzard. Spider and Kuling were in lead and both were doing really well finding the trail. But after awhile Spider got tired of the wind and didn't want to lead anymore. I took him out and let Kuling lead single for awhile. She was so amazing! It is hard to describe the emotion I felt seeing that little dog up there battling those strong side winds and putting her whole heart in to it. Such devotion brought a tear to my eye. All my dogs were really quite incredible. I stopped often to snack them and wipe the snow from their eyes. We finally climbed the last hill and descended down towards the ocean again. There at the bottom was a shelter cabin where I stopped just passed it to snack the dogs again. Ray caught up to me at that time. He passed me and I was happy to let my dogs follow behind for a break. Kuling was now running lead with Judd so at least she had help. From the shelter cabin to Saftey the trail was all flat and thankfully the wind had let up. Not long after the shelter cabin we caught and passed Hugh Neff. He had left White Mtn. over 2 hours ahead of us and we caught him in about 30 miles. As we were heading to Safety the sun was setting. It was an awesome sight especially with the sillouette of Ray's dog team going into the sun in front of me. The last sunset of Iditarod 2004 I would see on the trail made a beautiful last night!
Ray stopped just before Safety to put his headlamp on and I passed him coming into the last checkpoint. There is an award for the fastest time from Safety to Nome for the top 20 teams so it was going to be quite a race between our two teams. The 4th place musher already had a fast time of 2 hrs and 20 min. which would be hard to beat. So the real race was going to be for 20th place. Ray's team was alittle stronger than mine but we were certainly going to give him a run for his money. Leaving Safety together for the last 22 miles, Ray and I were both running hard. I had my ski poles out and pushed for all I was worth. Later Ray told me that he had to drive his dogs hard to keep up with me and those 'darn' ski poles. On the flat my team definitely held their own but as soon as we started climbing up Cape Nome we slowed down and Ray passed me. We both ran like crazy up the hill and once we topped it, he never pulled any further ahead of me. From the top of the hill you can see the lights of Nome 15 miles away. Then at the bottom, it is pretty much flat again the rest of the way to Nome. I started pushing the dogs to go faster--letting them know that this was it--we would be done in a few more miles. They responded by picking up the pace but not enough to catch back up to Ray. As each team comes into Nome, the town sounds off the fire siren so everyone knows a team is close. I hear the siren go off as our teams pull off the sea ice onto the main street of town. People are standing along the street cheering each team on. The burled arch looms ahead. My dogs pick up on the excitement and look good as we come into the finish chute. Maya, the only two year old left on my team, was so overwhelmed by all the people and loud speakers she did not want to go into the chute. But the rest of the dogs knew where they were going and pulled her along. Six of my 9 dogs had all been under that arch before. My stepdad was there to give me a big hug along with several other friends. Ray had beaten me by 2 minutes over 1100 miles in under 11 days. Pretty amazing to have such a close finish. We both had alot of fun and were all smiles at the finish. And I was very proud of my dogs. We finished the race in 10 days and 14 hours, our fastest time yet. Kuling and Judd finished in lead with Spider in swing, Kate, Leo, Brave, and Dottie all in team, and Nike and Maya in wheel. We also had the 3rd fastest time from Safety to Nome for the top 25 teams.
The first thing I did when I crossed the finish line was to praise all my dogs and pat each one. Once all the pictures were taken and the mandatory gear checked, we led the dogs over to the Nome dog lot where we had dog houses full of straw, a nice hot meal, and a good massage waiting for every dog. After they were taken care of, I was finally able to get a good night's sleep for myself. That last section of trail had taken 9 hours and 24 minutes of straight running through some very tough winds. Ahhhh! It felt good to get 8 hours of sleep straight through.
There isn't much to do in Nome but sleep and eat, but that is about all I felt like doing when I got there. The banquet is always the Sunday after the first musher finishes so I would be in Nome about a week before I could fly home. It is always a good time visiting with the other mushers--kind of like a big family reunion. Most of us only get to see each other at the races.
Finishing Iditarod always brings mixed emotions. I am always proud of the dogs, tired and happy to be done, yet sad too that it is all over. I enjoyed this year's Iditarod so much and am already thinking about next year's race. The summer is fast approaching and it is time for new puppies and a vacation for the big dogs. There will be 5 new litters of puppies so that ought to keep me busy. I hope everyone has a great summer and watch for us again in next year's Iditarod 2005.
