The dogs really have steam up now and it’s all I can do to keep the sled upright. The heavy, sticky snow has bent over every bush and sapling and some really big trees as well and the trail resembles a sugar-frosted obstacle course. The dogs are streaking merrily beneath everything, intent on exploring the new world of snow. In my slightly more lofty perch, I’m getting pummeled by every branch. I try to crouch down and hide behind the handlebar but there is no escape, and I repeatedly get whacked hard enough to raise welts.
The first four miles of the trail are like this and I feel like a long-term guest of the Singapore penal system by the time we tear out of the end of the back trail onto upper Montana Creek Road. Quickly we sweep onto the unmaintained portion of the road, which is now a newly packed snowmachine trail.
We hit the first hill almost immediately. It’s a 10% grade with maybe a 100-foot rise, but the dogs hardly hesitate. It’s the biggest hill they’ve seen so far this season but their instinct to pull carries them up and over with speed to spare. Triumphantly they surge down the other side as I step on the drag to keep the gangline taut and avoid overrunning the wheel dogs on the downgrade.
There seems to be a change in the team. They realize this is a major watershed. This is what the endless boring training in front of the four-wheeler and on the short local trails has been about. Now we’re doing some real mushing and they’re even more anxious than I am. The next several hills are bigger and much steeper than the first one but the dogs need no urging to conquer them. They have united to become a powerful engine capable of surmounting anything in its path.
After another five miles we climb one last brutal hill to the halfway point of the run. Eventually, instead of turning back at this point, we will continue up through the thinning birch and spruce along the South Fork of Montana Creek onto the wide-open uplands of the Talkeetna Mountains. That trail ends maybe 15 miles farther on at the 3,000-foot level, about the same altitude as Rainy Pass on the Iditarod. It’s as close as we will get to the Alaska Range until we actually head out on the race, but it’s a reasonable approximation, especially for being right in our back yard.
Training runs with smaller teams occupy many weeks before the first races. Most mushers prefer to have at least 600 or 700 miles on their dogs by New Years.
Tonight, though, I stop the dogs at the top of the hill and give them each a biscuit while I look out over the valley to the west. There are only a few lights along the Parks Highway and the Talkeetna Spur Road seven miles away. Otherwise the blackness is complete. Even though it’s dark I can half-see, half-sense the 20,000-foot bulk of Denali looming barely 70 miles to the northwest, faintly silhouetted against the starry night sky. Beyond it lies the great interior of Alaska with Nome beyond.
Most Alaskans have never seen the other side of the Mountain, either literally or figuratively. I’ve been lucky enough to see much of the state from the air over the years, but the thought of seeing it from the back of a sled like the old-timers did is overwhelming. Tonight the black void beyond the tenuous thread of lights along the highway looks vast and mysterious, a world I’ve seen and taken for granted before but now will experience in a completely new way within a couple of months.
Socks figures I’ve taken enough time to admire the view and signals his impatience by yanking the snow hook. I grab the handlebar as the sled shoots by. We run for three miles on an easy trail down an unfinished road. Then we reach the end of the improved section and plunge into a narrow winding corridor of willow and alder.
Barrie has told me there’s an open stream where a temporary culvert has washed out, but before I can figure out where we are the black gap of rushing water yawns ahead and the dogs have launched themselves across it. I yell “On by!” to Socks and hang on while the sled crashes into the foot-deep water and slithers across the rocks of the creek bed. I manage to stay upright as we slam over the two-foot bank on the far side and the dogs gleefully haul on up the next hill.
Fortunately I’ve waterproofed my new boots and my feet stay dry. Bert has told me about his numerous misadventures with the wet stuff on the Iditarod, including one time in Dalzell Gorge when he went in up to his chest to keep a dog from being dragged under an ice ledge. Ron has amplified these tales with his own, and I’ve resigned myself to seeing flowing water on the trail. I know I’ve seen open water all along the Iditarod from the air even at 40 below, so this is only a slight taste of what’s to come. I guess I’m starting to pay my dues, but so far it’s nothing I can’t handle.
The trail winds on for another half mile and then all I can see in front of me in the headlight beam is yawning blackness. This must be the hill I vaguely remember from my trip through here on the four-wheeler this summer. By the time my memory banks dredge up the information this is the longest and steepest hill on the whole trail, I realize I’m rocketing down it at a high rate of speed and the dogs are yelping in delight as they continue to accelerate.
I don’t dare yell to the dogs to whoa up because I’d overrun the team before I could get the sled stopped. So, I jump on the drag and shift my entire weight onto it to try to slow down the juggernaut and keep the gangline taut. But in doing so I sacrifice what’s left of my balance, and the deed is completed by a snow-covered rut and the Willis sled’s inherent tendency to go with the flow.
In a flash the sled tips and I flail behind it as it slides off the near-vertical embankment and down into the bordering brush. The quick-release cord still wrapped around my wrist keeps me from flying off into the deep ditch, but at the price of several pulled muscles in my arm. The dogs stay up on the trail but they have so much momentum they drag me like a sack of potatoes for what seems forever through the scrub and over the rocks. Sometime in the 15 seconds or so before things come to a grinding halt I bang my right knee against a rock and the pain is almost enough to make me yell something ungentlemanly, which I’m sure Socks would enjoy.
However, the old pro knows to stop when the sled tips over and he finally gets around to doing it. I lie there for a minute or so getting my bearings and catching my breath. Slowly I get myself and the sled untangled from the grabbing branches. As I lever the sled back up onto the trail, I can see Socks looking around and I swear he’s smiling. As usual, he’s moving the instant he thinks I’m reasonably upright and we tear off down the trail again.
Half a mile later we come to another hazard Barrie warned me about, a tree down across the trail that is outflanked by a contorted makeshift bypass winding for several hundred yards through the forest. The sled capsizes a couple of times in the deep snow but the dogs are barely moving so nothing untoward happens. Then we pull up a sharp incline back onto the road. Socks veers to the right and then stops; I see he’s turned us back into the downed tree from the opposite side. I sigh and tell him to come haw (double back to the left).
After a minute he pulls the team around and heads down the trail in the right direction, but the wheel dogs, Weasel and Bear, are hopelessly tangled. I stop the team and go up to sort things out. I must completely unhook Weasel’s neckline and tugline for a few seconds—and at this exact instant the team jerks and I lose my hold on Weasel, who darts off to one side.
Weasel is one of my favorites, a pure white female who’s run the Iditarod a couple of times and has even been from Nome to Russia on the international Hope race. She has a bouncy and lovable disposition but also displays a mind of her own at times. She won’t come to me when I call and darts out ahead of the team as if daring us to follow. I don’t have much choice but to head on back to the lot. I’m reasonably certain she’ll tag along; she’s smart and is a good trail leader in her own right, so I know she’ll find her way home if she gets separated. Still, the thought of having a loose dog on the trail is a musher’s worst nightmare, and losing a dog is the most fundamental sin a musher can commit. If this is paying dues, I’m writing big checks tonight.
Socks treats it all as a game and streaks after Weasel, who dances ahead like a pale ghost. I occasionally g
et a glimpse of her glowing green eyes as she pauses to check where we are. After another half mile I realize I’ve still got a few dog biscuits in my pocket. Weasel is a pushover for a biscuit, and I think there’s a chance I can lure her back. I stop the team, set the snow hook around a log, and then creep out in front of Socks. Quietly I call to Weasel, who is about 20 yards ahead, watching me with what must be amusement.
As soon as she senses the biscuit, she bounds over and nuzzles me. I give her the treat and hug her like a prodigal daughter. Then I realize Socks has also smelled the biscuit and has dragged the team and the sled and the log with the snow hook wrapped around it to get his rightful share of the spoils. But all is forgiven as I toss him a snack and hook Weasel back into the team. We’re off in a flash, homeward bound and happy.
I have plenty of time to reflect on the errors of my ways as the team pulls steadily back to the lot. I remember almost every word of Gary Paulsen’s Winterdance, in which he describes his preparations for the 1983 Iditarod. By his account, he made every rookie mistake possible, and a few more for good measure. I read the book just after I decided to run the race and half the time I couldn’t decide whether to roll on the floor laughing or just forget the whole thing and seek competent psychiatric counseling.
Now I see what he was talking about because I’m going through many of the same trials and tribulations. Taken in context, the individual events aren’t as bad as they might sound to someone who hasn’t been there. I’ve been a human weed-whacker, eaten bucketfuls of snow, imitated a Pachinko ball, gotten bit, sorted out dog fights, and nursed sick dogs. I’ve untangled Gordian knots of dogs, sleds, trees, and me. I’ve had to figure out how to keep always-amorous males away from unexpectedly amorous females. I’ve learned how to rearrange dogs within a team to keep harmony and a sense of purpose. In short, this has been more fun and ultimately satisfying than anything I’ve ever done before, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
To look at the individual parts of the picture, any non-musher would question my sanity for continuing such a quixotic quest. But any veteran dog driver will nod knowingly and smile, and I’m starting to understand why. As Paulsen said, it’s a fine madness, this getting ready to run the Last Great Race.
November 6, 1994
Montana Creek, Alaska
The 20-mile trail beckons again. But if last night could best be classified as a learning experience, this evening is something altogether different.
I take another eight-dog team out with Slipper in the lead. She’s 10 years old, the oldest dog on my team, but still a marvelous runner. She spent five years with Libby Riddles and several more with Bert and has run tens of thousands of miles.
However, she’s what we call a trail leader, and is not a very good command or “gee-haw” leader. She will follow a trail instinctively and will set a blistering pace, but to turn her takes a somewhat different technique from what most people imagine. The usual method involves waiting to see which way she will go when we come up to a turn and then stomping on the brake if she takes the wrong one, accompanied by a loud “Whoa” or “No.”
Actually, it doesn’t matter what I shout, as long as it gets her attention and lets her know I don’t want to go that way. When she finally starts to go the direction I want, I reinforce her decision with a “There you go!” or something equivalent. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s quite sufficient when we’re out on the trail and away from other dogs or congested areas.
Sometimes, though, she can be incredibly stubborn and won’t make a turn no matter what I say. Usually this devolves into a contest of wills while I stand on the brake and try to coax her in the proper direction. Often as not, I have to set the hook and physically lead her the way I want to go. Sometimes even that fails and I simply have to switch leaders, which almost always works. That’s one reason I try to run with several dogs who will go up front, even if they’re not all good leaders.
Regardless, the oldest rule in dog mushing is you can’t let the leader get away with not following your commands. In Slipper’s case, this can sometimes require the patience of Job. But tonight she is responding well enough to get us through the more complicated parts of the trail with only a few near-detours. I keep the sled upright the whole way up to the top of the trail and actually start to enjoy myself a bit.
Like last night, I stop at the top of the hill and admire the view. Tonight, however, I feel much more a part of the team. Without really realizing it, I’ve been able to guide Slipper and the team easily and to handle in stride all of the little distractions. I seem to have crossed a psychological divide that has kept me from feeling secure with the team. As I gaze at the team and out over the silent mountains, I understand I can take the dogs practically anywhere. The team has now become a powerful and exotic instrument of travel and discovery, not just a collection of dogs I must herd over the same trails night after night.
Mount McKinley, called Denali (the Great One) by Alaska Natives, dominates the skyline of central Alaska. The highest mountain in North America, it towers in solitary grandeur to 20,320 feet above sea level. It can often be seen from more than 200 miles away, and is visible along the Iditarod Trail in many places from Anchorage to beyond Takotna.
Instead of returning to the dog lot tonight, I could just as easily keep going up the mountain or on toward Talkeetna. Slipper, for all her quirks, can take me to places most people will never see except in photographs. She and her teammates have turned the winter, which chills more conventional spirits, into a beckoning wonderland for me. I pity the snow-machiners with their noisy, smelly engines, and even the cross-country skiers with their limited range. I have never fully realized how uniquely suited the dog team is to the North Country. It represents freedom of a kind I’ve never experienced before, even with my airplanes.
The ride back to the dog yard is a study in perfection. Slipper, in her special wisdom, seems to know that I, too, now understand and leads flawlessly as if to reward me for my belated insight. I hope there will be many more nights like this.
November 10-30, 1994
Eagle River, Alaska
Be careful what you wish for: it might come true. I’m sitting awake at four o’clock on a Monday morning because I can’t get to sleep, attempting to reconcile the incredible events of the last few weeks. As I review them in my mind I don’t think anyone would believe me if I swore everything was true on a stack of Bibles.
First there was the snow. Lots of snow, even for up here. To be sure, ever since Labor Day we were hoping for enough of the white stuff to start serious training. But we must have punched the wrong buttons when we entered our modest request at Weather God Central, because after our initial few inches we were smacked by a series of major storms that left us with four feet on the ground in barely 10 days.
Of course, our carefully marked and packed trails were inundated until even the most intrepid snowmachiners wouldn’t give them a shot. The dog lot was completely cut off by the first dump (almost two feet in 24 hours) because Ron’s narrow half-mile-long driveway was hopelessly blocked.
Since we didn’t have an operable snowmachine, we hitched up a few teams just to get between our houses and cabins. A couple of vehicles were parked close enough to the borough road so we could extract them and keep them parked on the plowed public right of way, although access to and from them was only by dog team. On top of everything I had to keep driving back and forth to Anchorage during the week to teach; at least the big state plows kept the main roads open.
After the fluffy deluge eventually quit, I was able to unlimber my snowblower to clear my own 300-foot driveway, but Ron’s stayed blocked for a week. It took two days with a front-end loader to get his opened up and in the process his phone line was cut and we couldn’t repair it.
The snow we’d been hoping for ended up cutting our training drastically. We were up to daily 30-mile runs before the heavy snows and were actually ahead of the power curve for the Iditarod. However, limited strictly
to the plowed local roads and the sporadically groomed Montana Creek Dog Mushers Association 10-mile track, we were lucky to get 15 or 20 miles every few days.
Then the snow was followed by a 40-below cold snap. While we’ll certainly hit comparable temperatures out on the trail, we didn’t see any point in intentionally risking the dogs in extreme cold weather without a good reason. The dogs can handle it just fine when the time comes for real, but it’s not good training at this stage of the game. We made a policy of not running the dogs unless the temperature was above 25 below—still plenty cold.
I spent so much time outside during the cold snap trying to get things cleared I came down with a vicious cold. Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Anchorage schools were closed because of more heavy snow and my student teaching was on hold; I felt so bad I just stayed in bed. Wednesday the schools were open and I went in to teach my kids. My host teacher repeatedly warned me I looked like I should have stayed in bed, and after school I finally headed over to the hospital emergency room to see if they knew something I didn’t.
The physician on duty took one good look at me, sent me down for a quick chest X-ray, and the next thing I knew I was laid out on a bed with IVs in my arms and a breathing mask over my face. Pneumonia, she said, with a temperature of 102 degrees, spiking as high as 105. Some cold, I thought. After six hours of medical ministrations, the doctor said I could go home as long as I took it easy for several days. She prescribed a new antibiotic that only required six pills over five days to knock out just about anything, and sure enough it worked like magic, deep-sixing my fever within a few hours.
I spent Thanksgiving in bed recuperating, but I couldn’t stay away from my dogs. I felt well enough to take them 30 miles yesterday (Sunday) and both they and I came through with no apparent ill effects. On the way back to Anchorage late last night, though, I smacked a 1,200-pound moose at 50 miles an hour after it darted out from a huge snow berm. My minivan was virtually totaled, but its sturdy construction—and the seat belt—protected me from suffering even a scratch. The moose wasn’t as lucky and the state trooper had to dispatch it. All of the meat went to charity, although I had a passing regret I couldn’t even keep a hindquarter for my trouble.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 10