Copper Basin Snapshot — The First 15 Miles of the Trail from Hell
From the starting line, the trail climbs almost immediately 500 feet up the side of a mountain, then down the other side and up yet another equally brutal incline, followed by an even steeper downgrade. Then it threads through a mile of trees with turns so sharp and frequent I cannot even see the lead dogs most of the time. Finally it crosses the frozen Gulkana River and settles into a merely hideous stretch laden with sidehill slopes and soft shoulders and icy stretches where trickles of water have made mini-glaciers which make control of the sled virtually impossible.
I am practically in shock and almost numb with exhaustion trying to keep the sled upright, but it keeps slipping down the cross-hill slopes and into the soft snow on the downhill edges of the trail, where it usually collapses on its side. This requires me to jump off into the thigh-deep snow and lever it upright while urging the dogs to go on.
Usually I can jump back on the runners as the sled careens back onto the trail, but more often than not, I find myself hanging onto the handlebars with my feet trailing out behind as the excited team charges on down the trail. My stiff, heavy arctic gear makes it almost impossible to regain my feet while the sled is moving, so the only thing I can do is yell at the dogs to whoa up and try to tip the sled into the snow so I can try everything all over again.
By now other, faster teams behind me have begun to pass me with some regularity. On one particularly gruesome sidehill pitch I spend the better part of 100 yards dragging behind the sled until I can get it toppled into the snow and stopped. As I lie there in the snow catching my breath I realize there are several teams behind me who have been waiting to pass during this whole episode. Without getting up I motion for them to come on by, which they do, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to conceal their amusement at my rookie antics. The driver of the last team to pass slows for a moment and asks solicitously, “Are you all right?” I answer “No-o-o-o problem!” before I realize it is Martin Buser. At least he isn’t laughing, although I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he were. My mortification is complete as I watch Martin’s world-class team speed him up the hill and out of sight.
I cannot understand how all of the other mushers have so little trouble controlling their teams and sleds over what is—to me anyway—the Trail From Hell. I still have a lot to learn about this business of dog driving. It’s a good thing I have 285 more miles to bone up in this open-air classroom before I get my report card.
Copper Basin Snapshot — Night Trail Under a Running Moon
The dogs have rested a couple of hours at Sourdough Roadhouse, the first checkpoint, and I’ve actually gotten a few minutes’ nap in the crowded mushers’ warm-up cabin. I finally realize the sun has set and I’ve got to get moving. After I finish the 45-minute process of bootying and hooking up the dogs, Steve Adkins leads the team through the crowded lodge grounds to the outbound trail.
The dogs come alive and pull with renewed eagerness into the moonlit spruce forest. I’ve noticed , the dogs always seem to like to run better at night, and especially under a bright moon. Some old-timers call it a running moon, and under conditions such as we have tonight it can make for a rare experience. For this leg, 65 miles across the virtually uninhabited heart of the Copper Basin over to Lake Louise and Wolverine Lodge, the groomed trail is like a superhighway: hard, smooth, and level. Under the flood of moonlight, the dogs settle into a 10-mile-an-hour trot I know they can hold for as long as I want to let them.
Now the race has taken on a whole new dimension, and I have time to take in the stark beauty of the ghostly wilderness washed by light from the misty full moon. Like a sailing ship of old running with a fair wind through unexplored seas, we cruise across endless flat lakes, float over eerie swamps, and thread our way through silent stands of snow-laden spruce. The diffuse moonlight is easily bright enough to obviate the need for my headlamp.
Without the lamp there is no color. The palette of this phantom world spans only the spectrum from the softly glowing white of moon-bright snow to the deep shadowy black of brooding spruce thickets. I adjust my senses to this alternative dimension and am completely disoriented when I flick on my headlight to check out a shadow that might be a moose. I quickly retreat from reality’s harsh glare to the land of the night without realizing I’ve become a creature of this world with the dogs—endless snow and moonlight.
After an hour I come to understand silence is the true denominator here. The dogs make almost no noise, and their footfalls on the trail and the swish of the runners are not so different from the soughing of the wind through a full set of clipper-ship sails and the soft wash of the sea against the bow. The creaking of the sled could just as easily be oaken timbers and taut rigging. Like a ship under sail without the constant throb of engines to remind one of progress, forward motion seems almost negligible; only a glance behind the sled reveals the trail receding at a satisfying six minutes a mile.
There are only a couple of teams on the trail with me, and we pass and repass each other quietly and as quickly as we can, almost embarrassed to intrude on each other’s journeys through this nether realm. We turn on our headlamps for the actual overtaking and then turn them off as soon as is decently possible, retreating to our personal voyages across the snowy sea.
I’m sure the old wooden-ship sailors would have made good dog drivers, with their appreciation of a good, steady pace and the patience to enjoy the voyage for its own merits. Or maybe I would have made a good seafarer. I guess that’s something else I’ll have to try someday.
Copper Basin Snapshot—Wolverine Lodge Checkpoint
After a near-perfect run over from Sourdough, the Wolverine checkpoint is a madhouse, with 40-odd teams bedded down in a great arc on the snow-covered ice of Lake Louise in front of the lodge. I arrive about five in the morning and there will be a mass restart at 10, in which everyone who is ready will make a wild simultaneous dash for the outbound trail. This is the real beginning of the race, inasmuch as whoever is in front after the restart is the actual leader.
I have already decided not to try to make the restart, since I am not really racing; besides, I’m not sure what my dogs would do in such a chaotic situation, which I won’t see on the Iditarod in any case. Every veteran musher I’ve talked to has advised me not to push things because I’ll get plenty of chances to excel just trying to finish. I get the dogs fed and bedded down on the straw we’ve shipped out and then wander up to the lodge about seven for some shut-eye.
The musher sleeping room in the lodge is full of snoring drivers, so I find a nice patch of floor in the bar and stretch out with my parka for a pillow. This is pretty much normal for a checkpoint, where tired mushers can be found snatching a nap in all manner of unlikely locations and positions.
Sometime during the morning the big-screen satellite television is turned on for the NFL playoff game, and I subconsciously absorb the 49er massacre of Denver as I fitfully sleep. As the restart approaches, the lodge fills with spectators, most of whom don’t even notice me or the several other mushers who are still racked out in odd corners of the lodge and adjoining restaurant.
I stir myself long enough to watch the madness out the window as 25 teams beat a confused path to the outbound trail; then I collapse back to the comfy carpet, satisfied my dogs are still sleeping as soundly as could be expected amid the mayhem. Shortly after, I find the musher room now has a few slots available and I stagger in for another hour or two of quality rest, but discover I really can’t get back to sleep.
If the dogs didn’t sleep any better than I did, they won’t be very happy when we get ready to go. Sure enough, when I hook up about noon several of them are grouchy and snapping at each other and I have to break up a small fight. It takes me another couple of hours to get everyone sorted out and calmed down before I can finally get back on the trail for the 28-mile run to Tolsona Lake, four and a half hours behind the leaders.
It seems checkpoints aren’t necessarily th
e havens I had hoped.
Some mushers avoid the hubbub and plan their real rest stops for the less frequented locations; a few just camp out on the trail. Whatever the case, I can see I’m going to have to pay more attention to resting, or even on a short race like this one neither I nor the dogs are going to be able to keep up the pace.
Copper Basin Snapshot—The Diarrhea Express to the Gulkana River
Aside from an unexpected patch of open water and a quarter-mile of ice going up a ravine, the run from Wolverine to Tolsona goes well. However, several of the dogs are developing diarrhea. Illness is a problem on the bigger races where dogs from many kennels get together, and especially for teams at the back of the pack that must “eat the dust” and other stuff of teams ahead.
I know there’s a nasty canine virus making the rounds in a couple of areas of the state. If my dogs are coming down with this, I may well have to scratch because I wouldn’t dare push them over a tough trail in such a condition. At Tolsona, the vet says she thinks it’s just a strain of diarrhea that seems to be affecting a lot of teams and gives the dogs some antidiarrheal pills (the same as humans use). I push on quickly for the 21-mile night run to Brown Bear, just outside the town of Glennallen.
The trail is good and running conditions are ideal, with a full moon and temperatures dropping to perhaps 35 below. The dogs are moving well, but more and more of them are showing signs of diarrhea. Some of them must let fly every 15 minutes or so; this results in a general slowdown of several miles per hour in our average speed. I notice lots of other teams have apparently had the same problem, judging from the quantity of frozen residue on the trail. If nothing else, I won’t have any trouble keeping on the race trail—it’s marked very well in addition to the regular trail markers.
I know the dogs will probably be okay, but I’m going to have to give them extra rest and lots more food and water to make up for what they’re losing. At Brown Bear the vet and I have to give all 12 dogs a mass of pills, including some antibiotics. I spend eight hours there to give the team time to rest and to allow the medicine to take effect.
As I’m getting ready to leave, I talk to another musher who has had to scratch because his dogs have what is coming to be called the “black virus.” Dogs with this malady recover after four or five days, but they’re in no condition to run in the meantime. Several other teams also have this scary infection, but it’s now clear my dogs have something else, much gentler.
At 5:30 in the morning we finally pull out to run the 23 miles up to Gakona, with the diarrhea apparently mostly under control. As it turns out, the dogs are in very good shape and have a lot more resiliency than I give them credit for. They seem to be enjoying the predawn run that takes us first through sleeping downtown Glennallen and then up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline right-of-way.
On the other hand, I don’t realize it but I’ve gotten almost no real rest because of worrying about the dogs’ condition. I haven’t eaten any decent food for a couple of days and I’m more than a little dehydrated myself. I’m running on nervous energy that can’t last forever and my judgment is probably becoming as impaired as if I’d slugged a six-pack of beer.
My wake-up call comes about five miles short of Gakona where the trail crosses the frozen Gulkana River. In the pre-race trail briefing we had been told there were some rocks on the final drop down to the river, but not to worry about it. I’m half asleep as the team roars up on the river bank and don’t think to slow them down as much as I should, even though I see the multiple crossed trail markers signaling a “double-X” hazard ahead.
Before my fuzzy brain can process what’s happening, the dogs have bounded down an impossibly narrow rocky chute in the boulders placed there to protect the nearby highway bridge. The drop is a dozen feet, virtually straight down over bare rocks the size of microwave ovens. There may have been snow to cover everything for the earlier teams, but now it’s like I’ve become some kind of bouncing ball in a giant pinball game as the sled slams and bangs against the rocks on its uncontrolled fall to the river below.
At the very bottom is a rock the size of a railroad tie sticking half out into the mouth of the chute. The dogs have easily jumped it and swung sharply to the right to follow the trail downstream under the bridge. As the sled careens down the bank, the right runner hits the obstruction and flips, flinging me into the rocks.
It is a major wreck-crash-and-burn, due in part to my slow reactions and poor judgment. The dogs have stopped and are looking back at the carnage with what I swear is amusement. The sled bag hasn’t spilled, but the plastic track has been partially separated from the right runner, part of the brake has been broken off, and everything has been generally loosened up. The sled will still go, but I’ll have to fix it at Chistochina on my mandatory six-hour layover, 40 miles up the trail.
My middle-aged body has taken a few hits as well. My left shin feels like it’s broken, although it turns out to be only a deep bone bruise. I think I’ve also cracked a rib or two, judging from the piercing pain in my side. I lie there for a minute trying to sort out what’s happened. I finally determine I’m not dead or crippled and the dogs are okay. As soon as I get everything upright and climb back on the runners the dogs roar off down the river, no doubt wondering what the silly two-legs behind them thought was such a big deal.
For me, it’s been another hard lesson learned. The dogs are tough, much tougher than I realize. I must spend more time watching out for myself. If I don’t keep my own physical condition up to par I’ll make more dumb decisions that can have even more drastic consequences. On the Iditarod, I’ll have to go for two weeks, not a couple or three days, under conditions that can be much more dangerous than what I’ve seen here. If I’m not fulfilling my role as the brains of this outfit, we can all be in serious trouble. The dogs are doing their part—I’ve got to make sure I do mine.
Copper Basin Snapshot—Following the Old-Timers Up the Eagle Trail
After Gakona, the trail abandons the highway for the first part of the 31-mile run to Chistochina and climbs out of a deep canyon via the old Eagle Trail, built around the turn of the century for freight sleds and pack trains traveling from Valdez to the Yukon River gold fields. The trail snakes up a very steep mountainside out of the gorge to the plateau above, climbing 500 feet in less than a mile. It’s barely five feet wide at best, with only willow bushes and scrub spruce for guardrails against the drop into the chasm below.
I’ve been warned about a particularly bad area where water flowing from a spring on the uphill side of the track has created a mini-glacier across the trail. The trailbreakers say they’ve cut away the worst of it with chain saws, but I’m still apprehensive. After half an hour of steady climbing and threading around switchbacks we finally reach the problem zone.
It’s a sharp bend set into the mountainside with timber retainers underneath the downhill part of the trail. The 60-foot-long team pulls quickly into and out of the bend, leaving me looking at a straight shot across the void. I desperately lean the sled to the right with all the strength I can muster, but it’s too late. I slip on the ice and the left runner drops over the lip. The sled flips and rolls over. Off balance, I follow it over the edge of the 70-degree slope.
The sled quickly stops, anchored by the gangline and the dogs, who are still on the trail with good traction and pulling hard. I finally regain my footing on a ledge under the soft snow and climb carefully back on to the trail to survey things. The sled is still in one piece but it’s upside down and the brush bow is wedged against a willow bush. The dogs are holding it firmly enough and everything seems stable for the time being. However, there’s no one behind me for more than two hours and there’s no way I can leave the team here to hike back to Gakona for help. I only have one choice—somehow get the sled back on the trail and get going again.
It’s really just a matter of finding a good point from which to pull so I can get the sled upright to take advantage of the team’s tremendous tractor power. I believe it was A
rchimedes who said, “Give me a fulcrum and I can move the Earth.” It takes me a while to find a good Archimedean point, but I finally get the sled more or less stood up after 20 minutes of straining and slipping. I climb up to help the dogs pull the heavy sled past the obstructing willow bush . After another five minutes of pulling and jockeying, the sled groans up off the verge and onto the trail.
Once we’re safely back on the right of way, I take a breather and look down at the 400-foot drop. It would have been quite a ride if the gangline had snapped or the dogs had been dragged over the side. I wonder to myself how the old-timers handled this with their 15-foot-long, half-ton freight sleds and 20-dog teams. My admiration factor for the old pioneer freighters goes up a few notches as my dogs, who think this has all been a rest break, tear on up the hill as if nothing has happened.
Copper Basin Snapshot—Journey to the Top of the World
The crown jewel of the race is the leg over a 4,000-foot summit between the Chistochina and Gakona River drainages, on a 71-mile wilderness run from Chistochina to Summit Lake. The summit is a rounded mountain peak surmounting a ridge, well above timberline.
The leg begins as the most beautiful and trouble-free run of the race for me. After watching a spectacular sunrise as the team sweeps up the smooth trail above the Chistochina River, I snack the dogs and rest them for half an hour. I even get a chance to stop and chat with Emmitt Peters as he rests his team. He won the 1975 Iditarod—the second Native to do so—and is a good friend of Ron’s. Emmitt was also a race judge in the Iditarod just past and I flew him extensively in my plane.
Leaving Emmitt and passing a couple of other teams, we reach the foot of the east approach to the summit after seven hours on the trail from Chistochina. The ascent begins abruptly as the trail climbs straight up out of the Excelsior Creek valley, running directly up a forbidding slope. We charge into it and the dogs settle into their steep-hill mode, digging in and shifting into “granny low” gear. I help by pedaling (pushing with one foot while holding on to the handlebar) and occasionally even by jumping off the runners and walking alongside the sled to lessen the load.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 14