I reflect on the vast gulf between the professionals like Jeff and the back-of-the-packers like me. Their teams routinely cruise at 12 or 14
miles an hour and they have their checkpoint routines down to precise sciences. Unlike my lovable but eclectic collection of veteran hand-me-downs and untried youngsters, their dogs are all reasonably alike in breeding and running habits and form coherent teams.
They don’t have the disruptions and irregularities which plague me in trying to mold a unit from a menagerie ranging from 35-pound Maybelline to 75-pound Yankee. The thought occurs to me that with their well-oiled pulling machines they might actually be having fun out here, or at least more than I am.
Finally we get ready to leave. Socks dutifully lines out the team on the outbound trail, where I hold everyone while Lisa strides purposefully down the river bank to her recalcitrant crew. She doesn’t even need to get them up: they’re ready to go and move off smartly as soon as she steps on the runners. I’m happy for her and hope this has been her turning point.
Andy has his team ready to go behind mine and we all leave Nulato together. Five miles down river, Andy and I keep straight at a fork in the trail while Lisa heads left on an unmarked track. The teams run almost parallel, we up against the right bank and Lisa out in mid-river. These big-river trails always rejoin at some point and we think nothing of it as we cruise quietly on for a couple of miles.
Then Andy brakes to a sudden stop and Socks almost plows into him. Our trail is swamped with major overflow, a situation which has obviously developed very recently. We search for a way around it and finally spy a tenuous trail to the left; this morass has surprised at least one other team before us. I gingerly urge Socks onto the bypass, which is little more than a single sled track through uncompacted waist-deep snow. But it gets us around the overflow after several hundred yards and probably 20 minutes of lost time.
Once back on the trail we rejoin the branch on which Lisa has been running, although she is by now at least a couple of miles ahead. Andy and I have no idea why Lisa took the left hand fork and missed the overflow, especially since we were on the main, marked trail. Feminine intuition, we finally surmise, or else her leader has a better nose than ours.
A few miles later Andy passes me and moves off into the gathering dusk. Soon it begins to snow, part of the storm which is apparently moving faster than expected. So far no one on the race has had any weather problems to speak of, but it seems we might get caught.
This often seems to happen on the Iditarod: storms hold off long enough for the leaders to blaze to Nome and then sock the middle of the pack or the tail-enders. Simple probability would suggest the fast-movers get hit on an equal-opportunity basis, but it never seems to work out that way except in a few really notable years, such as in 1991 when Rick Swenson led his team through a screaming blizzard for 50 miles over Topkok to Safety and a dramatic victory over Martin Buser and Susan Butcher.
Soon the snow begins to accumulate more quickly than I’d like. By the time I see the reassuring flash of the Kaltag airport beacon against the clouds 15 miles later, it’s a couple of inches deep and beginning to drift. Socks plows through it unconcernedly and I am doubly glad he’s probably one of the best wind and snow leaders ever to hit the trail. This is the kind of situation in which his marker-to-marker skills are most useful. As my headlamp illuminates each reflective strip he moves methodically toward it, feeling out the trail as he goes. All I have to do is keep finding the markers and Socks will do the rest.
Teams run for several blocks up the main street of Kaltag to the checkpoint. At the end of the 90-mile Kaltag portage, an ancient Native trade route to the Bering Sea coast, Kaltag has been inhabited for many centuries.
We finally leave the Yukon and pull into Kaltag about midnight. People have been living here since the earliest Natives began using the 90-mile portage to the coast. Its 200 or so residents are asleep as we check in. I’ve spent some time here while flying for the race so I’m reasonably familiar with the town.
All things considered, it’s actually been a fairly pleasant and blessedly uneventful run down the legendary river. Because of the snow, I plan to wait until after dawn to start over the Kaltag portage to Unalakleet on the Bering Sea coast. I’m not interested in trying to find an unfamiliar trail in a snowstorm without at least the help of daylight. I’ve already got plenty of problems to deal with and I certainly don’t need to lengthen my odds—after all, it’s still more than 350 notoriously tough miles to Nome.
After taking care of the dogs in a somnambulant daze I stumble up to the checkpoint in the village community center. It is deserted except for half a dozen mushers sprawled out on the benches along the walls. The checker and the vet have retreated to their bunks elsewhere in town after exhorting us to leave as soon as we can.
Lisa and Andy and I aren’t pleased at the implied kick in the pants; we’re fully a day and a half ahead of last year’s rear-enders and will reach Unalakleet two days ahead of the Friday deadline, even with an average run. Indeed, we have every intention of making it to Nome in time for the awards banquet on Sunday afternoon. We need no urging to try to finish the race in a timely manner, and we don’t appreciate being all but tossed out of town just because we’re the last people in the race.
The Kaltag checkpoint has been located for many years in the log-cabin community center.
All of the other mushers save Lisa and Andy and I plan to leave in the wee hours of the morning; they constitute the rest of the now well-defined back-of-the-pack crowd. The three of us plan to stay no more than six to 12 hours behind them all the way to Nome, but for now we (and I in particular) need a few more hours’ rest. We’re making great time and shouldn’t have any trouble reaching Nome for the big party.
In my years as a volunteer pilot for the race, I made a point of working the back of the pack because I figured those were the people who deserved the most help and support. Many days I was the airborne trail sweep checking on the progress of a driver who was a little overdue or who might have been having problems with his or her team. There was never a shortage of volunteers willing to wait and work with the tail-enders. As long as the mushers were still making an effort to get to Nome, we were going to keep the race open until they got there.
They were chasing their dreams; the last thing we wanted to do was to push someone who looked to be lagging but might really just need some solid support and a friendly face to keep the dream from turning into a nightmare. And after last year, I can honestly say I’ve been there, done that.
Training the dogs to rest at every opportunity is an important part of preparing for the Iditarod. Veterans of the trail to Nome waste little time in making themselves comfortable in checkpoints.
March 13-14, 1996—The Iditarod: Kaltag to Unalakleet (90 miles)
By daylight the snow has mostly stopped and the sun is shining much of the time. This is a pleasant surprise, as is the relatively light dusting we’ve received, barely two or three inches. The first item on my agenda is to find the vet so I can drop Diablo. There’s nothing really wrong with him except he’s started to stage occasional sit-down strikes when he doesn’t like something.
This is partly my fault since I borrowed him only a few weeks before the race and didn’t really have a chance to work him into the team or get to know him. In any case, he’s not mine and I’m not going to try to discipline him as I might one of my own dogs. The last thing I want to do is ruin him for Will Barron, who was gracious enough to loan him to me at the last minute.
Dropping Diablo has focused me even more closely on the remaining 11 dogs. We’re almost a week and a half into the race now, and I’m finally learning how much they love to play games with me. Some of them are getting very good at driving me to distraction as the trip stretches on. The veterans especially know how to keep me wondering what’s really happening.
Getting out of a checkpoint is a perfect example. Unlike the Big Name teams which can usually be seen bounding
and barking to go even at stops far down the trail, moving my mixed bag of lovable mutts often requires a series of mental fencing matches.
For instance, even though they all know we’re getting ready to go when I move along the line to bootie up, most of them won’t even move when I kneel next to them to work on their feet. Some even resist when I start pulling paws into the cold air—just like humans who don’t want to come out from under the covers when the alarm clock goes off.
After I get the booties on, I hook up the tuglines and stand everyone up. Often as not I must physically move a dog off the straw, like turning over a sleepyhead’s bed and dumping him (or her) onto the floor. Regardless, once I get to the back of the team and hook up the wheel dogs and climb on the runners they all know it’s time to go, and that’s when the real fun begins.
Rocky, a classic Malemute-looking 70-pounder with the most laid-back attitude on the team, is one of the best wheel dogs in the state. However, he’s on his sixth Iditarod and knows every trick in the book. Among other things, he eats his harness whenever I don’t get it off in time at a checkpoint; he’s on his third one, which I’ve already had to tie together in two places with parachute cord.
He’s also figured how to get every last second of rest wherever we stop. Until I give the actual command to go he is an inert mass of fur curled on the straw or the snow. Only when I give the “okay” does he bound to his feet and pull as hard as a bulldozer, all within about half a second. I still get questioning looks from bystanders who wonder if I’m just going to start the team and drag him to the next checkpoint.
Bear, another of my big horses, tries the Rocky routine but with his own variation: he actually won’t get up when the team starts. I have to stop even before we get moving and haul him upright by his harness. Then he will go maybe 50 yards and fall down, allowing himself to be dragged like a sack of rice until I stop the team again.
As I walk up to him I can see him watching me out of one eye, pretending to be completely exhausted. Once again I grab his harness and lever him onto his feet, admonishing him about his responsibilities to the team. Then it’s like he’s been reborn. He’s positively jumping to go and pulls for all he’s worth as we move out again. It’s his little game and he gets me to play it every time we leave a checkpoint. I can’t imagine what onlookers must think.
The old and the new rub shoulders in Alaska’s bush villages. Here the modern snowmachines of the trail sweeps are parked next to the old log-built Kaltag town hall, practically in the shadow of the village satellite earth station.
Then there are the “blondes;” every musher has a couple of these. These are the ones who, if they were human, would get stuck on an escalator for two hours if the power went out. They manage to cause more tangles and general mayhem than the rest of the team put together. They like to go visit other dogs in the team and even to go visit other teams if any are handy, regardless of the confusion they cause.
Lisa Moore has at least one of these; her ditzy dog is named Buckethead. Mine are Wild Thing and Maybelline. And not only the ladies qualify for the “blonde” label: Kisser, one of my males, fits the criteria perfectly even though he thinks he’s God’s gift to every female on the trail.
Even when the team is ready to go I can often find the blondes turned around gawking or casually sitting chewing on their toenails. Sometimes it seems I have to send them an engraved invitation to get their attention. When Lisa or I have to stop out on the trail all we have to say to fully explain the situation when the other pulls up is, “Blonde trouble again.”
Lisa says being a blonde is a state of mind; I think it might be a result of having no mind. Indeed, there are times I’m sure if I look in one of Maybelline’s ears I’ll see daylight out the other side. Sometimes I wonder what I’d do with them if they weren’t fast runners—and if they didn’t follow Socks anywhere like schoolgirls with a crush on their teacher.
On the other side of the coin is Silvertip, my wolf and onetime personal pet. He likes to run in the back of the team where he can be near me and if I put him up front he spends most of his time looking back to see if I’m still there. When we’re preparing to move out he’s not only up and ready, he’s jumping up and down and jerking the sled and howling to go. He pops his tugline so hard I’m worried it might break.
He’s so big and strong he sometimes pulls the hook all by himself. When I stop out on the trail I have to be careful to securely anchor the sled because he’ll yank the hook when I least want him to. I only wish he would keep pulling with such enthusiasm after we’re 20 or 30 miles down the trail, when he starts to goof off and I have to stay on his case to remind him he’s working for a living these days.
And then there’s Socks. He’s the consummate leader who has pulled out of so many checkpoints over half a dozen Iditarods and Lord knows how many shorter races I think by now he does it in his sleep. Like Rocky, he’s basically an inanimate object until it’s time to stand up.
But he’s got a built-in “go” switch that automatically activates whenever I step on the runners. It doesn’t matter whether the rest of the team is ready or not, or who’s playing games or looking the other way: Socks goes. And he’s big enough (a healthy 60 pounds and strong as an ox) to drag the whole team if he has to, which is sometimes the case. But with Socks up front we always move out, even if we have a few fits and starts as things get worked out.
Of course, Socks has to make his one, defining gesture to remind me he’s actually running this show: he will always wait until we’re a half-mile out on the trail and will then simply stop and unconcernedly relieve himself. I think he likes it even more if I’m shouting at him at the top of my lungs for stopping in the middle of the trail or coming down a hill. When he’s quite finished, he’ll look back at me as if to say, “This is how we do things in MY team—any questions?” And then we’ll be off for a steady run of 50 or 100 miles.
I think any musher will admit sometimes you’re not sure exactly who’s running the team. But when you’ve got a foreman like Socks you’re more than willing to put up with a few quirks, especially if he keeps order in the rest of mobile zoo in front of the sled.
This morning as I get ready to pull out, the checker and some of the local kids are cleaning up the straw piles from a week’s worth of teams and the janitor is sweeping out the community center where we were sleeping only a few hours ago. There’s little doubt the race is a closed book here and I’m starting to feel like a footnote.
Andy departs a half-hour ahead of Lisa and me, and Lisa passes me within a mile after we leave town. I’m also overtaken by the trail sweeps on their high-powered snowmachines pulling heavy sleds, who will certainly play a more prominent role in the race for us if the weather turns bad on the coast.
Slim and his crew are old pros at shepherding tail-enders up the trail and it’s good to know they’ll be around if anything really serious blows up. Of course, they still can’t offer any assistance to mushers which is prohibited in the rules, but they can certainly help in other ways no less important or effective. More than a few back-of-the-packers over the years owe the trail sweeps a debt of gratitude.
One of the benefits of running behind the trail sweeps is their big machines and sleds act as first-rate groomers, especially when there’s enough fresh snow to resurface the chewed-up trail. I can’t complain about the trail condition today as my guys pull steadily through the thick forest and occasional open meadows up the 15-mile incline to the 800-foot summit of the Kaltag Portage. The only problem is the bright sun, which heats up the dogs’ dark coats and necessitates frequent brief cooling stops.
When we reach the summit a few hours later we take a break. The panorama down the long, straight valley stretching away to the southwest is impressive. I’m far from the first dog driver to see this view. This portage has been used for thousands of years as a route linking the great interior highway of the Yukon River and the coast, with its rich bounty of marine resources.
Dog teams
have probably been traveling through here for a millennium or more; non-Native mushers—and the Iditarod Trail—are very late arrivals in this part of the world. Indeed, our goal of Unalakleet at the western end of the portage has been continuously inhabited for at least 2,000 years, as have several of the coastal villages through which the race runs.
My immediate goal is the Tripod Flats shelter cabin, 35 miles from Kaltag. It and another cabin at Old Woman, 50 miles out, are commonly used by mushers, snowmachiners, and hunters. They are useful progress checks on this third longest leg of the race, and if the snow flurries I see drifting in over the mountains from the south get much heavier the cabins may be welcome refuges.
As we move slowly down the valley the snow is occasionally heavy but the showers are moving quickly and the sun still dominates the scene. However, I don’t like the idea of a south wind in this area because it often portends a storm. The weather out here is notoriously—and all too often fatally—fickle. No one takes it for granted.
Flying for the race I’ve been caught numerous times by fast-moving fronts in this area. In 1991 I flew over Kazuo Kojima barely 10 miles east of Unalakleet as he was making good time across the tundra in the warm afternoon sunshine. Within an hour a major storm roared in from the southwest and Kazuo didn’t stagger into the checkpoint for six uncertain hours, having been all but trapped by high winds and heavy drifting snow virtually within sight of town.
And during that hour’s lull before the storm I flew up to Shaktoolik to pick up some dropped dogs and very nearly flipped my airplane in unexpected winds gusting to 70 knots. The storm lasted for three days and temporarily shut down the race. In short, I—and a lot of other people—don’t trust the weather out here any farther than we can see it, and even then we’re not always sure.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 41