Iditarod 2007 - Chasing my Dreams

Monday, April 02, 2007

Iditarod Part 2: Willow to Rohn


We left Willow at 4:30 in 76th place. The first checkpoint, Yentna, is 42 miles from Willow and it was a fairly uneventful run. The first 20 miles were filled with people having barbeques, bonfires, and all the while throwing food (and even beer!) in our sleds as we zoomed by. The temperature was warm when we started, so the dogs were biting snow as we went, but the mercury quickly dropped as the sun snuck behind the tree covered landscape. The last 2 hours were in the dark, but the constant snowmachine traffic lit up the trail almost the entire time.
Yentna was a zoo. Teams had been coming and going for 3 hours by the time I got there, and there were still several behind me. Many mushers decide to go right through Yentna and rest at the next checkpoint; however, since I had young dogs I pulled them over and forced them to chill out for a bit and take a little rest. They were not ready for a rest; 81 other teams and the new trail had put dynamite behind their urge to continue running, but this rest was important. Nome was a long ways away, to say the least. I stayed for 6 hours, of which no rest was to be had for myself. It was quite windy, and as I would find out, I wouldn’t get out of the wind for several days.
The next checkpoint is Skwentna, another 30-35 miles down the trail. This section of trail was fairly easy, all on river systems. I did do a complete 360 with the team at one point, however, due to the dogs taking a wrong turn (my fault completely). Other than this and a strong wind in our face, it was an easy run. The hardest part, in fact, was staying awake. After 24 hours of constant excitement, my body was ready for a rest. We pulled into Skwentna at about 7:00 AM and put some straw down for a well deserved rest.
I stayed 8 hours before I pulled the hook mid-afternoon. Again, I got little rest at the checkpoint, but the rest I got was good none-the-less. I dropped one dog in Skwentna due to an elevated temperature and lacking desire to eat. I was down to 15 dogs, but these 15 were raring to go. The temperature was a little warm for the dogs, but we twisted and turned through the shadows of the trees, so it wasn’t too bad.
Again, it was about 35 miles to Finger Lake, the next checkpoint. And yet again, it was very windy. The trail was filled with moguls, caused by the 2,000 mile snowmachine race that follows the Iditarod trail that is run mid-February each year. This caused a few tips of the sled, but it was no big deal and we pulled into Finger Lake around 8:00 PM. The plan at this checkpoint was to give them a good long break and leave early in the morning for the notorious run to Rainy Pass. And we did just that. We were sheltered from the wind, and after a great Mexican meal prepared by the cook at the Finger Lake Lodge, I got a solid 5 hour sleep in the little wall tent they had sitting on the lake for us.
Amazingly, I felt very refreshed, as did the dogs, and we were ready to roll around 5:30 AM. The temperature was fairly chilly for us wimpy humans (well below zero), but it was perfect for the dogs. We cruised out of Finger Lake, and we quickly realized the wind had not backed off yet. It is again around 35 miles from Finger Lake to Rainy Pass, but it is 35 miles of adrenaline, sled-tipping, tree-crashing, roller-coaster ride. No joke. I have never tipped as many times on one run as I did on this 4.5 hour run. This is the section where Doug Swingley, a four time Iditarod champion, broke a few ribs, and Deedee Jonrow, a long-time veteran, broke her hand.
The trail was almost entirely through thick woods and is constantly either steep up hills or down hills. Luckily, there was good snow cover through this section, which helped matters some. However, over 60 teams had already gone in front of me on the section. This means that there was a brake groove going down every hill, and this makes keeping the sled under control for us back-of-the-packers very difficult. We pulled into the Rainy Pass checkpoint (very happy to be there) with happy dogs and only a few broken pieces on the sled. It was extremely windy at the checkpoint, which is on Puntilla Lake, and by the number of teams parked on the lake, I could tell something was up.
From the Rainy Pass checkpoint, the trail winds upwards for about 10 miles to the highest point in the race, Rainy Pass proper, located at about 3,100 feet. This means that what was windy on Puntilla Lake, was an all out wind storm at Rainy Pass. Several mushers had left earlier that morning, but had had to turn back because of an inability to see the trail. My original plan was to stay 8 hours in Rainy Pass before we tackled the infamous Dalzel Gorge, but it was obvious we had to wait until the wind died down at least a little.
How long did this take? Well, we ended up staying 17 hours in this checkpoint located amongst the striking mountains of the Alaska Range. But I was not the only one; about 20 mushers spent the night crammed into a 1 room log cabin. I left around 5:30 AM with a couple other mushers. The wind was almost calm on the lake, but within 20 minutes we were being blown with gale-force winds. It was incredible, even scary at points. I put my two most experienced leaders up front, and let them do there thing. There was nothing that I could tell them to help, they knew what to do.
From Rainy Pass on, the trail, for the most part, was lacking snow. On this particular stretch, the trail was blown free of snow for much of the way. We traveled from marker to marker, hoping that at any moment we would head downhill into the safety of the trees. Eventually we did, but it was on a steep ride through the Dalzel Gorge. Steep, little snow, and even tighter trees than the ride to Rainy Pass, but it was much shorter and I thought easier overall. After exiting the Dalzel Gorge, I held on as we crossed and recrossed the Dalzel Creek many times over narrow ice bridges.
Finally, we flew out onto a wide river, and it was obvious the hardest of the trail was over. Or so I thought… before we earned our right to rest in Rohn, we had to cross several miles of glare ice with a strong side wind. Glare ice is slick ice with NO snow on top. If dogs are used to it and there is no side wind, it’s no big deal. But we had both to deal with. My young pups had never seen glare ice and the side wind wanted to blow my sled clear across the river into the trees. To keep a long story short, we did several circles around the river before I finally found the right leaders to bring us to the safety of land several miles later. From there, it was an easy run into the heavenly Rohn checkpoint.
The Rohn checkpoint is a small one-room cabin, which was built in the 1930’s, situated in a mature spruce forest. This spot brought to our first wind-sheltered rest of the race. It felt like heaven on earth, and everyone was very happy to be there. We had traveled only 250 miles, but it was the toughest trail we would face and we had crossed the Alaskan Range successfully. But there was still a very long ways to go, and there was no letting up here.
To be continued soon!!!

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