Owooooo!
It was 12 a.m., and Kevin and I had just left the Big Yentna Crossing cabin. I was rolling along after Kevin down a narrow trail with dense black spruce on both sides while admiring some really large and fresh wolf tracks in the trail, when I was suddenly surrounded by an amazingly loud noise. At first I thought it was a snowmachine, come upon me all of sudden, until my brain finally processed it as wolves howling on each side of the trail, very close and very loud. Kevin later described it as biking into a big mushing dog yard — howling all around us, loud and close.
“Kevin don’t leave me!!” I yelled, high-pitched and panicked, having visions of the wolves, judging me to be the slow fat one, picking me off as Kevin zoomed off. Fortunately Kevin slowed down, turned around, and waited for me. After lots of yelling, the howling moved further away. I think the wolves were as surprised as we were, and freaked out when we biked by their cozy, snug sleeping spots along the trail. It was possible Kevin was more worried about my shrieking than about the wolves.. On the upside, I didn’t need coffee for the rest of the night.
This is the second part of a three part post – the first one can be found here.
The Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI), at least for the Nome-bound folks anyway, has two parts: the “short” race to McGrath, followed by the “long” race to Nome. McGrath is always a bit of a madhouse. Tracy and Peter open up their home, serving endless quantities of yummy food. People are constantly finishing, and at times every surface is covered people either sleeping or eating. For the folks heading to Nome, it can be really hard to get organized enough to leave, and then actually leave. Heading out and leaving all that company, food, and comfort behind is pretty hard. The last two years I have been in a big hurry to escape from McGrath and hit the trail, both to escape the vortex of comfort Tracy’s and Peter’s house is, and to get on the trail before wind and snow erase it.
This year things were a bit different. “Traditionally” — that is what the old timers say — the Southern Route doesn’t get any traffic before the Iditarod trail-breakers pass though. Alas, when I finished in McGrath the dog race hadn’t even started yet, so the trail-breakers were days away from coming through. So, I was working on the assumption there wasn’t any trail between Ophir and Shageluk.
When I arrived in McGrath, Jay P, Phil H, and Kevin B were all there, thinking about heading out on the trail to Nome. Local trail info was a bit mixed. Apparently some “Antler Traders” had passed through a week before, and a month or so prior, the trail-breakers had done a bunch of work on the trail, so there was a chance of a trail after Ophir. Billy Koitzsch of the Iditasport (a similar race held a week earlier) was planning on breaking trail for his group, but it didn’t sound like his group was heading out immediately.
After getting some sleep, Kevin and I wandered around McGrath, chatting with locals and trying to figure out the trail situation. We ended up chatting a bunch with Billy, and it was great to get some background on his event, and to learn more about his vision for his event.
While looking for Billy we bumped into Jan Kriska, the walker whose sled I had followed for so many miles from the Innoko river to Ruby. Jan is a great guy, and it was wonderful to meet him finally. Jan had a really hard race last year, and had to end his race in Ruby, short of Nome, but was back at it again this year, hoping to make it to Nome.
We got a lot of mixed info, and when we headed back to Tracy’s and Peter’s it was clear we were not going to get any real details on what the trail was like. Fortunately, Jay P was all fired up to head out, and was trying to roust the rest of the Nome-bound folks to head out. I felt a bit bad, but I tried to make it very clear I wasn’t in a huge hurry to push my bike all the way to Shageluk, then up the Yukon. Phil seemed game though, and in the morning he and Jay P headed out.
Later I headed out to check on their trail, and was amused that they both took a wrong turn right out of the town. By afternoon it was pretty clear they had a trail all the way to Ophir, and by evening it looked like they were making good time after that, so Kevin and I decided to head out early in the am. I got all packed up, and ready to go, and in not so early am we headed out.
The race in McGrath was in a bit of a panic when we left; a foot racer’s gear had been seen minus the racer, and everyone was trying madly to figure out how to rescue him. It was hard leaving on such a down note, and I didn’t find out what happened to the racer until Graying.
It felt awesome to leave town. Kevin and I headed out together, and slowly made our way to the small town of Takotna. Just outside town, Kevin stopped to answer the call of nature, and I continued on to give him a bit of privacy, but soon bumped into a Takotna local heading to McGrath to replace a shock on his snowmachine. I chatted with him for a bit, talking about life, then mentioned that Kevin was using the bushes a little ways down the trail. He found that pretty funny, and shouted “Hurry up”, to which a faint “I am trying!” came back up the trail from Kevin.
The trail past Takotna was pretty good, and got a bit better just outside Ophir.
We stopped and chatted a bit with some folks at the Iditarod checkpoint, then continued on. At the Ophir runway a Super Cub landed, taxied over to us, then powered down, and the pilot got out to chat. It turns out it was “Manny”, a pilot from McGrath flying our drop bags out to Iditarod, who saw us and stopped to say hi and see how we were doing.
Alas, it looked like Phil and Jay might be outriding their drop bags. We rode into the night to arrive at the first shelter cabin on the Southern Route. It was fantastic to be on new trail, and it was finally starting to feel like I was on a real adventure, heading out into the unknown — hurrah!
Kevin and I spent the night at the Tolstoi Headwaters Safety Cabin, an awesome little White Mountains-esque cabin. In the early morning we headed out, hoping to make it to Iditarod, where we hoped we could spend the night.
This section of the Southern Route was awesome: huge views, beautiful valleys, and trail that was mostly in pretty good shape. I had been told the Iditarod folks refer to this section as “the desert” — devoid of life and empty. I found it scenic and beautiful, though. Near one of the open sections I found a piece of lath from the last Iditarod race, in 2013.
It is amazing a little piece of lath could survive 5 years!
At Dishna Creek we saw our first signs of human use since Ophir, besides a few martin sets along the trail. There was a new-looking steel cable stretched across the creek, about 10ft up in the air, and the trail diverged a bit, with tracks going up river and down river. The main trail was easy to follow, though.
Coming down the one of hills into First Chance Creek, the trail went from awesome to complete churned mashed potatoes. It looked like a big herd of caribou or bison (Kevin’s theory) had run down it, tearing the trail to shreds. After a mile or so the how and why became clear: some wolves had chased them down the trail, hoping to pick off one of them for dinner. The animal tracks were over Phil and Jay’s tracks and still pretty soft, meaning it had happened fairly recently. A good reminder we were not alone out there and this “desert” wasn’t as empty as we had been told.
We arrived at the Moose Creek shelter cabin, 17 miles or so before Iditarod, after a couple of hours of post-holing around a huge open field.
The folks making the trail appeared to have gotten lost, and veered away from the Iditarod trail markers into a wide open area with deep snow, making loops until winding back up to the actual trail and to the cabin. The cabin was in great shape, and Kevin and I enjoyed an early dinner before heading down the trail again. Alas, it soon started snowing, the wind picked up, and the trail got very punchy, so the last few miles took forever.
We arrived at Iditarod at near midnight, and quickly found our drop bags near the trail, then tried to see if we could find a place to crash in the cabins at Iditarod. Alas, we ended up waking up some of the Iditarod checkpoint staff, but they seemed friendly, and quickly got us settled in the “mushers” cabin, and in the morning they made us breakfast. It turned out the older fellow in charge had met Kevin at a party in Unalakleet the year before, after he had scratched, and had convinced Kevin to do it again rather than just riding the section he had missed. We ended up talking a lot longer than we probably should have, and much to my amusement they started trying to recruit us to volunteer to staff the checkpoint next year. Initially I thought they were joking, but then one of them came and found us just before we headed out and got our contact info, so I think they were quite serious. I felt pretty guilty; we had woken some of them up in the middle of the night, and then we had eaten their food, and yet somehow they still decided we would make good checkpoint helpers.
Leaving Iditarod, I was pumped up on a full belly and positive vibes from the cheerful Iditarod folks.
The next section of trail was awesome fun. The trail wound through a surprisingly thick spruce forest, over big open ridgetops, and across a few small creeks.
A few of the high ridges were blown completely in, and finding the trail was a bit tricky, but doable.
Kevin and I arrived at the Big Yentna shelter cabin at around 7pm, and I suggested we crash there and head out at midnight, so we could arrive into the next town, Shageluk, at a reasonable hour. Kevin agreed, and we crashed in the cabin, enjoying a few hours of sleep before heading out into the dark. The Big Yentna cabin was my favorite cabin on the southern route. It seemed a bit bigger, and has a huge barrel stove that heated the cabin up quickly. It also had a radio, which I turned on, excited to hear about the outside world. The Russian language newscast that came out was a big surprise though, and I quickly turned it off, heading to bed with visions of a Russian sleeper cell hanging out in the cabin, waiting to pull off some epic caper.
In the morning we headed out, Kevin riding a bit in front of me. It had snowed a quarter inch or so, just a dusting of snow, and there was a set of big wolf tracks heading down the trail as it wound through a dense spruce forest.
“Hmm, those look fresh,” I thought to myself as we rode down the trail. Shortly after that, there was a tremendous noise all around us, and it took a while for my brain to register it was wolves howling. I think we had just biked into a pack of wolves bedded down on each side of the trail, and they were not happy to be woken up. I freaked out, and screamed like a little girl, worried Kevin would bolt down the trail, leaving me to be devoured by grumpy hungry wolves.
Fortunately Kevin is a nice guy and waited for me, and we started yelling, and the howling quickly drifted further off. Eventually we could tell they were a ridge away, safely away, and we continued down the trail, pumped up on the excitement of the wolf encounter.
Nearing Shageluk we could see the lights of town, taunting us, but the trail dumped us out onto some bare ice on the Innoko river a few miles out of town, and finding the right trail into town took a while. Soon, though, we made it to town, and were soon biking on firm packed trails, wandering through town trying to find Lee Wolvershine, who runs a small bed and breakfast and who we were hoping to stay with. Folks were friendly though, and quickly pointed us to her house, and we were back in civilization again — hurrah!
Next up, Nome!
