(This blog post is way late, from late February of 2022, I am just way behind on writing anything.)
In 2021 it seemed like I didn’t do anything interesting. Living in a mixed-generational setting made COVID more high risk for those around me… limiting travel and lots of other fun things. It wasn’t a huge deal in the scheme of things – I was healthy, my family was healthy, and I was employed, but I was feeling “under adventured”. In the late spring of 2021 the Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) signups opened up, and on a lark, I signed up for McGrath. The ride to McGrath is simple, with minimal logistics, and if nothing else happened all winter fun-wise it would give me something to focus on and an adventure of a sort. And so, on a late February afternoon, I found myself at Knik lake again getting ready to ride to McGrath.
I have mixed thoughts about the ITI these days. Perhaps I am getting a bit old and becoming an old fart, grumpily muttering about things that are not the way they used to be. I was not excited to see the organizers had added a stop at “Butterfly Lake” in the first 30 miles of the race – it really seems to me that the ITI is pretty uninteresting until after Skwentna – otherwise it is just river and swamp on fairly well-traveled trails, but now with some extra mileage though the outskirts of Big Lake. It wasn’t a lot of mileage though, so I figured it would just be a few extra hours and it would be over – no big deal.
Zooming along with Aaron W a few hours in…
In the weeks before the race started the organizers sent out an “athletes’ guide” as they call it – and I was pleasantly surprised. There were lots of small changes in how the Nome-bound part was presented that I really appreciated and were, from my POV, very well done. The Nome-bound race after McGrath, to me, is mostly an unsupported bike, walking, or skiing trip. Besides the flown-in drop the ITI provides, mostly they are providing a list of contacts for the stops along the way, and it is up to the racers to do their own logistics and to behave themselves. The “behave themselves“ part has been historically a bit problematic. These communities are small, disadvantaged, and pretty isolated. The ITI racers passing through really stick out, and I think the guide does a much better job of pointing out to the racers that how they interact with the communities will affect how the racers behind them are treated, possibly for years to come. I am still quite impressed by how much time and thought they put into the guide.
The start was chaotic as usual, with people taking off in all kinds of directions across the lake, then folks riding too fast and too slow on the narrow trails just after crossing Knik Lake.
The first few miles zoomed by, and soon I was at the turn I normally took to a road, but instead I went straight and boom, I was on new trails – yay!
The new trails were quite a change – neat, narrowish, and well-used, with little rolling hills. A nice change from the road I normally took. Eventually, I hit the railroad bed, and slowly spun along on some softer trail. Just as the trail was firming up, there was a loud crack and my bike suddenly got all floppy.
Much to my sadness I soon realized that I had cracked the seatpost, and my seat was now in a mostly reclined position. Yuck. My bike had been making creaking noises, and I guess I just finally figured out where they were coming from. I texted my brother John who lives in Wasilla, and a musher friend, Andy P, who lives nearby, but no one had a seatpost that would fit. Double sigh. I texted my wife Nancy who would see about getting me a post sent to one of the checkpoints and posted a photo with a note to Facebook in the off chance someone in the greater neighborhood had a post.
I decided to push to the next road crossing, where I ran into a friend of a friend who let me raid their toolbox to strap random tools to the post in hopes of splinting it up.
Helper Dog helps..
That got me a bit further, but the post eventually was so floppy it was just riding on my sleeping bag roll on top of my rear rack. Eventually, I was forced to just walk my bike whenever there was anything soft, and stand up and pedal everywhere else. I was so slow it felt like everyone had passed me. Eventually, even a skier passed me!
One eternity later I made it to Butterfly Lake, where the owner of Fatback cycles, Greg Matyas, was helping run the checkpoint. He whittled a piece of firewood, while I was talking too much and probably sounding like a lunatic, telling me it wouldn’t be a problem, I could ride to McGrath with the fix! He also got my wife Nancy in touch with someone from his bike shop who would see about getting a post sent out to one of the checkpoints. Thanks, Greg!
I was in a bit of an odd frame of mind. While breaking the seatpost was bad, I was feeling a bit like it was very much a “first world problem”. The war in Ukraine had just started and was very much on my mind. Europe had always seemed to me to be a very civilized place, and it was hard to imagine there was a big land war happening right there. While Ukraine is far away, it is near too – there is a sizable Ukrainian immigrant population in my hometown of Fairbanks. On most mornings I pass a Ukraine immigrant janitor busily cleaning the entryway as I enter my work building. The nearby town of Delta has a large Ukrainian immigrant population (ironically referred to as the “Russians” by most people), and the grocery store (the IGA) has a neat selection of unusual eastern European food my family always stops to check out when we pass through. Growing up in rural Alaska in the 80s the threat of the Russians invading was this sort of an ever-present thing in a small but vocal minority. In 2017 when riding to Nome I stayed with a local teacher who ended a lot of his rants about things going downhill, not working, or just being not quite right with “And then we will all speak Russian!” So while my seat post was broken, at least I wasn’t being bombed. I left Butterfly Lake, and a few miles later the seatpost repair failed, and the post snapped completely, and that was that. From then on I rode standing up, which was an interesting experience. It was super fast, but my legs and knees hurt so much. By the time I made it to the second checkpoint Nancy had let me know I was getting a post on the “mail plane” to Skwenta the following morning, so I just had to make it there, and things would be fine. I arrived in Skwentna in the evening, had a ton to eat, then slept through the night, and in the morning I had a post!
Yay! I swapped out the seat, and was back in business – hurrah! At this point, I should give a huge thank you to Cindy at Skweena, Nancy, Cynthia from the ITI who took the post from the bike shop to the plane, and Pete Baysinger who told Nancy about the mail plane. Thanks, everyone!
The rest of the ride to McGrath was fun, with great weather, mostly a really fast trail, and my legs kept feeling better and better each day. It was odd – after riding so much standing up my legs and knees actually started feeling a bit better each day rather than feeling worse like they had in the past. I took a bit of the new ice road from Shell to Finger Lake, and a bit more of it to the steps, and was sad to find out I could have taken it the whole way from Skwenta to Helicopter Lake. And even more sad to see the trail up off the Happy River steps was now a road.
I could have driven my Impreza up it, it was so hard, flat, and firm. A bit of a bummer, as while it was easier, it was way less scenic, with a neat single track through the trees replaced with a wide open road. I feel bad for the Winter Lake Lodge operators, as the ice road is visible from the deck of their lodge. Quite a treat for the guests…
It wasn’t all happiness – there was a tiny bit of pushing my bike.
Almost to Rainy Pass Lodge!
On the upside, the checkpoint at Finger Lake now had unlimited burritos (I even took one with me – yay!!) and Rainy Pass Lodge had a wonderful new cabin for us, with lots of bunks – a new stove, power, and bright lights! Spacious luxury, no more drafty cabin cluttered with the heads of African game animals haphazardly decorating the walls.
The ride from Rainy Pass lodge to Rohn was the most fun I have ever had on the Iditarod trail – it was clear, sunny, and calm, with amazing views. The trail was chewed up with footprints, but semi-rideable, but that just gave me more time to enjoy the scenery. So nice!
In Rohn, I enjoyed delicious soup and brats and kept everyone up chatting for way longer than I should have (sorry Petr!), then I left for Nikolia.
Petr sleeping on the trail. Alas, I woke him up, after keeping him up talking too much. I felt pretty bad about it afterwords..
Somewhere after the Fairwell lakes the bumps started.
The Iron Dog racers use a race tactic that involves digging trenches with their tracks to slow down racers behind them. I hadn’t really seen it besides in the treed sections from Ophir to Poorman, after McGrath. This year it was really trenched up wherever the trail was in the trees and narrowish (so where the trenches would be hard to avoid for the Iron Dog racers and thus most effective for slowing down racers behind them) from the Fairwell area to 10 miles out of Nikolai. So. Many. Bumps!
Trench-tastic!
It must have been very warm when the Iron Dog racers passed through and then refrozen, as the trail was rock hard. Iron hard. I could ride pretty fast so long as I stayed in the “ski” part of the track, and not the trench part, but I had a few hard crashes where branches caught me. Riding in the trench was hard, with constant deep drops followed by steep climbs out.
Irondog leftovers… The bumps doing their job, slowing down the folks behind, ha!
At one point I walked around a moose in the trail and was able to go completely around it walking on top of a really firm crust on top of the snow. Amazing! I spent a bunch of time thinking about the mushers who were going to be traveling this in a few days – I hope they were warned!
Fata Morgana..
Manditory Sullivan Creek bike selfie!
Nikolai arrived, and I got a burger and a bit of sleep then headed out again to McGrath.
Looking back at Denali
I was crushed when I arrived in McGrath to see a biker I know from Fairbanks showered and fresh-looking when I was positive he was lying asleep under a table when I left Nikolai. How could I be so slow and out of it that he passed me without me noticing and was so far ahead of me? I was crushed! Fortunately, it turned out I was confused, and it was someone else under the table, and he had left Nikolai hours ahead of me. It was also great to finally catch up with Kevin B, whom I had ridden a lot with to Nome in 2018. He’s a local Fairbanks super-biker. He had an ORV accident in McGrath a year and a half ago, crushed one of his legs, and had a long slow recovery. It was great to see him back on his feet and kicking butt! He had an awesome ride, and finished a day ahead of me! The finish was in a new location, a lodge that is slowly transitioning to an operating state. It was quite a change from Tracy and Peter’s, and I missed their good cheer, but it had its advantages – it has a little coffee shop with actual good espresso! I had a really good latte, hurrah! After a bit of food etc, I was on a plane heading back to Anchorage, where I spent the night in a fancy hotel, back in civilization. Yay!
Leaving McGrath
This year’s ITI really left me so much happier with the event – I had so much fun even with a broken seat post. I think the event is evolving a bit for the better, which was great! Even the new stop at Butterfly Lake is a bit of an improvement, with a bit less road, and less swamp. I left much happier about life, with a good fun adventure under the belt, and a post-trip positive buzz that lasted for a solid month. Yay!
I would like to thank my family for letting me disappear for a week, Nancy for helping me get a new seat post (Nancy you rock!), and Cynthia and Kyle the organizers of the ITI for putting on an ever-improving event (your work is really appreciated!). Cynthia in particular took the time to pick up a seat post from Speedway and get it to the mail plane – that is way, way beyond anything I expected, and I really appreciate it! I would also like to thank Cindy at Skwentna for helping Nancy connect with the folks running the mail plane, and Pete Baysinger for pointing out to Nancy that she could get me it that way. Thanks, everyone!
Bob and I were packing up on the side of Caribou Creek, looking forward to the last 15 to 17 miles of hiking to the finish. A super cub flew over us, then came back to fly circles fairly low right above us as we got ready for our final hike, packing up our boats and our floating stuff. It kept flying circles above us, and Bob and I gave them several thumbs up to make sure they knew we were ok. Oddly, they kept circling above us. As we got ready to go we speculated what they were doing:
“Maybe looking for someone’s boat?”
“Maybe someone is lost and they are looking for them?”
“You sure your Inreach didn’t go off?”
When we packed up, and hit the trail, we soon figured out why they were circling – we had taken out a few miles early on the wrong trail. It was marked clearly on our GPS – very obviously. Had I actually checked I would have known we were taking out at the wrong spot. There was a connector, but that turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated. We finally reached the trail we should have taken out at, over two muddy hours later. Sigh.
So, this post is a bit wordy – it is hard to condense this experience down to something short and pithy, and that is of course beyond my writing skills, so to feel free to skip to the end to just look at photos.
The Alaska Wilderness Summer Classic is a point to point human powered event. It is now in its 40th year, and the last year for the current route, which is from the Cantwell area to Sheep Mountain Lodge near Eureka. It switches every three years normally. Last year Tom and I did a mostly overland route, and I was really looking forward to taking a boat and getting some floating in this year. Alas, my normal partner, Tom, had back issues that were looking like they would be severe enough to require surgery, so he was out.
Note – Tom ended up needing surgery, and finally got the operation done the week before the classic, and is recovering fine.
I am too big of a wimp to do the whole route by myself. Besides the extra safety factor, although I am not a people person, that much time without any people seems like it would be a bit beyond me. Fortunately Bobby Gillis said he was interested in doing it with me, and so it was a go! Yay! One problem is that Bob walks faster than me and is considerably more hardcore, so I was pretty worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
The evening before the start, everyone met up at the start, attended a mellow pre-event chat, then camped on the side of the road. The next morning everyone gathered up, everyone fiddled around a bit, then took a photo and we were off!
The first few hours flew by. I was pretty worried, as it didn’t take Bob too long before he was poking me about walking slowly. After I tried to speed up he didn’t poke me again – hard to say if I actually walked faster or he just gave up on me.
At one point I had to stop to re-adjust my pack. I have one of those super trendy Hyperlite Mountain Gear packs that everyone loves, and while I mostly love it, it is a bit too floppy for really long days with loads over 30lbs for me, and I always seem to be brought up short at some point with an excruciating shoulder neck pain. I think this is my last trip with over 30lbs in that pack. I quickly repacked my pack to move everything of any weight right up against my back and things seemed better. I also took out the trekking poles I had been carrying, and unfolded them, only to discover the connecting part on one of them had been pushed down into the body of the pole. I break poles fairly regularly and these were one of a set I had bought to replace another pole I had broken, and for the classic I brought the unused one as I assumed it would reduce the chance of breaking – but now I was going to carry a broken pole for another 100 miles – arrg! When we got walking again I was pretty irritated, but happy my shoulder muscles were not killing me. Thirty miles later I broke my other pole, leaving me to carry two broken pole, sigh.
It was much hotter than I expected, and I was having a hard time staying hydrated. I had brought chlorine dioxide tablets, which treated a quart at a time but required 20 minutes of waiting. For pretty much the whole way I was filling up whenever I had a chance, tossing a pill in, waiting anxiously for the 20 minutes to go by, then chugging. If I had been thinking more clearly I would have brought the uv wand for faster treating and to carry less water.
It was hot enough that Bob was worried that his bacon would go bad, and he offered some, which I took “some” as most, and nearly choked myself to death cramming a huge wad of it into my mouth. I survived, but Bob didn’t offer me any more food.
Near the headwaters of the Jack we saw a huge group of people on the other side of the valley that looked oddly well organized – everyone was in a line, and their tents were in a pattern. We were later to find out they were a NOLS group on a several week trip.
As the hours zipped by, we gradually made our way up the Jack River, and down to Tsusena Creek, where we passed the leaders, Matt, John, and Brian, blowing up their boats. The water looked pretty thin, so Bob and I kept walking, waiting for another tributary to come in before putting in and floating. The creek was a bit low on water, but the floating was non-threatening and bouncy at times. It was much faster and more fun than walking along it like I did with Tom the year before. I only have a few landmarks to watch for along the creek, and was in constant searching for the tree stand Tom and I had walked by. It was hours before we passed it. I think Bob quickly got sick of me constantly looking for it, and mistaking various bushes for it.
A few hours into our float, well past the point where we dropped back into the treeline, Bob was slightly ahead of me, and just ahead of us on the river’s left there was a huge brown bear, with its head in the water, big butt up and facing towards us. After I realized Bob had not seen it yet, I started to panic, worried we would float right into it, surprise the bear, and have it bounce us around like beach toys. After much panicking I finally got Bob’s attention, and we pulled over, only to discover it had wandered off. Yay! This was the first of several bear miscommunications – apparently I just suck at communicating. We continued floating until we finally took out just after the sunset, cold and wet. As we packed, up the “leaders” – Matt, Brian, and John – floated by us. We had been in the lead for the whole float – yay! Apparently walking instead of floating had been a good call.
Bob and I packed up, hiked over to the Tsusena Lake, floated across the lake in the dark, arriving at the far shore where I staggered off to find a place to camp for a few hours. Morning came too soon, and we were off again, hiking over to Deadman Creek.
At one point my watch warned me that I should get more sleep and my recovery would be reduced. Hah, if only! The next few miles were a slog. We tried the direct route and that didn’t work as well as we hoped – there was lots of not so good walking, and brush. We did hear another group at some point, and Bob saw them briefly, and they seemed to be moving much faster. We made it down to the Susitna, where we inflated, crossed, then hiked up out of the river valley in the boiling hot sun. I don’t do well in the heat, and I was hammering down water. It was quite a contrast to last year with warm nights and hot days.
As we hiked up Fog Creek we saw two groups in the distance behind us, which we assumed were other AWMC people, but they were traveling slowly and soon dropped out of sight. In retrospect it is possible they were another group? In the early hours of the morning we camped just above Tsisi Creek.
The next day we hiked over to Kosina and there our route diverged from the route I took last year, and we headed up river.
The internet has said the Kosina was great walking – and there was some wonderful walking in there, but while there was some good walking, but a lot of trudging through wet swamp.
Unfortunately Bob’s knee was starting to give him trouble, and by the time we made it to the second tallest pass of our route it was starting to look like things might be over.
After several rounds of inreaching, we decided to give it some rest, and set up camp near the top of the pass looking down on the Black River, far below us. The advice relayed via the inreach from the marvous Dr Leistikow, my wife Nancy, and Bob’s partner Lee (who is a nurse) said to tape it and rest it. Bob taped up his knee, and then we went to bed, planning to sleep in, and hopefully all would be well in the morning. Just as I tucked into my tent it started raining, and I invited Bob into the vestibule.
An ode to my tent – a sidebar. Fifteen years ago when the twins were tiny, I looked around for small, light tents that would fit all four of us, and found a Tarptent Rainshadow 2 – an under 2 lbs tent for three adults. Our family used it until the twins got too big for it, then moving on, but I liked the designs of the Tarptents enough so I got another one, the “Moment ”, a single person tent. This summer, I noticed Tarptent was making a tent that was just 17oz – the Aeon Li and it looked like I could fit into it – yay! It was expensive, but I figured in the classic I would get at least a few nights out of it, so it could be worth it so I bought one. I figured four nights in it would cost about the same as a cheap hotel.. I am glad I did – it isn’t quite as roomy as the Moment, but it is fast to set up, roomy enough, and has a wonderfully large vestibule that fits Bob in a pinch. A lot of other folks use plastic bags, tarps, or bivvies, or other small sack like options in the classic, but I just don’t think it is worth it – saving a few ounces and being unable to sleep due to bugs or rain seems like a poor tradeoff. I also brought one of the twins’ sleeping bags (the lightest one we own), and a short foam pad. Bob was using some sort of plastic sack, down pants, and a down jacket. I think my total sleep stuff weight was a little under 3 lbs, which I think was weight well spent, as it let me enjoy the limited sleep I could get.
Bob isn’t a tall guy, so he fit fine, and when it started raining as we went to bed, I offered him the vestibule and he joined me in the tent. He looked more comfortable than he was in his plastic sack, and I quickly drifted off to sleep. We ended up sleeping close to 10 hours, and when I woke up I felt completely normal and totally refreshed – yay! Bob’s knee was better too, double yay!
Soon we were zooming down to the Black RIver, and up to another pass. The Black River valley is beautiful, but oddly the Black River is glacial, and very white.
White River would be more appropriate.. Unfortunately now my knees were starting to hurt and near an old crashed plane we stopped and Bob did up his feet while I attempted to fix my pole with the slipped insert in hopes that would help. Finally with the use of Bob’s pliers I managed to pull the insert out and super glue it in place – my pole was working again! Yay! The headwaters of the Black expand out into a huge open bowl with a landing strip marked out by cairns. Just as we passed the landing strip I noticed two people hiking down a far ridge, and after I pointed them out we sped up – competition!
The next pass (the second to last big one) was an easy walk up topped by a loose screen field.
Above us, seemingly an nearly infinite distance away, a caribou walked the ridge above us, running along the ridgeline as if to taunt us about our slowness. Topping the ridge we dropped down into a beautiful valley with a small creek that quickly dropped into a deep channel, eventually reaching Nowhere Creek.
While researching the route I had read that Nowhere creek had lots of petrified wood, and much to my excitement Bob pointed out some huge chunks of petrified wood. Bob works for the Alaska Division of Geological Surveys and is a geologist, so there was much discussion of rocks and geology, but petrified wood was one of the highlights for me!
After crossing Nowhere Creek we headed over the Oshetna, following an amazing maze of caribou trails winding through the tussocks, eventually camping after dark just below the final big pass.
In the morning it was up and over into the Caribou Creek drainage, where we hiked on the west bank until running into an uncrossable flowing mud stream, something that I had never seen before.
The mud was actually flowing down like a stream, with large rocks floating down it, and it was nearly bottomless – I couldn’t feel the bottom with my trekking pole. Bob was in full on geologist mode, and was super excited by the muddy stream of certain death. It was not going to be possible to cross it..
We tried going down to the creek, but found it to be entirely blocked off with very soft and deep mud – it was either deep water, soft mud, or both, and thus uncrossable without swimming. We then headed back up a quarter mile before finding a place where the lake was shallow enough to cross – it was still up to my chest though, and very opaque so I had to feel my way across and hope my pack would float enough I could hang on to it if there was a drop off.
Fortunately no drop off was encountered so we climbed up the other bank and enjoyed a wonderful “sound of music” hillside walk down to the ATV trails that we took to where Caribou Creek was floatable.
The ATV trails were fast walking, and were littered with lots of interesting relics from old mines.
We did run into one more section where the creek was dammed up by a huge mudslide, and this time went completely around it, only to find the mud was asphalt hard.
There was lots of speculation between Bob and I if both slides were the result of the same weather event, as we didn’t see any signs of other slides. Feeling a bit silly, we walked over the rest of the mud slide back to the ATV trail and then on to where we put in. I was pretty worried about the float, as I had heard it was class III and IV, but it turned out to range from mellowish to bouncy class II, and we zoomed along, enjoying the float. Eventually we reached what we thought was the take out, packed up while a super cub flew circles above us, before finally leaving just as we discovered we had taken out at an ATV trail a few miles upstream of the actual trail we wanted to get. Oh, well, what’s a few miles.. well, a lot, it turned out. The “extra” bit of trail we took was muddy, rutted, and had several climbs including one that seemed to go straight up. I have no idea how ATVs get up that climb. Those folks must be crazy!
Finally we reached our actual take out, and hiked up May Creek trail, where I filled my remaining freeze dried meal with cold water and hiked along, hoping it would hydrate and I could enjoy a nice final snack.
The last few hours zoomed by, as we hiked up May Creek trail, which was less muddy than I remembered, across the beaver swap of doom (which now didn’t have any swamp), and up and over the ridge near Gun Sight & Sheep Mountain, before heading down to the old abandoned highway.
We were supposed to avoid walking on the Glenn HIghway, and last year Tom and I were forced to walk along a utility cut, but I vetoed that this year – there is no way I was going to be walking though folks property at midnight in the dark, someone would likely shoot us! Instead we walked the highway for the last few miles, getting off as trucks came by, zooming along in their bubbles of light. We finally pulled into the finish at Sheep Mountain Lodge a little after 1am.
I was saddened to find that I had forgot to pack any food in the truck besides a few Muscle Milks, but Bob was nice enough to give me his remaining freeze dried meal, while he had a ramen noodle packet, topped off with a few beers – the finish trailer was well stocked with beers. Such a fine finishing feast – thanks Bob, I will always be thankful for that meal! In the morning we caught up with John, Brian, and Matt who finished 17 hours or so ahead of us, and enjoyed a huge breakfast, before heading back to Fairbanks.
Thanks for the company Bob, this was the adventure of a lifetime! Of course, a huge thank you goes out to my family for letting me disappear for a whole week, only to be asked random medical questions about knees via inreach, and then come back all sleep deprived. Thanks Molly, Lizzy, and Nancy!
And finally, a big thank you to Matt K for organizing. Thanks Matt, it is a lot of fun!
Some thoughts
Gear
I brought a 30 degree bag I originally got for my daughter lizzy and a short section of closed cell foam pad. It worked great.
We took an older MSR Pocket Rocket and a quart-ish pot for heating water for freeze dried meals. Totally worth the weight I think.
Foot stuff – I bought ¾ of a roll of Lukotape, and still had lots left at the finish. I brought a fairly large amount of homemade hydropel replacement, and used lots. I used some inov-8 RocLite 300 shoes, and they worked fine but were toast by the end. I wore a thin liner sock and a thick outer sock. Mostly I was quite happy on the foot front, and finished with just two small blisters.
Boat stuff – I took a dry top and float pants. That worked fine, but would have been cold if I swam. It was lighter than any other option I had. I had a “normal” lama boat with am white water deck, Bob had one of the newer narrower boats with thigh straps. We both had pfds, and bike helmets.
Clothing – In addition to what I was wearing at the start, I took an extra top, bottom, a puffy synthetic top, and one set of extra socks.
Navigation Stuff – Bob and I used cell phones for navigation. That worked great, when we looked at them and didn’t do dumb things like take out earlier than we where supposed to.
My total pack weight was a little under 40lbs. Which seems pretty heavy.
Food
I took roughly 12 lbs of food, plus four full size freeze dried meals. Two of the freeze dried meals were the jumbo Expedition Foods (https://expeditionfoods.com/ ) 1k calorie meals – and those were great. The last one I had with cold water on Squaw creek trail, which was surprisingly good. Otherwise I was pretty unhappy with my food selection – I needed more variety and easier to digest food. My notes from last year told me to bring more variety and easier to digest food, so maybe I should read my notes and not stupidly repeat my errors. I did take some fatty meat sticks’ ‘ and they were great and went down well. I ate almost all my food.
Route
The route we took this year was great – it was fast walking for the most part, and floating cut out a lot of time. The walking was mostly good,and in parts it was fantastic. The walking in the Oshetna and Kosnina valleys had some sections where it wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but otherwise it was mostly pretty good. The area is super scenic, much more scenic than the ATV trails I took with Tom last year. However, I think the walking on the ATV tails is actually a lot faster, and that still might be the “fastest” route, if a boat is taken to float Tsusena Creek. Floating Tsusena Lake was also a time saver, and it was very neat to float across it in complete darkness. Caribou Creek was a blast, super fun!
What I would Change
I would take another water treatment system, like a steripen for faster hydration if it was hot.
I would take different poles. Those black diamond poles I have been using suck, with their connector pieces coming out at inopportune times.
Better food choices.
Reduce! My pack was ~40lbs, I should be able to get it much lighter.
After Effects
Last year my feet swelled up a ton. This year I used compression socks just after I finished, and while my feet swelled a bit, it wasn’t nearly as bad. However, my knees were super sore after finishing, and it took weeks for them to feel normal again. I need to figure out something so these things are easier on my knees. Otherwise I was mostly intact at the finish.
With the COVID 19 outbreak, school closures, the White Mountains 100 canceled and social distancing looming Nancy and I discussed doing a last minute family cabin trip. The cabins do not see that much in the way of visitation, and hopefully would be safe from threat of COVID 19. After checking the reservation system for the White Mountains NRA, we noticed that Moose Creek cabin was open Monday night, and we quickly booked it planning to head out there via snow bike. It should be a mellow 16 mile bike ride one way.
The day before our trip I went for a 9 hour ride with some friends, and it was soft and a bit slow. When I got back I suggested we should consider skiing, but was poo-pooed. Hmm..
After a bit of work, we managed to get all four bikes, two dogs, and all our gear into (and on!) the truck, and headed off to the trail head. A bit of re-packing and bike juggling we were soon hitting the trail.. which was alas a bit soft.
A meltdown or too later, once everyone had tire pressures more appropriate to the conditions we made slow but steady progress towards the cabin.
It was warm and sunny, but there was almost no traffic on the trail.
At about 5 miles in I told the twins we had three hills to go. Which to my mind was correct, but set off a lot of argueing about what was a hill and what wasn’t. Apparently I missed lots of little hills in between those “three” hills, and Lizzy offered to make three little piles of snow to ride over so we could then “be there”. Much eye rolling ensued, for once with me doing the eye rolling. While heading up the final big hill to the cabin Molly told me “You can’t understand how tired I am!!”. Many snack breaks and five and half hours later we finally arrived at the cabin.
Moose Creek was still warm from the last visitors, so we quickly had it nice and warm, and even had a pine marten frollicking downhill from the cabin.
The evening was spent snuggling with the dogs..
.. hanging out, eating, and reading. The current “reading aloud” book was by Arther Ransom , with one of the main characters had to be in quarantine while recovering from the mumps. Strangely pertinent to the current times, as we had been reading this book since a bit before the current virus crisis…
The evening went by fast, and everyone hit the sack early – one of the advantages of family bike trips!
In the morning we headed out and enjoyed firmer trails on the way out.
After a stop for ice cream bars at the local convenience store on the drive home, everyone agreed the trips was “ok”. 😀
I was quite impressed by the twins willingness to ride their bikes for nearly six hours on their first winter bike trip ever.
Several years ago, some friends and I, inspired by Ed Plumb’s epic trip to Dall Hotsprings , talked about using the Kanuti river for a longer trip looping back to the Haul Road. After a bit of discussion, the plan morphed into a three hot springs trip. First, float the Kanuti River from the Haul Road, stopping at Kanuti hot springs for a soak. Then float down the Kanuti river for another 20 miles and hike to the Upper Ray hot springs. Finally, walk or float to the Lower Ray hot springs and then back out to the road. It seemed viable, but while I was aware people had floated the Kanuti River below the traditional take-out for Kanuti hot springs, I had not talked to them about it. While the walking looked good on the maps who knows how it would be in person. Early this June, Ed, Matt, Chris, and I headed out to see if we could pull it off. It was going to be awesome — a new section of river, two new hotsprings, wahoo! Heath and Patrick joined us for the first leg, floating to the first hot springs, Kanuti, and shuttled Chris’s truck to our take-out (thanks guys!).
We left town fairly early in Chris’s “fry truck”. (Chris and his wife Robbin heat their house and power their truck with used oil from local restaurants.) We drove the Kanuti River, and after a bit of futzing around, put it and began the adventure, yahoo!
The water in the Kanuti River was high, and the float was fun and fast. The day was beautiful, with lots of sun and a brief rain squall that mostly avoided us.
The birds of prey were out in force, and we saw quite a few large raptors and a few owls. The hours sped by, and soon we were at the take-out for hotsprings number one. Kanuti has had a problem bear for the last few years, but fortunately we didn’t see it. Alas, it was a beautifully hot day, and unfortunately that meant the hot springs were a bit too hot to soak in for very long. On the upside, it was great to see the field of grass and wild chives surrounding the hot springs in the summer again. It feels like a green oasis, and smells unique.
We still had a long float ahead of us, so we said goodbye to Patrick and Heath, and continued floating down the river. The Kanuti to our takeout was an interesting river – mostly pretty mellow, with a few splashy sections with large rounded rocks. If the water was a lot higher, those splashy sections would have been a handful. At one point we came upon a cow moose with a young calf in the middle of the river, and we tried to gently sneak by, but they kept going downstream slightly ahead of us — until a black bear charged out of the brush on one of the banks and attempted to snatch the calf. Much to our happiness and the bear’s sadness, the cow and calf escaped, leaving the bear splashing in the stream. It climbed out bedraggled and wet, and then disappeared into the brush along the bank. Matt is a biologist for the National Park Service, and explained the cow was probably aware of the bear and had been sticking to the river so that if the bear had attacked it could have used its longer legs to stomp the swimming bear and gain the upper hand. Much to everyone’s happiness (besides the bear’s, I expect) our involvement hadn’t driven the cow or calf into the bear and caused a disaster…
As we neared the ridge on which we were going to begin our hike, it soon became apparent that the nice campsite overlooking we Kanuti River wasn’t there. Instead the bank sloped somewhat steeply up to the ridge.. We spent a few hot hours hiking up to the first flat spot we could find, at the high point of the ridge.
Matt had packed a few beers, and they were enjoyed in style, with a view. Thanks Matt!
The next day, we hiked over to Tokusatatquaten Lake, a beautiful lake with awesome sand beaches and really nice walking.
It is in a truly wonderful spot, and if we had been faster it would have been a great place to camp.
Alas, it was late morning, so we pushed on, enjoying great ridge hiking and neat tors while a thunderstorm passed off in the distance.
We had planned to camp at the Upper Ray hot springs, but a mile or so of dense alder slowed us down enough that we camped on a ridge above it. In the middle of the night, I woke to wolves howling in the valley below us.
In the morning we zoomed down to the Upper Ray, enjoying awesome walking. We saw our first sign of humans since leaving Kanuti, in the form of a survey cut. We followed a hot stream of water through a dense patch of cow parsnip (the northernmost patch I have ever seen!) to where the water came out of a bluff into a neat pond.
The water was hot, and very refreshing, with minimal sulphur smell. Alas, we couldn’t spend all day there, and we headed for what we hoped to be a shortish day to the Lower Ray. Ed had been here once before, and had hiked on the south side of the creek, and said the hiking was pretty bad. Instead, we tried to take game trails on the north side of the creek.. It mostly had good walking, but it was very indirect. After several hours of averaging under a mile an hour in a straight line we gave up, and put in and tried floating. The Upper Ray is deeply incised in silt banks, so it was sort of like paddling through a mud canyon. And it was muddy. Everyone else seemed able to keep mud out of their boat, but I wasn’t, and by the end of the day my boat weighed a ton with all the extra mud in it. I made a serious tactical error and left most of my food in my pack, which was stuffed into my boat, and I only had 2 candy bars for most of the day.. By late afternoon I was full-on hangry. Fortunately, Ed took pity on me, and gave me some more food to tide me over. Eventually we made it to the Lower Ray hot springs – hurrah!
The Lower Ray hot springs is a neat place. The hot water comes out of a gravel bank, and flows right into the Ray River. It had by far the least alge I have ever seen in a hot spring. Alas, it also had cow parsnip. The camping was great, too — a heated gravel bar, how can anyone beat that! And ever better, there was an old cabin across the creek. I love old rusty stuff, and this cabin was full of it — some old, some new.. It looked like it had been visited somewhat recently, but alas was a bit run down..
The final day, we floated out to the road. This section of the Ray had several sections of class II-ish rapids. They were just bouncy enough to be fun, but not very threatening. By late afternoon, we made it to our takeout, and after a short but steep climb to the road, we were at the truck, and heading home.
The upper and lower Ray hot springs are unique and well worth visiting. I am already scheming ways to get back there.
Thanks for the company Ed, Matt, Patrick, Heath, and Chris!
Phil H. was stopped in the middle of the trail. We were two miles past the Topkok shelter cabin, in the notorious “blowhole”, a windy section of trail near the coast, 30 miles or so outside of Nome. It was several hours before sunrise, and a bit windy, with blowing snow across the trail. As I rode up to him, he asked me “Where is the musher?” We had been passed a while back by a musher who was having trouble finding the trail, and I was confused about who Phil was talking about.
Phil then pointed to a dog sled, sitting on the side of the trail. Soon after I noticed it, I realized there was a whole team stretched out there in the snow, the dogs curled up in little balls to protect themselves from the wind.
But no musher.
Uh-oh.
This is the third and final part of my write up on the 2018 Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI). The first part can be found here.
Kevin and I arrived at Shageluk at 10 am, and after we’d wandered around town a bit, someone directed us to the Lee’s house, where we had sent drop bags and might be spending the night. We arrived in town happy to be back in civilization, and the first thing I did was use a flush toilet — hurrah! Shageluk is a small town of around 100 people situated with a range of hills on one side and vast open lowland on the other side. Our plan was to resupply then head on to Anvik, but alas, a light dusting of snow made the trail nearly impossible to find in the flats outside Shageluk.
The trail leaves Shageluk, follows the Innoko river briefly, then heads out across a series of open swamps before dropping back onto the Innoko, before crossing a few more wide open swamps, then though some mixed swamps and forest before crossing the Yukon and heading into Anvik.
Alas, the dusting of snow and the very flat light made the swamps really hard to navigate, especially since we didn’t know where we were going.
I had a tracklog from 2013, but that was 5 years ago. I had no idea of the trail had changed or not. Three times we left Shageluk only to be turned back in the swamps. On the upside, we were well rested and enjoyed some of Lee’s great cooking, and were able to do our laundry and take showers. Eventually a party that was supposed to be heading to Anvik passed though, and we followed their tracks out of town, only to have them take a wrong turn and head to Grayling instead.
We pressed on, and got a bit stuck near the halfway point, where we just hunkered down for the Iditarod Trail Breakers. We had been told they would be by that evening, but we bivied in a nice grove of trees for 18 hours, and there was still no sign of them. The bivy was cozy, but slightly wet. We had picked up blue tarps at the store in Shageluk, and were very happy to have them, as it was near freezing and lightly snowing — almost raining. When I got hungry I was too lazy to find real food, and just grabbed whatever was in the top of my bike bag, which turned out to be a one pound block of cheddar, which I nibbled on for a few hours, slowly eating the entire thing. It was delicious, but hours later I woke up with “cheese sweats” – all those calories were making their way through my system. At one point I woke up Kevin by loudly complaining I was bored – which I truly was. After 12 hours it became pretty clear that even I could get sick of sleeping. Eventually we gave up and pressed on, making it a few more miles before the trail breakers passed us.
Kevin and I were very happy to see them – finally a trail! The lead trail breaker stopped and chatted with us a bit. He remembered Kevin from last year when he stayed with them in Kaltag, and seemed honestly pretty excited to have us out there. Not as excited as we were, though. Finally we would have a trail again!
The rest of the ride into Anvik was much faster and pretty fun, though the trail on the Yukon was very punchy.
Just outside Anvik a snowmachiner came up and introduced himself — it was Jay from Anvik!
Jay is apparently dating a coworker of my wife, Nancy: Malinda. Alaska at times is a very small place. Jay told us we would be welcome to warm up at the tribal hall, which was also going to be the Iditarod checkpoint, and pointed us to the two stores in town. One shopping trip later Kevin and I were busy munching away on heated-up frozen burritos, and in my case chugging down a half gallon of chocolate milk in the comfort of the tribal hall’s kitchen. Then it was off to ride on to Grayling.
The ride into Grayling was flat and very fast. The trail was firmest we had seen in a while and looked like it got lots of traffic, and by the evening we were wandering around Grayling looking for Shirley’s. Shirley runs a beautiful bed and breakfast in Grayling. Kevin had called her from Anvik, and she had mentioned over the phone she was going to put on steak. When we finally found her house (Grayling turned out to be much larger than I expected; Kevin and I got the scenic tour), we found her cooking away, making huge steaks, homemade french fries, and carrot cake with carrots from her garden. It was truly awesome! Her home is a work of art, constructed of all kinds of random odds and ends, with musk ox pelts and a mammoth tusk taking center stage. One shower later I was tucked into bed, getting the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long while.
In the morning we were treated again to a wonderful breakfast, and packed up our bikes for the long, long trudge up the Yukon to Kaltag. Judging from the slow progress Phil was making, the trail was pretty bad, and we expected we might have to walk most of the way, so loaded up with extra food. As we were leaving, Shirley got a phone call from the Iditasport, wondering if Jan Kriska was there. We hadn’t seen him, but on the way out of town we stopped by the Iditarod checkpoint, and lo and behold his sled was there! We ducked inside, and found Jan dozing on the floor, but he popped up right when we came in and said hi. It was great to see Jan, and to see him in such good spirits. He had a really hard race last year, and it ended for him in Ruby with damaged hands. This year he was having a great race, and was making good time.
The trip up the Yukon was a mix of good riding and slow walking. I had been told the wind blows down the Yukon, but it seemed like it was mostly crosswinds that would blow in the trail. Whenever the wind wasn’t blowing across the trail it was generally very rideable. In a few sections it was even fast riding. The first night on the Yukon, Kevin and I bivied off the edge of the trail, and a few hours later I was woken up by the crunching and whirring of dog feet and runners on snow as the leaders passed us in the dark. In the morning we woke up to a nicer trail, and quicky rode to Eagle Island, the iditarod checkpoint.
Eagle Island had a reputation of being very unwelcoming to the ITI racers, but since the trail went up into the checkpoint, and there wasn’t a good way around we headed up into the checkpoint. Fortunately they were pretty friendly and offered us hot water and we chatted a bit, then it was back on the trail.
Alas, the Yukon dragged on, and on, with a bit of walking, and lots of slow riding.
A few fast sections gave me hope that the trail would firm up, only to be dashed by more soft and windy trail.
In a few of these faster sections Kevin rode really strongly, and I just about gave up on keeping up with him, but the trail turned soft again and my slightly bigger tires allowed me to keep up.
Joar Leifseth Ulsom, the eventual winner of teh 2018 Iditarod
As we neared Kaltag, the main body of the mushing field caught up with us, and mushers were passing us regularly, as well as the occasionally snowmachine. We also started seeing our first signs of the riders ahead of us since just outside Ophir, with the occasional tire track showing up.
We arrived at Kaltag early in the morning, and headed to the school, where we unpacked our stuff, dried out, and chatted with other travelers. In the smaller communities along the Iditarod trail the schools let travels stay in them for a small fee, as there are no other options. The Kaltag school was packed – there was a big group traveling by snowmachine, and a film crew making a documentary on Lars Monsen , a Norwegen dog musher. When they introduced themselves I was confused, as there was another Norwegen musher, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, who was in the lead, and I didn’t know who Lars Monsen was. Apparently he is very famous in Norway, and one of the film crew tried to correct my ignorance, filling me in with the details of his life. It was a bit of a shock to go from just Kevin and I, to lots of chatty people, though they soon left us alone, and I ended up just talking with the two guides accompanying them. One of them operates a lodge on the Ivishak River in the Brooks Range, and we chatted a bit about summer adventures, which seemed a world away.
Eventually we packed up our bikes and headed out, hoping to make it to Unalakleet.
The trail from Kaltag to Unalakleet is beautiful, but it tends to be slow. We were hitting it late morning, and there was a lot of snowmachine and mushing traffic, making it soft and a bit of a slog.
Kevin and I yo-yoed back and forth, each going at our own pace as the trail conditions changed. We stopped for dinner at the first shelter cabin, Tripod flats, where we were joined by some locals on their way back from Unalakleet. We spent an hour or so talking, then headed on to Old Woman Cabin.
The trail was firming up at this point, and I was able to ride pretty fast, and was soon tailgating Hugh Neff. I was pretty hesitant to pass him, as I had passed him two years before when he was finishing the Yukon Quest and his dogs went from going six miles an hour to nearly eight, and I had to pedal like mad to stay ahead of them. I didn’t want to repeat that, and ended up just riding slower, and staying a couple hundred feet behind him. Eventually we both pulled into Old Woman Cabin, which was warm and welcoming. I apologised for tailgating him, and he waved it off and started feeding his dogs, while I headed into the cabin to make dinner. Then he joined Kevin and I , and we talked for a hour or so. That hour was one of the highlights of the race for me: listening to Hugh Neff tell stories had me pretty spellbound.
After the hour was up he headed out to press on to Unalakleet and we went to sleep for a few hours. In the early morning hours Kevin and I headed out, and I was ever so happy to find the trail had set up and was really fast. Kevin soon disappeared, riding like lightning, and I rode the 30 or so miles into town by myself, enjoying the near calm and misty night sky. The sun was coming up just as I arrived in town, and I was disappointed to find Peace On Earth closed — no pizza!! Fortunately Kevin had arrived a good twenty minutes earlier than I and spent that time wisely, tracking down the owner and he was going to fire up the oven and make us some pizza.
We ended up spending way too much time at Peace on Earth, eating and socializing, and soon were joined by Julian Schroder and a few other Fairbanks folks who were in town. I called Nancy and said hi, and then noticed that the ITI’s race tracker said Phil was still in town. Hmm.. I was a bit worried Phil had scratched, but was distracted by pizza and people. Eventually Kevin and I pried ourselves away from the food and company, and after restocking our bikes with food headed out of town.
Alas, the trail out of town that the Iditarod used was very punchy, and nearly unrideable. The trail leaving town heads across a bunch of small ponds, and these ponds had soft crunchy snow covering them, with a bit of salt water overflow to top it off. Kevin and I debated taking the road but ended up staying on the marked trail, which was a mistake, as it took forever to cross the ponds. When we finally hit the road that we should have taken, we found Phil waiting for us.
He’d had a pretty rough time on the Yukon, and by the time he had arrived in Unalakleet he was pretty wiped out. Jay P was just arriving at Nome at this point, and there was zero chance of catching him, so Phil decided to wait, rest up, and ride the rest of the way to Nome with Kevin and me. It was great to see him, and I was glad he hadn’t scratched. Our plan was to make it to Shaktoolik, and that seemed pretty reasonable until we reached the Blueberry Hills shelter cabin and called ahead only to find out it was blowing really hard, with dog teams getting turned around, and other chaos. Deciding it was better to wait and hope the wind died down, we crashed in the cabin, then headed out, as usual in the early a.m. hours to ride to Shaktoolik and hopefully Koyuk.
Shaktoolik is a small town on a little spit of land that juts out into Norton Bay and the wide open wetlands that surround it. The trail into town drops about a thousand feet down to the wetlands on the inland side of a narrow strip of land, and is normally icy and windy. I was a bit worried I was going to be in trouble, as I didn’t have studded tires, but while there were a few patches of ice, it was mostly snow covered, and pretty windy. It seemed like it took forever to get from the base of the hill to the town, but after lots of slow riding and walking we pulled into town, and headed to the school. The wind was howling, and much to my disappointment, it was blowing from Koyok. We were going to have a big headwind all the way to Koyuk..
Morning pizza outside Shaktoolik
Shaktoolik is in “civilization” and I had 4g cell reception, and checking the weather report quickly confirmed that it was blowing pretty hard. The news reports had mushers getting lost going across the bay to Koyuk.. But on the upside, the forecast was that by midnight the wind was supposed to die down. A few mushers were taking an extra eight hour layover in Shaktoolik to avoid the wind, and after a quick discussion, we told the folks at the school we were going to stay there for the day, and made ourselves comfortable. There is a small village store right across the street from the school, so I headed over and picked up breakfast, lunch, and dinner: two boxes of pudding packs, some Ensure, cream cheese, a bag of bagels, two microwave burritos, and a two quarts of chocolate milk — heaven!
At midnight we headed across, and hurrah, the wind had died down, and we had a bit of a tailwind! The ride from Shaktoolik to Koyok is always a bit stressful, as the trail goes out across a shallow bay and lots of little swamps, with minimal cover.
At night you can see Koyok from a long way before you arrive, as it is on a hillside, taunting you as it never seems to get much closer, Fortunately we arrived in daylight, but it still taunted us as we could see the town in all its glory hours before we arrived. Just outside of Koyuk, Andy Pohl, a biking acquaintance, and Kristy Berington passed with their dogs, mushing into Kokuk. At the start weeks ago (it seemed like a year ago), Andy had joked that we would meet up at Old Woman Cabin, and I had said I would be happy if it was at Eagle Island. Koyuk was inconceivable.
We arrived in the early morning, got a bit of sleep in the school, then headed out again. Just as we were leaving town, Andy and Kristy passed us, zooming up the hills with all that dog power.
Speaking of hills, this year the trail from Koyok was routed overland, which meant a lot of extra hills and soft trail.
Up, down, up, down.. Eventually we made it to the main trail, and it got faster again, and we arrived in Elim in the middle of the night, a bit too late to find anyone to let us into the school unfortunately. Peeking in the window I could see a bike in the library, and bike tracks outside the school, so I was pretty sure someone was in there sleeping, but they didn’t wake up to let us in. Eventually someone, perhaps a bit tipsy, noticed our plight and let us into the school after finding the janitor, and we crashed in the cafeteria, then headed out in the morning. I never met the group staying in the library, but Kevin bumped into one of them while using the bathroom.
Phil, enjoying a heathy breakfast..
The ride from Elim to White Mountain was awesome as always, scenic, but oh so hilly.
This year the trail stayed overland when leaving Ellim, and went up and down, and up and down..
When I’d passed though Golovin the year before I’d noticed a coffee shop with an open sign that I almost stopped at, but I didn’t. I’d spent the next few hours sad that I hadn’t got some coffee, so this time I was pumped to check it out. Alas, it was closed when we passed through, with a note saying the owners were on vacation. Poor timing — I should have gotten that coffee last year!
The rest of the ride into White Mountain was fast, and we arrived at Jack and Joanne’s, where we were greeted by their sons Liam and Cha, and soon Jack. Joanne was away attending her mother’s wake in Pilot Station. Jack and Joanne are wonderful people, and I am always excited to arrive at their house. White Mountain is also a bit milestone, as Nome is only 70 (ish) miles away. After a bit of sleep, I ate a big plate of eggs: the second pile of scrambled eggs I have had in the last 20 years. While I refuse to admit it to my daughters, eggs are not nearly as bad as I remembered. We headed out, Nome-bound at about midnight.
On the way into Golovin we had been passed by several dog teams, including one where the musher was sitting down smoking while making pretty good time up the hills, and another with a jacket saying the “Mushing Mortician”. Leaving White Mountain I noticed there were several dog teams staked out at the Iditarod checkpoint, but it didn’t look like any were about to leave. The trail out of White Mountain starts flat, then after a dozen miles or so starts going up and down. On the hills were we passed by several mushers, all of whom were making much better time that we were. Those hills are steep! We arrived at Topkok, which is at the bottom of a big hill and marks the start of the long, flat, and generally pretty windy ride to Safety.
As was to be expected, it was pretty windy, but there is a fairly big shelter cabin, and we ducked inside to get all ready for the push across the windy flats. This area has the “blowhole”, an area where the wind is funneled into a channel, and it can be amazingly windy. I had never been through this area when it was truly windy, just windy, but we had Phil along with us, and he lives in Nome and was very used to the wind, and is very familiar with this area. Supposedly the blowhole is pretty narrow, and if you just keep going you will come out on the other side. Tim Hewitt had told me a story of walking through the blow hole, and it was blowing so hard his sled was flying in the wind off the ground flapping around with all his gear on it. He said when he came out the other side he looked for something in his pocket and freaked out to discover there was a human hand in his pocket! A hand that turned out to be his glove, blown full of snow.
Phil thought it would be windy, but didn’t think it would be a big deal. At about 5:30 am we left Topkok. Almost immediately we were passed by a musher, then ran into him (or her — it was dark and windy) again, as he was zig-zagging back and forth across the trail.
Phil talked to him, and apparently he wanted to know how to find the trail. I could see Phill stomping his foot on the ground trying to convince him to look down, follow the snowmachine tracks, and stay on the hard pack. Perhaps it is harder for mushers as maybe all the dog bodies block the view of the trail, but on a bike it is very obvious, even in the blowing snow and wind we had. While the trail is well marked with lots of reflectors, you can just look down and follow the skid and scrape marks from all the snowmachine traffic. The musher must have gotten the gist, as he zoomed off and we didn’t see him again.
It was very windy, but we could still ride our bikes for the most part, though the trail had lots of little drifts in it and some of those were too big to ride though. A few miles from Topkok Phil stopped suddenly in front of me and asked me “Where is the musher?” I was pretty confused — what musher was he talking about, the one that passed us a while back? Phil pointed to something, which I quickly made out was a sled. Panic set in when we realized there was a dog team attached to it. We dropped our bikes and started looking around. Almost immediately we found another sled and dog team, and behind it huddling in the lee of it were two figures, both bundled up. One had a facemask on, and it was impossible to see if he was conscious, but he wasn’t moving. The other was talking. Phil, Kevin, and I converged around them and tried to figure out what was going on.
The one who was talking told us that “Jim” had gotten his dog team stuck, and ran into trouble, and was now too tired to move, and he wasn’t going to leave him. We asked him what we could do, and he said to get help, his hands were too cold, we needed to find Jim’s SPOT beacon and activate the SOS. We looked over the two sleds, and eventually located one SPOT beacon, and after triple checking with the musher who was talking (we later learned he was Scott Jansen) that he really wanted us to activate it, pushed the SOS button.
The red lights started blinking, and it looked like it was working, so we put it aside, and asked how else we could help. Scott asked us to find his satellite phone, which he said was in his pocket, so he could call and confirm someone was going to come out to rescue him. He was dressed in some sort of snowmachine suit, with lots of pockets, and figuring the sat phone had to be pretty big I somewhat awkwardly patted him down. There was no phone to be found. Kevin, Phil, and I then set out to find it, figuring it had to be someplace. Phil ended up finding it in his sled bag, and Phil placed a call for him to his wife, who much to my confusion seemed to be arguing with him about something. At that point hopefully help was going to arrive, and we asked if there was anything we could do. Kevin was at this point pretty cold, and he needed to move, so Phil and I told him to head to the next shelter cabin, while we tried to see if there was anything we could do. Scott seemed to be ok, just had cold hands, but he turned down my offers of hand warmers.
At that point it seemed like we had done all we could do. Phil and I discussed getting out a sleeping bag, but those things are big, and we figured they would just blow away or immediately fill full of snow. We checked with Scott, and it sounded like we had helped him as much as we could, so we set off to catch up with Kevin, and hopefully use my Inreach to contact Phil’s wife in Nome to call the troopers and confirm a rescue was in progress.
Phil and I then headed out to catch up with Kevin.
Craig Medrid has a really good breakdown of the timeline on his website.
We arrived at the shelter cabin to find it the entry full of snow and nearly impossible to get into. I was intent on texting Phil’s wife though, so I dove though a little hole in the snow drift blocking the door, and smashed down into some chairs as I slid down the other side of it into the first room of the cabin. From there I text-ed Phil’s wife Sarah to call the troopers and please let us know if there was a rescue in progress, and if not, get one going! Sarah, being the awesome person she is, immediately texted me back letting me know that she got it, and was calling. I climbed back out the little hole I had slid down, and fell out back into the wind, and we continued trudging towards Nome. I was feeling like a huge failure at this point, worried Jim was dead, and that we hadn’t done enough for them. So many second thoughts, so much thinking about what I could have done that would have made a difference.
Ten minutes later or so Sarah texted me back saying a rescue was in progress, the troopers were aware they needed to be rescued and help was on the way. That was huge load off my mind, but we were a pretty sad group as we slowly trudge towards Safety. At some point a big wide track machine came very slowly up to us, and Phil talked to the driver, who was apparently out to check on the two mushers. Later we were to learn she was Jessie Royer, a musher who had finished, then snow machined to Safety to see a friend pass though, and headed out to check on the mushers when it looked like they might be stuck. Phil told her where they were, and we continued on, only to see another group of snowmachines, this time big racing sleds come zooming up. Phil talked to them and they zoomed off. After they were gone Phil explained they were with Nome search and rescue, heading out to find the mushers and bring them back to the Safety. A while later they came zooming back by, this time with the two mushers on the back of the sled. One of them, Jim I guess, was flopping around like a rag doll, and they stopped right in front of us as he had nearly fell off the back of the sled. I was feeling a bit better now , as now they were at least alive and on their way to help. Hours later we pulled into Safety, the last checkpoint before the finish in Nome, and learned that both mushers were ok, which was a huge weight off my mind. Apparently after warming up in the Safety Roadhouse they were fine, and were flown to Nome.
After a few Cokes, at least one microwave “burger”, and a bit of chatting with the checkpoint volunteers, we headed out. Everyone talks about the burgers at Safety, and the first time I was disappointed to find it was a microwave frozen burger-like thing. Food, but not awesome food. They have Coke though, and that is like heaven.
The last twenty miles into Nome were a bit of a slog, with slow trail chewed up by lots of snowmachine traffic, but eventually we hit the road, and zoomed into town. I could barely keep up with Kevin and Phil, but they took pity on me and slowed down so I could keep up. There was a big group of folks waiting for us at the finish — I guess finishing with a Nome local has its perks! Sue and Glenn, some (former) Fairbanks friends meet us at the finish, as well as Steve Cannon , and Kathi, the organizer of the ITI.
A few days of hanging out in Nome with Sue, Glen, and their dogs, and I headed home.
After an event like this I have a huge list of folks to thank.
First, I need to thank my family: Nancy, Molly, and Lizzy. Thanks for your understanding and support; it means the world to me.
Second, I need to thank everyone who helped me on the trail. It is a huge list: the Petruskas, Tracy and Peter Schneiderheinze in McGrath, the folks in Iditarod, Lee in Shageluk, Jay in Anvik, Shirley in Grayling, the schools in Shaktoolik, Koyok, Ellim, and Kaltag, Joanna, Jack and their family in White Mountain.. Thanks ever so much!
I would also like to thank everyone I traveled with on the way to Nome this year: Nina, on the way to McGrath, and Kevin and Phil on the way to Nome. Thanks for putting up with me, and for your company on the trail!
Finally, I really need to thank Sue and Glenn in Nome. You guys have hosted me for the last three years in Nome, and I really look forward to the welcome. Thanks ever so much for your hospitality!
I also would like to congratulate Jay Petervary on setting a new record and having a great race – congratulations! Jay was so fast I think he was back home in Idaho playing with his dogs after several days of sleep when we finished.
I will put up a follow up post with some details on the route, gear, what worked and what didn’t, etc.
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.
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!