Nick J from Fairbanks had just arrived, and I was helping him get his boots out of his ski bindings. We got them off and headed into the wall tent which is the Iditarod Trail Invitational racers’ lodging while in Rohn. Just after entering the tent, there was a big gust of wind, and with a loud bang, the chimney blew off, followed by one of the walls blowing in. I asked Nick to hold the wall down, then ran to go wake up Adrian to help fix the stove. With Adrian’s help, I got the stove back together and then got the wall firmly tacked down again, and Nick got to sit down and enjoy his brats, soup, and hot Tang.
Another evening in Rohn!
In 2013 I was welcomed into Rohn by Rob Kehrer. He fed me, dried my stuff, and offered me as much pilot bread as I could eat. I was so thrilled by the unlimited pilot bread! Ever since then I have been looking for a chance to give back, and in mid-January someone from the ITI posted to Facebook saying they needed someone to volunteer for Rohn. I responded, and I was in – after checking with my boss and family.
Rob and O.E., in 2013
Me, 11 years later, wearing a “Team Heavy” sweatshirt and thinking of Rob. Photo compliments Laura R.
A few weeks later I was boarding a Beaver with my fellow volunteer Tony, and we were off to Rohn. The flight was beautiful!
The next few days were a bit of a blur directed by the ITI’s Adrian – putting up tents, splitting wood, moving things around, etc, as we got ready for the racers’ arrival in Rohn. Sam and Brian, who snowmachined in from the Willow area with Adrian, were wood-cutting machines. So much firewood was cut up! Adrian served more meat with breakfast and dinner than I have had in years.
The Rohn wall tent is ready to go!
Tony, ready to cook brats!
Banner ready!
Rohn cabin ready!
Tony, splitting wood like a mad person!
The first to arrive were Clinton and Kevin, followed by a continuous stream of other people.
Clinton, first in!
Kevin, second!
Kevin, under the banner!
Tang and hot chocolate..
It was the beginning of five days of chaos. Fortunately Tony is a night person, and he was willing to do the night shifts, while I did the mid-morning to midnight shift. It worked out (at least for me, Tony might disagree as he did all the night shifts). Soon we were settled into the routine of feeding racers, handing out hot drinks, drying their stuff, stocking the wood stove, preventing racers from hurting themselves or wrecking their stuff on the wood stove, etc. After a while I felt a bit like a crazy laundry person, always drying stuff! It soon became just a blur.
Drying boots.. well labeled?
Laundry up with a full house..
P.B. resupplying..
It was great seeing the racers though, and I got to see Petr, Nick, and other folks I knew from past trips on the Iditarod trail as they passed through. There was a strong Fairbanks contingent and it was great to see NIkki, Aaron, and Ben!
Aaron ready to head out
Aaron showing how he can get a whole bag of doritos in his snack bag – I was impressed!
Tomas! He was a rookie, and rode from Rainy Pass Lodge to Nikolai (and possibly Mcgrath) solo!
And it was great to see Steph who I met in an Alaska Summer Wilderness Classic years ago – I didn’t know she was doing the race!
At times it was fun. I really enjoyed catching up with the various people I have traveled with in the past. At times it was frustrating – as when I had to prevent someone from putting plastic containers on the (very hot) wood stove to warm up. The wood stove was an issue, as people didn’t seem to understand how hot it was, and how fast things melt, heat up, etc. At times it was a bit depressing, mostly when helping folks dry out their gear. At one point I was handed a fancy down jacket that was oddly heavy with weirdly chunky, hard, and large things in the pockets, only to discover the chunky things were frozen chunks of ice inside it – the jacket was soaked, and had several pounds of frozen water in it. Coming in with puffy layers soaked with frozen sweat was oddly common. Really folks, if you are sweating out your puffy layers you need to take them off. Mike C puts it best – don’t sweat. In another case it took over 20 minutes for someone to get his facemask off, having frozen it to his beard – i have no idea how he ate or drank before getting it off. Maybe he hadn’t eaten most of the day. Partially frozen Hydro Flask style bottles were also common. It is odd they are so popular, they are not really all that good at keeping beverages warm.
Eventually, things died down, and the last racers, Doug and Sunny, were off. I missed Sunny’s departure, but I walked Doug to the edge of the trees and saw him off.
Doug, heading out. He let out a huge whoop just after I took this photo – I don’t think he believed me how nice it was going to be – sunny, warm, with a fantastic view!
Some regrets: the Rohn tent only sleeps eight people, and there is supposed to be a first-in-first-out policy. I tried to be nice about kicking folks out, but it always backfired and just delayed the whole process. I should have just kicked folks out ASAP to speed up turnover. A huge thank you to everyone who just slept outside when the tent was full, or quickly got out when asked, it was really appreciated! Live and learn.
It was amazing to me how busy things got. While racing, I had only shared the tent with four other people at most, and several times had the place to myself. At one point there were thirteen people in the tent including me: eight sleeping, and five standing or sitting – totally crazy!
As things wound down, some of the Iditarod staff at Rohn suggested we stay for a few days and volunteer for the dog race. A quick check with my family and with work (thanks for ghostwriting my Inreach message to work Laura!) and I was staying for the Iditarod.
In a bit of a sleep-deprived haze I sang to the dropped dogs while ladling soup made out of chunks of meat, fish, fat and kibble taken from mushers’ leftovers.
“Yum, yum, so good to eat, Mystery Meat”
The newer dogs looked at me like I was crazy, while the dogs dropped earlier looked on excitedly for their chance for a yummy ladle of meaty soup.
“Mystery Meat, Mystery Meat, everyone loves Mystery Meat” Who knows what the vets resting in the nearby tent thought…
Rohn, in the middle of dog race madness..
Volunteering for the Iditarod by staying on at Rohn was a bit odd – there wasn’t any paperwork, I was never given any rules or anything, so I wasn’t quite sure what was allowed and not allowed. However, it started just like the ITI – lots of moving stuff around and getting ready – sorting drop bags, counting drop bags, putting up lights, etc, etc. Eventually, other volunteers showed up, including vets, race materials, and other random people like me.
Mike, waiting for the action to start
Rohn, all ready to go – just needs dogs!
The first sign of the actual dog race was when the Iditarod trail breakers arrived. It was a bit odd to see them and not really care that much – normally I am eagerly waiting for them in hopes for a better trail – or any trail at all.
The Iditarod trail breakers passing though..
Eventually, the dog teams started arriving and then it was busy – moving stuff, parking teams, getting water, helping with dropped dogs, and doing other random tasks. I ended up spending a lot of time with the dropped dogs. The dogs dropped for overuse injuries (“orthopedic” I think the vets called it) perked up quickly, and started wanting attention and love. The first two dogs dropped, a mixed-color male, and a darker-colored male, whose teams I don’t remember, and a dog dropped later, “China Cat” from Paige’s team from Squid Acres, in particular, were love bugs.
I am horrible at names, and even worse when sleep-deprived. After around 20 hours of mostly nonstop activity, the last dog team left, and the cleanup began. After the last dog team took off, there was a brief lull as everyone took a moment to relax. While staring off into space I noticed the vets had all disappeared, so I went to go track them down and found them raking straw up in the dropped dogs area. This sort of blew my mind – instead of taking a break, and getting the next flight out (vets are in demand, and three of the four at Rohn had assignments at other checkpoints after Rohn), they were off cleaning up and setting an example. Shortly after that, everyone else started raking straw and cleaning up.
Cleanup..
After the last dogs left, a person on an Elan from the mid-1970s showed up. It turns out it was Lance, whom I met in 2016 when he was taking a mid-80s Bravo to the north slope via the Iditarod trail. He said the Bravo was much nicer.. Lance is touring the Iditarod trail using all 1970s vintage gear. He looked quite tired out!
The next day was spent tearing everything down and packing everything up, and the following morning Tony and I flew out.
Tony used to help run AWACs for the Air Force and had a blast talking with our pilot about the various gadgets on the plane on our flight back, as well as sightseeing and looking for moose and wolves.
Rainy Pass Lodge!
Enjoying the new fangled aviation gadgets!
All in all, it was a great experience! My apologies to anyone whose name I repeatedly got wrong in my sleep-deprived haze. I think I randomly started calling Tony “Antonio” at one point.
It was great spending time with everyone at Rohn. Tony, Adrian, and the rest of the crew are fantastic human beings and it was great spending time with you all!
My apologies to anyone I forgot the name of called the wrong name, all the burned brats, and anything else I might have messed up while out at Rohn!
I would like to thank Steph the vet tech and NOLS instructor for her help inspecting various frostbitten parts and help calming down the traveling partners of folks with frostbitten parts – thanks, it was appreciated! A big thank your to the people behind the ITI – thanks for making it happen, and thanks for letting me be part of it for a year! And of course my family for letting me disappear for two weeks!
After riding and pushing our bikes from Ophir we finally arrived at Moose Creek cabin just as the drizzle started. Miron welcomed us in, and we tucked our bikes under the eaves to keep them dry. The day had been beautiful, warm with blue skies and sun, but much too warm for the new trail put in by the Iditarod Trail breakers to set up. As we dried off in the cabin and cleaned up the nests squirrels had made on the bunks, the drizzle turned up a notch into intermittent rain. Miron was planning on heading out at 2 am, but Jamie, Bill, and I agreed to get up at 7 am then head out – but to go back to bed if it was still raining. Morning came, and I could hear the rain on the metal roof of the cabin. I stuck my head outside, and it was raining. Not hard rain, but enough to be pretty miserable. Back to bed, we went, tucked back into our -40f bags.. The glorious life on the Iditarod trail!
—
Like everyone, Covid had cramped my adventure time the last few years. After riding my bike to Nome in 2018 I had thought I was done with the Iditarod trail. I signed up in 2022 to go to McGrath as a spur-of-the-moment thing and really had a wonderful experience. When signup time came up again I was feeling like I hadn’t had any “real adventures” lately, so signed up for Nome – if nothing else it would be a good, long adventure and I was sure to have fun at least!
And so on a warm, sunny mid-afternoon, I found myself at Knik Lake with nearly a hundred other people. The first part of the race is a bit of a maze, with so many options that mostly all look not very good, so after texting (aka bothering) Andy P. of Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing about the best route (as he lives in trains in the area), I just decided to follow him. He threatened to make me sign a waiver in case he got us all lost, but I escaped without any paperwork as Andy led a group of us to the first checkpoint. As we neared the first checkpoint I noticed there was only one set of tire tracks ahead of us, and they were an unusual tread design – odd! We arrived at the first checkpoint only to discover we were in the lead, with the fast guys Miron and Tyson right behind us. I felt a bit bad being ahead of the fast guys, as they had taken a much longer and hillier route and ended up behind, alas. Local knowledge for the win, thanks for getting us there Andy!
After chatting a bit, and having some snacks we left and headed to Yentna Station where I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup, and then on to Bentalit Lodge the official second checkpoint.
I had never been to Bentalit before, and wow, that place is nice – and huge! I got a room, a hamburger, and lots of other things to eat. In the early hours of the morning, I headed out again, enjoying the fast firm trail to Skwenta, yay! I said hi to Cindy at Skwenta, and lunch then moved on. The trail stayed awesome, and I took a mix of the traditional route and the ice road, making a great time to Finger Lake. Passing through Shell Lake was a bit sad, with a big empty hole where Shell Lake Lodge used to be.
When I arrived at Finger Lake my insides were a bit unhappy, and I was very excited to go use the outhouse. Yay for modern comforts, hah! The very friendly volunteers were cleaning a very burned pan, it turns out they had only arrived recently, and had been delayed by the weather.
The leaders had passed through before they were there, missed their drop bags, and just had frozen burritos. Fast people troubles, must be hard, hah!
The trail was still awesome, so after restocking I headed out and had a great ride to Puntilla Lake with Tom M. and Peter D. Puntilla was as nice as always, and the newish bunkhouse is so awesome. As I arrived John “Faster than the dogs” L and Tim B were heading out and said something about staying ahead of the storm. Hmm, “storm?” I thought, then I tried to get some sleep. My insides didn’t cooperate, and I made lots and lots of visits to the outhouse. My body was less than happy with something I ate, and that made it hard to sleep. After one of the trips back from the outhouse it started to snow, and after noticing folks were awake, Justin, Spensor, Tom, Peter, and I headed out. It was pretty calm, but I warned everyone it could be pretty windy up in the open area before Rainy Pass. That turned out to be not true, the weather was great, warm, with a bit of wind. The trail was a blown-in though. My insides were still quite unhappy, and I spent most of the way to Rohn trying not to go the bathroom, though I had to twice in open areas in blowing snow which was super awkward. Sigh. Fortunately, the riding was pretty good as I was slow enough the rest of the group pulled away and disappeared into the distance, leaving me to ride in the nice trail they broke out for me. And to jump off the trail when nature’s calls stopped going to voicemail and had to be answered.
I arrived in Rohn, where my insides and I finally came to an agreement on how happy we should be (happy!) and I crashed and got nearly 8 hours of sleep. The rest of the group I had been riding with headed out after a few hours, pushed on by Justin. I was amused to hear Justin rallying folks by saying “I haven’t suffered enough” and pointing out it was pretty warm out so biving wasn’t a problem. Which was a good point, as it was in the 20s, so warm! I had the whole place to myself until Harm and Jamie H. showed up. Jamie alas, had broken one of his boa laces on his fancy boots, confirming all my fears about those laces.
I left Rohn by myself, and had a wonderful ride, all invigorated by all the sleep I had gotten – so much sleep! The trail was mostly good, though it was blown in sections, and I had been warned that the leaders were still not finished when I left Rohn, so obviously things were not fast.
I was enjoying things right up until I broke my seat post near Bear Creek Cabin. I had been using a suspension seatpost that was oh-so comfortable, and on one of the deeper ruts left by Irondog I came down a bit too hard, and the post snapped.
There was a bit of cursing, but then I made peace with it – obviously, it must get slow at some point ahead of me, so I can just walk, no big deal, right? I texted my wife Nancy who started tracking down a new seatpost for me.
Shortly after that Adrien D. and his helper, John (maybe?) came by on their way to Rohn and gave me some Fireball, and we chatted for a bit.
After that, it was a long slow walk with a bit of riding to Nikolai.
I stopped briefly to heat water and make dinner, but otherwise just kept moving. I arrived in Nikolai just before Tom, Justin, Spenser, and Peter left. I had the place to myself! Since at this point, I was in no hurry, and not wanting to spend a week in McGrath I decided to get some sleep and head out in the evening. I told myself since the checkpoint folks were saying it took Tyson (the winner of the short race) nearly 24 hours to get to the finish, it didn’t matter when I left, as I would be riding half it in the dark anyway.
**This turned out to be wrong, looking at the tracker now, Tyson left at 11 pm and arrived at 4 pm – way less than 24 hours11**
After chatting a bunch with the folks staffing the Nikolai checkpoint, John and Brian (I think?), I crashed and got nearly 10 hours of sleep.
At 5 pm I headed out, and I arrived just before sunrise, riding and pushing mostly in the dark, hah! The trail was a mix of ridable, and walking. It would have been much more ridable with a seatpost, but I wasn’t miserable and enjoyed the ride!
McGrath was a bit of a madhouse. The finish is now at an old lodge, and it is big, but there are so many people doing it these days so it gets very crowded. I had been worried that I would get stuck for a long time in McGrath, as the southern route doesn’t see any traffic normally outside the dog race. The forced break was good in some ways, as it allowed my new seatpost to arrive, thanks to Nancy, Jeff O, and the wonderful folks at Speedway Cycles. Thanks, guys!
Three days later, Myron G, Bill F, Jamie H, and I headed out mid-day, with some assurance there was going to be a trail at least as far as Ophir. Just as we are leaving McGrath we saw Chet F. unloading a plane, and we chatted for a bit. Chet is a skier who has done the ITI several times and was headed to Ophir to help run the checkpoint. He was heading there later today, and we left with an extra bounce in our pedaling knowing a friendly face awaited us. The ride to Ophir was fun, though things got a bit soft after the last house on the top of the hill after Takotna.
By 10 pm we were in Ophir, where we were welcomed in, fed, and enjoyed the heated wall tents set up for the mushers. Alas, there was no trail after Ophir, so we spent the day helping the Iditarod checkpoint staff set things up. It was great talking to everyone and getting a chance to catch up with Chet. In the late afternoon, the Iditarod trail breakers passed though, and there was finally a trail!
In the evening they fed us again (BBQ, it was fantastic!), and the next morning we set out early. Chet joined us for a brief ski, and we headed out into a warm morning, under clear skies and a bright moon. Myron G zoomed off like the fast guy he is, and I didn’t expect to see him again.
The trail was great, and we made good time to the first shelter cabin.. Then we were walking. The temps had warmed up to near freezing, and the fresh trail was a soupy, unconsolidated mess. So we walked, and for the rest of the day we rode a bit when the trail was in the trees, and sheltered from the sun, but in the open areas, it was soft and squishy.
Mid-day Myron came by, apparently, he stopped at the first cabin hoping the trail would set up. He was riding a lot more than we were, as we were pretty much not even trying when it was soft, and soon disappeared off into the distance. We had several groups of snowmachiners pass by, including one couple on their way to Point Hope, which sounded like an amazing trip.
By evening it was lightly raining on and off, and we finally pulled into a very warm Moose Creek cabin and were welcomed by Myron. After a bit of cleaning we settled in. I said we should get up at 7am and check to see if it was raining, as our weather forecasting friend, Ed Plumb, said rain was in the forecast. Sure enough, just as I went to bed there was the sound of rain on the metal roof..
Myron took off in the early AM hours, and when we got up to check to see if it was raining, it was definitely raining, so we went back to bed. It finally stopped raining mid-afternoon so we headed out for a bit of slog to Iditarod.
We arrived in the early evening, having enjoyed a long walk pushing our bikes with the occasional post hole into knee-deep snow in temperatures slightly above freezing.
The Iditarod folks were welcoming, and set us up in a small arctic oven tent complete with a propane-powered heater – so deluxe!!
We resupplied, wading through the giant pile of huge trash bags the race organizers had left for us to find our stuff and hit the stack. In the morning I had a cup of coffee from the Iditarod dog race staff, and we hit the road. The trail was now an iron-hard sidewalk of fast riding – so hard, so fast!
All that wet snow had frozen super hard, and we had the best trail conditions I have ever seen – so firm, so fast!
We zoomed on to Shageluk, and were welcomed into town by Chevy Roach (https://www.facebook.com/roachfamilylbz/) and family, who opened their store where we got pizza, ice cream, and other stuff, then put us up in a small house, it was fantastic! Later I learned they are famous, and have their own reality show as part of life below zero. In the morning we were on the trail again, heading through Anvik, Grayling, and eventually stopping for the night 20 miles down the trail past Grayling. In Anvik I had pudding packs which Bill made fun of me for, but I love those things on the trail, and in Grayling there was a brief panic when I accidentally broke the Inreach app on my phone, requiring me to beg a wifi connection briefly. We also stopped at Shirley Clarke’s and had lunch. Shirley is quite a character and an amazing cook!
In the morning we zoomed on to Eagle Island, where we saw Dan of Dewclaw stopped with his dogs and I said hi to some of my dog Eddy’s siblings.
Dan looked happy, more so than some of the other mushers we saw. We were now in the mix with the mushers and saw mushers nearly constantly until we arrived in Nome. After Eagle Island we rode on to Kaltag, doing the whole section of the Yukon river in 32 hours, which is amazing. The next day we rode to Unalakleet.
I love that section of the trail, as the transition from Interior Alaska to the coast is so stark, and it really feels like I have gone from one world to another. The people on the trail change as well, with a lot more locals using the trail system. I bumped into a young man with a seal skin hat at Old Woman cabin, and when I complimented him on his great hat he said his grandma made it for him.
Such a different world, and it is so neat to share it with the locals! We spent the night at Peace on Earth pizza, crashing on the floor after eating lots of pizza, and then having more Pizza for dinner.
Brent at Peace on Earth is a wonderful person! The next day we were texted by Jeff O warning us about a big storm system coming in, so we pressed on to Kaltag, hoping to arrive just before the storm hit, but instead the storm hit when we were still a ways out, slowing us down to a crawl at a few points. Otherwise, the conditions were fantastic though – so firm, so fast!
When we arrived at Kaltag we were let into the school, where we crashed for nearly 12 hours. The next day we rode from Kaltag to White Mountain, stopping in Elim and in Golvin.
We were met in Golvin by a small group who invited us into the school and served us dinner. Grilled cheese sandwiches with moose – so yummy, and so welcoming! I was really excited to meet folks from Golvin, as the other three times I have passed through there I have not seen anyone.
The evening we spent with Jack and his family, with his son Liam cooking us a fantastic dinner. Then the next day we rode into Nome, stopping briefly for burgers at Safety, then finished a few minutes before the musher Michael Williams Jr from Aniak.
Cute “dropped” dog at Safety who was living the best life, pets and hamburgers from a constant stream of Iditarod tour groups. He belongs to a Fairbanks musher, so it was great to see someone from home, ha!
We had a surprise encounter with Jeff O and Heather B in the hills outside Topkok Jeff and Heather are friends from Fairbanks, and both current ITI record holders – Jeff for the northern route to Nome and Heather has the woman’s record to McGrath. They are very good friends with Jamie and were super excited to see us. And of course, us to see them. They had been planning to ride to Kaltag from Nome but the various storms had pinned them down, gradually reducing their goals to eventually Shagtoolik, where they flew back to Nome. I thanked Jeff for helping me get a Seatpost, which he poh-pooped, but he was a huge help in Nancy getting me a new post.
When we finished in Nome, Jodie Bailey of Dewclaw met us at the finish, handing me pizza, bananas, and a huge thing of M&Ms. So appreciated!
Bill, Jamie, and I spent the next few days hanging out in Nome, enjoying the sights, and watching the last few mushers come in. At that point, I was pretty worn out socially and needed some people free time, but I survived. My friends Sue and Glen were out of town, but they generously allowed us to crash at their house with Egor “the very chatty” house sitter. Sue is a very talkative person, so I was a bit worried about someone Sue would describe as ‘very chatty” but Egor turned out to be a very interested miner from the Lake Baikal region. Thanks, Glen and Sue! I would like to thank my family Nancy, Molly, and Lizzy for letting me disappear on this adventure for nearly a month – you guys rock. Molly also edited this blog post, with lots of helpful and constructive criticism. Better than Lizzy, at least, who told me I write in a very simplistic and childish manner -hah!
I don’t think I am going to do the whole Nome route again – it is really time-consuming and only parts are worthwhile. For segments I felt like I was holding the fast forward button, just burning time in the middle of no where with not much to gain. Spending life in “fast forward” spinning my wheels just to get to a place worth visiting doesn’t seem like a good use of my time… I might do sections again – Kaltag to Nome, and Ophir to Shageluk are really worth doing!
This spring I biked from Knik to Nome on the southern route. I will eventually post a write-up about that, but meanwhile, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has come before me.
The Southern route passes through a bunch of shelter cabins and their walls and log books were fascinating reminders of everyone who has ridden, walked, mushed, skied, and snowmachined the trail before me. So many great adventures, and reading about these adventures inspired me to eventually ride my bike on the same trails so many years later. A big thank you, I wouldn’t have had this wonderful experience without you blazing the trail before me!
Highlights..
Andy Sterns, Frank, and Kevin biked Dawson to Nome in 2003 on normal mountain bikes way before fat bikes.
They even have an old documentary about their ride, a total classic. Andy gets teased a lot in the video, however, it should be pointed out Andy doesn’t have full control of one of his legs from a skiing accident a long time ago, and seeing him push his bike all that way is nothing short of amazing. Andy is the world’s most cheerful human being.
Mike C whose blog details many stories of the trail, and who spent years trying (and eventually succeeding!) to ride to Nome unsupported. No time inside, no resupply, no fires. Amazing!
There were a bunch of entries from 2008..
And a few from 2003, the year the Iditarod started in Fairbanks, and the human-powered race also started in Fairbanks. The stories from that year are epic, with lots of snow and the human-powered travelers getting stuck for days in Kokrine Hills Bible Camp eating endless pancakes.. I clipped Tom Possert entry, alas, not noticing it until reviewing photos much later.
And from 2005, when there were only two finishers in the human-powered race, Carl Hutching and Dimitri Kieffer.
My friends Ned Rozell and Bobby G.
Tracy and Jay Petervary.. I think that year Tracy won both the woman’s division of the McGrath and Nome race.
RJ Sauer, wonderful person and the maker of the “Thin White Line”, one of the first films about the human-powered race…
His film is available on Vimeo, and really worth watching.
(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!
A Postscript of sorts: Roughly a year ago I broke a fancy carbon seat post on my commuter snow bike. Perhaps breaking it is an exaggeration, it was an older Easton post where the aluminum head is glued to the carbon post, and the glue gave out. So I looked through my parts pile, found the heaviest aluminum alloy post I had, used that, and reused it on my new bike. Obviously, this didn’t work out. I have a tendency to just reuse stuff until it breaks, then I am surprised when it breaks. Nothing lasts forever, and I need to start replacing stuff. Hopefully, my lesson was learned, but it now feeling like all my bike stuff is falling apart from old age all at once. As I write this just discovered my brooks cambium seat I love is falling part. Sigh, I guess entropy never stops!
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.
Markers in the fog..
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
Motivational lath..
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.
Photo complements of Kevin Breitenbach
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.
Photo complements of Kevin Breitenbach
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!
