As it is Iditarod time I thought I would share a few memories from our three races, not so much complete race stories, more vignettes from different parts of races. Having taken part in the race three times you would think that would be easy to recall memories of three 1000 mile races but in reality my whole focus has always been on the Quest and so I have many more memories of that race. Even when we give presentations, 99% of the content is about the Yukon Quest, I have very rarely relayed stories of our Iditarods; in fact I have been asked repeatedly why we scratched in 2018 when all seemed to be going well and I don’t think I have ever relayed the story – at least until now (maybe J). After the 2015 Iditarod someone said that it must be great completing a dream and I suddenly realised that it was never actually a dream to run Iditarod, we took part just because it was there and because we could. That said when I started to think back over the 2015, 16 and 18 Iditarod’s I realised I do have a lot of memories: mostly good, some laughable and some pretty sad, at least for me, and so as we move through the Distance Mushing NZ Iditarod Quiz I will endeavour to share some of those memories – I may occasionally need some prompting J.
It is probably worth starting at the beginning with 2015. The 2013 Yukon Quest had not been as ‘tough’ as I had been expecting (at least that is what my failing memory tells me) and so we decided that in 2015 we would spice things up a bit and see if we could finish both the Quest and Iditarod in the same winter, a feat then yet to be accomplished by a pure breed team. As it turned out the 2015 Quest had proven to be a bit more demanding than in 2013 and so I was mentally and physically drained when we completed the 2015 Quest in the red lantern position. Over the two weeks between completing the Quest and starting Iditarod I did my best to recover but it was slow going: every time I fell asleep my head was filled with nightmares of tasks and quests that were impossible to finish no matter how hard I tried. Every time I woke up it was with a sense of complete trepidation; not only were the dreams leaving me with a sense of anxiety but I was also not resting properly as a result. Even after we had left Whitehorse for the 14+ hour drive to Anchorage I was still not able to get a good night’s rest; the nightmares in fact stopped only 2 days before the Ceremonial Start was due to take place on the first Saturday in March.
For those who remember, the 2014 Iditarod had proved to be very ‘interesting’ in no small part because of a lack of snow from Anchorage through to the Alaska Range. Many people had harrowing tales to tell, and videos to show, of dog teams trying to navigate the Dalzell Gorge, some successfully, others unsuccessfully, some upright, other decidedly under the runners – having now run the Gorge twice I can say that it is honestly not a descent to make when there is little or no snow. With another low snow year in 2015, the Iditarod Trail Committee (ITC), I am sure not wishing to endure the level of criticism they had received in 2014, decided that the race would begin in Fairbanks as opposed to Anchorage for only the second time in its 42 year history. Fairbanks is around 6 hours north of Anchorage and so often colder and with more consistent snow; the chosen route would actually more closely resemble the 1925 serum run and would, importantly, avoid crossing the Alaska Range. The Ceremonial Start is however, and despite being non-competitive, a major part of Iditarod particularly as a large part of the race’s corporate sponsorship is generated in that area. It was therefore decided that all the pre-race activities would take place in Anchorage as usual. The Ceremonial Start would once again run through the streets of the city albeit it in a reduced format because a) there was no snow in the area (snow actually had to be brought down from Fairbanks via train) and b) because it was going to be super-warm. After the Ceremonial Start the teams would then pack everything up and head north to Fairbanks; the race would then restart on the Monday morning in Fairbanks (as opposed to Sunday afternoon in Willow) - considering that everybody got bogged down in a major storm when driving through Denali on Saturday night this proved to be a very wise decision although that is a story for another day perhaps.
The Bib Draw for the Iditarod, which takes place at the Start Banquet, is a very different affair to most other bib draws I had ever been to. As with a lot of elements around Iditarod, the Start Banquet is much more about spectacle, sponsorship and media than it is about the mushers or dogs; the hall is vast with hundreds of tables crammed in, often with 10 to 12 people to a table. There is a (not so) silent auction, queues of people waiting for mushers to sign posters, stands selling all sorts of mushing memorabilia, many bars selling many types of last minute pick-me-ups, film crews and anthem singers, dignitaries and mushers old and new, and many, many people. If you are lucky you get to sit with friends, family and if you can swing it, your Iditarider – the person who has likely invested a princely sum in getting to sit in your sled for the Ceremonial Start. The warm weather and lack of snow around Anchorage already meant that the Ceremonial Start had been reduced from 11 miles to around 3 miles and so the Iditariders were already getting somewhat short-changed; we therefore made every effort to be sat with our rider. As I got up from the table to join the queue of mushers waiting to get up on stage and draw their start number from the Ceremonial Bunny Boot, my rider asked where I would like to start, as I said near the start she said ‘ok then, draw number 2’ (the first team out after the gap left for the honourary musher). When my time finally came to ascend the stage I drew my number, stood in full glare of spotlights and cameras, realised that the only people actually paying any attention to me out of the thousands of people in the hall were those sat around ‘my’ table and announced that I would be bib number …. 2; even if just very briefly a team of Siberian Huskies was set to be in the lead of the Iditarod. This not only meant that we would be the first team to leave the chute from Fairbanks on Monday, and so have a clear trail and less time to stress over the start, but we would also be second out at the Ceremonial Start, right behind the invited team, often the Jr Iditarod winner; this was going to prove to be one very big bonus.
As I said the Ceremonial Start really is about pleasing the fans and sponsors, creating a spectacle for the media and the crowds, a bit of razzamatazz – all of the things that most ‘normal’ (note I didn’t say sane) mushers do everything they possibly can to avoid. I was not in the slightest bit looking forward to the Ceremonial Start but it is something that you have to do and something you should try to smile for whilst doing!! Downtown Anchorage pretty much closes down for the Ceremonial Start so as we made our way in from Willow at around 0700 on Saturday morning, we followed detour signs and directions from volunteers and slowly made our way to our parking location. You would think being first ones out we would be near the front but in fact we were right at the very back a considerable number of blocks away from the start chute – the logistics of dealing with almost 80 teams, and as many dog trucks, in a confined city centre meant that the handlers for the first teams out of the chute had to be the first ones to get out of the city to the finish location in order to meet their teams at the end of the Ceremonial Start and avoid absolute chaos. It also meant that we would be led from our dog truck through the entire field of mushers preparing their sleds and tag sleds, their handlers, fans, riders and dogs to the start line – with Hektor and Ammo in lead though we were bomb-proof. Having to wind our way passed 77 other dog teams to get to the start may not have been the best for calming any nerves, as I mentioned above however, being second out did have one major advantage. The aforementioned lack of snow and very warm temperatures meant that the little snow that had been trucked in and laid out to form a thin and narrow trail was disappearing fast. As it turned out we were one of the very few teams that actually got to run on snow (and even that was stretching the imagination a bit in places), many others behind, including well to do and very well dressed Iditariders, got very, very wet as the last of the snow turned to slush and then water. Although blessed with ‘snow’ and a greatly reduced run (11 miles down to 3) the run was not without incident: having negotiated the notorious 90 degree turn at 4th and Cordorva, that have seen many Fur Rondy and Iditarod mushers take a dive, my tag sled rider, Rob McLennan (an avid advocate for Scottish Independence who I was ‘forcing’ to carry a Union Flag) decided to slam the tag sled into just about the only freestanding tree in Anchorage and as a result stopping the team abruptly and throwing me right over the handlebar of my own sled much to the surprise of my Iditarider who suddenly felt very much alone. Maybe this was Rob’s payback for the Union Flag. All of this along with the crowds, singing, cheers, Bootie Alley, hot dogs, beers and the occasional loose dogs just added to the fun and so despite my pre-race trepidations and aversity to people, we finished our first Ceremonial Start with broad grins on our faces. Now we just had to get out of Anchorage, load up the dogs and equipment that were not part of the Ceremonial Start (you take a maximum of 12 dogs on the Ceremonial Start, at that time Iditarod was 16 dog race and you could actually select your Ceremonial team from the 20 dogs you had vet checked on Wednesday) and get in what proved to be a very sick dog truck and make a very slow trip, through a very bad storm, north to Fairbanks. Oh, and a POLAR vortex was descending rapidly (hence the storm) with temperatures on the restart morning expected to be something like 50C colder than at the Ceremonial Start. And all we ever want to do is get out of the start chute and onto the trail – that was very much ahead of us!
It is probably worth starting at the beginning with 2015. The 2013 Yukon Quest had not been as ‘tough’ as I had been expecting (at least that is what my failing memory tells me) and so we decided that in 2015 we would spice things up a bit and see if we could finish both the Quest and Iditarod in the same winter, a feat then yet to be accomplished by a pure breed team. As it turned out the 2015 Quest had proven to be a bit more demanding than in 2013 and so I was mentally and physically drained when we completed the 2015 Quest in the red lantern position. Over the two weeks between completing the Quest and starting Iditarod I did my best to recover but it was slow going: every time I fell asleep my head was filled with nightmares of tasks and quests that were impossible to finish no matter how hard I tried. Every time I woke up it was with a sense of complete trepidation; not only were the dreams leaving me with a sense of anxiety but I was also not resting properly as a result. Even after we had left Whitehorse for the 14+ hour drive to Anchorage I was still not able to get a good night’s rest; the nightmares in fact stopped only 2 days before the Ceremonial Start was due to take place on the first Saturday in March.
For those who remember, the 2014 Iditarod had proved to be very ‘interesting’ in no small part because of a lack of snow from Anchorage through to the Alaska Range. Many people had harrowing tales to tell, and videos to show, of dog teams trying to navigate the Dalzell Gorge, some successfully, others unsuccessfully, some upright, other decidedly under the runners – having now run the Gorge twice I can say that it is honestly not a descent to make when there is little or no snow. With another low snow year in 2015, the Iditarod Trail Committee (ITC), I am sure not wishing to endure the level of criticism they had received in 2014, decided that the race would begin in Fairbanks as opposed to Anchorage for only the second time in its 42 year history. Fairbanks is around 6 hours north of Anchorage and so often colder and with more consistent snow; the chosen route would actually more closely resemble the 1925 serum run and would, importantly, avoid crossing the Alaska Range. The Ceremonial Start is however, and despite being non-competitive, a major part of Iditarod particularly as a large part of the race’s corporate sponsorship is generated in that area. It was therefore decided that all the pre-race activities would take place in Anchorage as usual. The Ceremonial Start would once again run through the streets of the city albeit it in a reduced format because a) there was no snow in the area (snow actually had to be brought down from Fairbanks via train) and b) because it was going to be super-warm. After the Ceremonial Start the teams would then pack everything up and head north to Fairbanks; the race would then restart on the Monday morning in Fairbanks (as opposed to Sunday afternoon in Willow) - considering that everybody got bogged down in a major storm when driving through Denali on Saturday night this proved to be a very wise decision although that is a story for another day perhaps.
The Bib Draw for the Iditarod, which takes place at the Start Banquet, is a very different affair to most other bib draws I had ever been to. As with a lot of elements around Iditarod, the Start Banquet is much more about spectacle, sponsorship and media than it is about the mushers or dogs; the hall is vast with hundreds of tables crammed in, often with 10 to 12 people to a table. There is a (not so) silent auction, queues of people waiting for mushers to sign posters, stands selling all sorts of mushing memorabilia, many bars selling many types of last minute pick-me-ups, film crews and anthem singers, dignitaries and mushers old and new, and many, many people. If you are lucky you get to sit with friends, family and if you can swing it, your Iditarider – the person who has likely invested a princely sum in getting to sit in your sled for the Ceremonial Start. The warm weather and lack of snow around Anchorage already meant that the Ceremonial Start had been reduced from 11 miles to around 3 miles and so the Iditariders were already getting somewhat short-changed; we therefore made every effort to be sat with our rider. As I got up from the table to join the queue of mushers waiting to get up on stage and draw their start number from the Ceremonial Bunny Boot, my rider asked where I would like to start, as I said near the start she said ‘ok then, draw number 2’ (the first team out after the gap left for the honourary musher). When my time finally came to ascend the stage I drew my number, stood in full glare of spotlights and cameras, realised that the only people actually paying any attention to me out of the thousands of people in the hall were those sat around ‘my’ table and announced that I would be bib number …. 2; even if just very briefly a team of Siberian Huskies was set to be in the lead of the Iditarod. This not only meant that we would be the first team to leave the chute from Fairbanks on Monday, and so have a clear trail and less time to stress over the start, but we would also be second out at the Ceremonial Start, right behind the invited team, often the Jr Iditarod winner; this was going to prove to be one very big bonus.
As I said the Ceremonial Start really is about pleasing the fans and sponsors, creating a spectacle for the media and the crowds, a bit of razzamatazz – all of the things that most ‘normal’ (note I didn’t say sane) mushers do everything they possibly can to avoid. I was not in the slightest bit looking forward to the Ceremonial Start but it is something that you have to do and something you should try to smile for whilst doing!! Downtown Anchorage pretty much closes down for the Ceremonial Start so as we made our way in from Willow at around 0700 on Saturday morning, we followed detour signs and directions from volunteers and slowly made our way to our parking location. You would think being first ones out we would be near the front but in fact we were right at the very back a considerable number of blocks away from the start chute – the logistics of dealing with almost 80 teams, and as many dog trucks, in a confined city centre meant that the handlers for the first teams out of the chute had to be the first ones to get out of the city to the finish location in order to meet their teams at the end of the Ceremonial Start and avoid absolute chaos. It also meant that we would be led from our dog truck through the entire field of mushers preparing their sleds and tag sleds, their handlers, fans, riders and dogs to the start line – with Hektor and Ammo in lead though we were bomb-proof. Having to wind our way passed 77 other dog teams to get to the start may not have been the best for calming any nerves, as I mentioned above however, being second out did have one major advantage. The aforementioned lack of snow and very warm temperatures meant that the little snow that had been trucked in and laid out to form a thin and narrow trail was disappearing fast. As it turned out we were one of the very few teams that actually got to run on snow (and even that was stretching the imagination a bit in places), many others behind, including well to do and very well dressed Iditariders, got very, very wet as the last of the snow turned to slush and then water. Although blessed with ‘snow’ and a greatly reduced run (11 miles down to 3) the run was not without incident: having negotiated the notorious 90 degree turn at 4th and Cordorva, that have seen many Fur Rondy and Iditarod mushers take a dive, my tag sled rider, Rob McLennan (an avid advocate for Scottish Independence who I was ‘forcing’ to carry a Union Flag) decided to slam the tag sled into just about the only freestanding tree in Anchorage and as a result stopping the team abruptly and throwing me right over the handlebar of my own sled much to the surprise of my Iditarider who suddenly felt very much alone. Maybe this was Rob’s payback for the Union Flag. All of this along with the crowds, singing, cheers, Bootie Alley, hot dogs, beers and the occasional loose dogs just added to the fun and so despite my pre-race trepidations and aversity to people, we finished our first Ceremonial Start with broad grins on our faces. Now we just had to get out of Anchorage, load up the dogs and equipment that were not part of the Ceremonial Start (you take a maximum of 12 dogs on the Ceremonial Start, at that time Iditarod was 16 dog race and you could actually select your Ceremonial team from the 20 dogs you had vet checked on Wednesday) and get in what proved to be a very sick dog truck and make a very slow trip, through a very bad storm, north to Fairbanks. Oh, and a POLAR vortex was descending rapidly (hence the storm) with temperatures on the restart morning expected to be something like 50C colder than at the Ceremonial Start. And all we ever want to do is get out of the start chute and onto the trail – that was very much ahead of us!
