• Zipper on snowsuit broke.
• Lost team.
• Scratched. Ran 100 of the 213 mile course.
• Frostbite on six fingertips.

The Team

• Chevy & Nikki (Lead)
• Maude & Zeus (Point)
• Snowball & Moe (Team)
• Ahab & Shrek (Team)
• Spike & Luke (Team)
• Capella & Phanty (Wheel)

The Story

The race began with a mass start for the women’s division at 11am and men’s at 11:30am, December 28, 2011.  I was one of the last women’s team to leave the Meiers Roadhouse parking lot. As soon as we got onto Paxson lake (around 1 minute after starting) Phanty’s collar fell off and I needed to stop the team to re-collar him. Stopping the team immediately after starting is a difficult thing to do. My hooks wouldn’t hold the team, but somehow, after several tries I was able to stop long enough to run up to wheel position and put on Phanty’s collar and untangle the rope from his hind legs.

Around 5 miles into the race the wind started blowing and we hit deep snow. Two teams were ahead of me stuck in the snow and I was behind another team that was waiting. It seemed like we waited quite a long time for the teams stuck in the snow to take off. Once they took off they got stuck again. The women were polite, and waited for each other. There really wasn’t anywhere to go because the snow on each side of the trail was deep.  Soon the men caught up to us and they weren’t so polite. They plowed passed us, making more tangles between the teams that were stopped.  I noticed one of my leaders run away. We were stopped for so long that Maude, positioned in point, chewed the lines. Since I was already stopped with no where to go, so I left my sled to run after Chevy. He came to me when I called and I put a new line on for him. Then Nikki, my other leader ran free. I ran after her, caught her and put on a new line. The men kept passing. Finally the women in front of me got unstuck and mushed on.

Once we got off of Paxson Lake, we were on a nice little up/down section that went through spruce. Shrek vomited. Then he vomited again, fell down, twitched his feet and stood up. I had already experienced this with him and had brought him to the vet.  The conclusion was that perhaps he was working too hard and when he vomited he had some kind of vagus nerve response. I decided not to drop him at Paxson Lodge (18 miles into the run). If Greg had been there, I would have dropped him, but I didn’t see Greg and figured that Shrek would be okay. It was hot out and the dogs were working hard mushing through deep snow.

We turned onto the Denali Highway and all was well– for a little while. I’m using a tail dragger on my sled— it’s a device that hooks onto the back runners so that you can store gear on top. Some how when we stopped for a 30 second break, I pinned my right foot under the tail dragger and couldn’t get my foot out. I was worried if the dogs took off I’d break my foot. I spent between 10-20 minutes trying to unpin my foot and finally freed it. We started going and the wind picked up. I felt a draft and went to zip up my zipper and noticed that my zipper on my Apocalypse Design snow suit was broken. F#$%^&K! I had an extra parka packed away– if I didn’t have that with me I’d have to scratch right then and there.

We mushed along for several hours and came across a team in the ditch. Some snow machiners were helping her out. Right when I came up behind her she was out of the ditch and took off (this was Lance Mackey’s handler’s puppy team– and man those pups were fast!)  I snacked the dogs a couple of times and was counting miles to the hospitality stop, looked at my watch and was pretty well on target. The hospitality stop was at 42 mile Denali Highway. I went into the ditch at around 36 mile. I tried and tried to push the sled out of the ditch, but it was too heavy. I took everything out of my sled, pushed the sled onto the road, and repacked. Off we went, only again to go into the ditch. This time I wasn’t so lucky. I tried getting unstuck without taking everything out, but it didn’t work. Once again I took everything out of my sled. I was on the downslope side pushing the sled out of the ditch and the sled freed itself and the dogs took off– without me.  All I could do was walk after them and hope they got hung up somewhere. I was very worried. I walked around 1/2-3/4 a mile when I found them waiting for me. I turned them around, untangled everyone and mushed back to our gear. I turned them around again, untangled everyone and souped them– they were very hungry, and repacked the sled. Then we mushed on to the 42 mile hospitality stop. I arrived at around 10:30pm.

I was surprised to see so many teams there since I wasted two hours getting stuck. I tended to the dogs (took off booties, put down straw, started to boil some water– I spilled heet on my fingers). When I walked into the hospitality cabin my fingers tingled. This is normal for me, so I didn’t think much of it.  A couple of mushers told me that “everyone was still hanging around because there isn’t a trail.” Then I heard from some other musher that “it took Brent Sass five hours to mush twenty miles because there wasn’t a trail.”  I did the rest of my dog chores, ate some junk that was in the hospitality cabin and went into a cabin where mushers were sleeping. They weren’t sleeping though, they were talking about the trail that wasn’t there. A couple of mushers who had previously run the trail decided to go forward. Lance Mackey’s handler said she was headed back to Paxson. That left Simon and myself. He was planning on turning around and I was still undecided. I walked over to the lodge to see if I could get details from anyone, but nobody was awake– it was around 4:30am. I decided that for the safety of myself and team, I’d scratch. Since there wasn’t a sweep, and the last teams that took off for Apline lodge left hours ago, I’d be way behind everyone. I just didn’t feel safe thinking there was no trail, no markers, and possibly going into water if I couldn’t see where the trail was.

Simon and I mushed back to Paxson. I’m not sure what time we left, maybe around 8:30am.  I arrived a little after 1pm. Greg was waiting for us! We were very happy to see him.  That’s when I noticed my fingertips were not only very numb, but also gray. On each hand, my thumb, pointer, and index fingers had frostbite. Greg packed everyone and everything up and I warmed up inside Paxson Lodge, and then we headed back to Fairbanks.

It’s a good thing that I scratched because I wouldn’t have realized I had frostbite.

Overall we had a good time and learned a lot.

Frostbite

Ilana & Dog, Paxson, AK

• Chevy & Nikki (lead)
• Ahab & Shrek (point)
• Maudie & Zeus (team)
• Capella & Phanty (team)
• Moe & Sno (team)
• Spike & Luke (wheel)

By time we saddled up and left the parking lot it was 2:15pm. Chevy and Nikki were great leaders. We were there a previous year, so they knew the trail. I missed the turn I was supposed to take and Chevy lead me to a cabin we’ve stayed at before…Cache Mountain cabin. I decided to soup them at the cabin (a bit early…but twenty miles) and they were all great eaters! I was ready to head back to the truck if I missed the turn again on the way back, but Chevy listened to my “Gee” (turn right) and off we went. The trail was fine. A couple of icy areas and the rangers re-routed the route around McCay creek– so it was sort of funky with log bridges and turns. The long stretches of hill tired out the gang and I knew we wouldn’t make it to 55 miles in 6 hours, so I decided to stay at Moose Creek Cabin, which made it a 40 mile run (one way). I melted snow, souped the dogs, took a 4 hour rest, and off we went. At around 60 miles into the run Ahab looked bewildered and stopped pulling, so I put him in the sled for around 10 miles. When we fell over, I decided to try to put him in the team again and he did fine. I was a pleasant 80 miles mush and we were all so proud of ourselves, and tired.

Back at the truck, I put the dogs away and emptied my sled and tried to put the sled on top of the truck. I tried and tried and tried, but couldn’t lift that sucker high enough :(  It was 5:45am and there was no one on the secluded road to ask for help. I tried lifting, tugging, pulling, pushing for around 45 minutes and gave up! I decided to leave the sled there and go back with Greg later. Greg had to go to work though….so when I got home we chatted a bit, and then he made the three our drive (round trip), to rescue my sled and then went to work. Thanks honey!!!!!

We got a later start than expected, due to leaving home late and some construction delays on the Steese (yes, there was active construction for 20 miles, after 9pm on a Friday night!). We hit the trail around 11pm, but of course it was still light out. We hiked just a couple of miles, and camped on a small saddle. By early morning it was quite windy and foggy. Not really fog, though: we were in the clouds.

Saturday was a long hiking day. We spent the first half in the clouds, with rain, high winds, and temperatures in the 50s. This was chilling, but we kept moving and did OK. The trail was entirely in the arctic tundra, so markers were mostly posts and cairns. The trail is very well marked, but there were some uncertain areas, especially around Porcupine and Pinnell mountain peaks where fog was thickest and the trails weren’t very straight. We stopped for some lunch and a hot drink in a trail shelter.

Later that day the clouds burned off, and weather turned very pleasant. We stayed for the night in the second trail shelter, which featured Hoary Marmots. Beware the marmots! They are raccoon-sized, and operate as a clean-up crew for the shelter.

Sunday, we had a pleasant and warm hike back to the 12 mile turnout. We then mounted our bikes, which we left there Friday night, and rode back to the truck at Eagle Summit. This was a 20-mile ride, including around 6 miles of uphill to get to the top of the summit. The road was fine, the bugs were not too bad, and it was good to get to the top. The Pinnell Mountain Trail is recommended! For more information, see the BLM site.

We didn’t bring any dogs on this excursion, but maybe another time. The trail is rough, and there are also some animals: Hoary Marmots and other small mammals, grouse and ptarmigan and other birds, caribou (we saw two!), and rumors of fox and wolf.

Scott and I did recon the day before on the snow machine, to confirm the trail was in, and check out snow conditions. We were doing a 20-mile trip, from a parking area at Mile 42 on the Steese Highway. The trail was in, and had been used a few times within the past week. Snow was sufficient, and the cabin was nice and had plenty of tie-out room for dogs. (The Bureau of Land Management web site hadn’t been updated since December 16, when the trail had not yet been assessed by BLM staff.)

Scott contributed two of his dogs, Nike and Panda (short for Pandemonium) so that we could either have one team of 10, or two teams of 5. Ilana wanted to take Chester, so decided to ski in with Chester as a ski-jor dog. We got to the trailhead around 10:45 Monday morning (as the sun was rising), and Ilana started skiing a few minutes afterward. I left about an hour later, and Scott and Maureen left an hour after that (it takes awhile to get dogs bootied and harnessed, and the snow machine’s sled packed, but we had guessed I would be the slower team). This trail is uphill for about 7 miles — not often steep, and sometimes flat or slightly down, but mostly uphill. Ilana made excellent progress, and had gone almost 10 miles by the time I caught up with her, an hour after I started.

Trail conditions were good. Ilana needed to keep Chester close, so that he didn’t get caught in a trap. Trapping is legal on this federal land, as long as there is signage indicating there is trapping going on (there was). It’s legal on state land, which was the first 7 miles of the trail, without any signage. We saw, and smelled, multiple traps which were often just a few bandwidths off the trail. Yech.

Skiing was challenging for Ilana, and she got blisters early on. I passed Ilana, then Scott passed me. A little while later, Maureen passed me, too. I arrived in camp around 3:00 pm, a little more than 3 hours after starting. Scott and Maureen were there for about 1/2 hour before me, and, surprise! Ilana arrived within another hour. We bedded the dogs in straw, snacked then fed them, and gave them a little rubdown.

The cabin, like others in the White Mountains, requires a free advance reservation. It was snug, with sleeping room for 6 (or more, including a loft). It came with a dual-fuel Coleman lantern, a propane stove, and a wood-burning barrel stove. We stoked the stove and got comfy for the evening. As often happens with winter camping, we were all starting to fall asleep over our dinners by 6:30 pm, but rallied and had a game of Cribbage and some conversation. Still, we settled down by 9:30 or so. Scott had some barkers, so it was tough to snooze soundly all the night through.

I fed the stove before bed, so the cabin stayed reasonably warm all night. Probably close to 50F at dinnertime, then barely below freezing overnight (we left some water out, and it did not ice over). People started getting up by 9:00 am, and after a leisurely morning we were on the trail by 11:30 am. I was the lead team again, and was not passed. I made it back to the parking area by 2:00 pm, about 1/2 hour faster than the trip in. There were fewer Asa shenanigans on the way out (though there were some).

One of the nicest parts, in both directions, was watching the incredibly long sunset, with the moon rising. The sun was setting to the SSW, and the moon was rising almost directly opposite, to the NNE. The moon is nearly full, which means (by definition) that it’s opposite the sun. But from the hilltops, with really long twilight and dawn, we got an unparalleled view of this celestial display. The weather was perfect: clear, with lows around -12F and highs on the hilltops of maybe +15F. We encountered just a couple of people on the trail, who appeared to be workers doing some trail maintenance. The cabin logbook, though, showed that the cabin had been in constant use for the past few weeks.

For the trip home, I took Chester with me. He free-ran for the first 4-5 miles, where we hadn’t seen signs of trapping. After that, I put him on an extensible leash, and kept him close to the sled. Ilana rode in the snow machine with Maureen. They arrived just a few minutes after me, and Scott got there 1/2 hour later. We packed up, and drove home. All the dogs seem to be happy, healthy, tired, hungry and uninjured. Tracey, our dog sitter, had taken care of the home gang. Tomorrow, we’ll be back on the trails of Two Rivers.

The next day (March 21) we got up late, and eventually left camp at around 1pm. We were following the trail that had  started at the park headquarters. Since this year was such a big snow year, the bad section of overflow and glare ice (around 1 mile after park headquarters), wasn’t bad at all. Soon the trail petered out and we were following a ski trail. The snow was very deep, so I put on my snow shoes and broke trail, then ran back and mushed with my snow shoes still on. Repeat process.

Unfortunately, the ski trail we were following let us to the park road and the road had just been plowed. It snowed a little bit the night before, so the road had some snow cover on it. We cruised down the road to the Savage River camp site. We stopped to set up camp (around 4:00pm), and it took us a long time to melt snow and take care of dogs– but at least this time we were able to do chores in the daylight. We kept Sam and Bruno, with the rest of the dogs, on tie-outs and let Chester and Storm free. Storm was very needy.

After a night of endless whining from Bruno, we woke up at around 9am and began morning chores. After chores, we scouted a possible route back to headquarters that would have led us through Jenny Creek. There was a lot of open water on the creek, as well as no-snow spots, and we didn’t see a definitive trail, so we decided to head back the same way we came out. We saw HUGE wolf tracks and tons of fresh wolf scat; HUGE bunny tracks; and a big fat bird that was waiting for us to leave camp.

We probably left camp around 2pm and were quite bummed to see that the road had been plowed again– and this time it was plowed to the asphalt. We mushed for around 1/4 mile on the road (Yuk) and eventually got back to sections of the road that had some snow. We found the turn off for the ski trail, and with a little maneuvering got the teams to make the turn. The rest of the mush home was uneventful.

Dogs

We brought 21 pulling dogs and one fun dog (Chester).

Days 1 & 2

Ilana

1. Nikki / Chevy (no one wants to run next to Chevy because he nips at his running mate)
2. Ahab / Decker
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Asa / Higgs
5. Peetie / Red

Greg

1. Frankie / Storm
2. Dutchess / Rocket
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Roo
5. Monkey / Pumpkin
6. Luke /Spike

Day 3

Ilana

1. Nikki/ Chevy
2. Frankie / Dutchess
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Monkey / Pumpkin
5. Asa / Higgs

Greg

1. Decker/ Storm
2. Ahab/ Rocket
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Roo
5. Peetie / Red
6. Luke /Spike

Trip Planning
Since I was traumatized by Spot being killed, Greg was in charge of packing and trip planning. I don’t know the exact amounts of what he brought– but it was a lot of food. For dog food he brought two 40lb bags of kibble, a block of turkey skins, Champagne race meat, energy pack, 42 pieces of big fish, some left over snacks from the Serum run (which Peetie, Sam, Bruno, and Chester stole from my sled) and some fat. We came back with most of the turkey, race meat, energy back, and 30lbs of kibble).

Gear

• Our Mountain Hardware winter tent is great, however our 20+F sleeping bags really aren’t appropriate for -20F.
• Once again we had stove problems. Greg purchased a pump for our MSR stove, but there are two separate pumps for the Whisper Lite and the DragonFly, so the pump he bought didn’t work with the stove we brought. We also had issues with our Colman stove.  Note to self: bring fire starter paste!

Heather’s snow machine is ready, and will haul a huge sled with lots of gear. Ilana’s dog sled will also have days of booties, first aid (for dogs, people, and the sled), food, dog jackets, and more. It’s a major expedition, and both challenging and fun.

We arrived at the park headquarters after hours, so left the rangers a note. The snow amount increased as we headed up hill– this was a good sign. We parked at the kennels, packed up our sleds, and headed out at around 6pm. We had two sleds, 2 mushers, and 16 of our best friends. The temperature was around 30.

The first overflow section was much easier to cross this year than last, however, we both dumped our sleds and slid across the ice; the dogs did well. The trail was visible, but slow going. We mushed for 3.5 hours and only traveled 3.5 miles! We set up camp on the hillside and by the time we were done with feeding the dogs and ourselves it was 1am.

Sam, Bruno, and Chester slept in the tent with us. Frankie didn’t want to be on a tie-out, so he slept under a tree which was next to the tent. Roo wouldn’t stop yelling at Storm, so eventually I switched her with Rattles. When that didn’t help I brought her into the tent, but at some point in the night when I got up to pee she slipped her collar and bolted from the tent. I just let her be since she’s a good girl and wasn’t going run away. I’m really impressed that most of my dogs won’t venture off anywhere without their mom.

I don’t recall what time we got up, but we didn’t leave camp until 1pm. We were on a trail for a short amount of time. Between the 4 inches of snow we received overnight and the wind blown areas the trail disappeared, so we bushwhacked. I snowshoed up ahead and Greg shuttled the sleds. At times, I sledded with snow shoes on—which is a little tricky, but made a nice trail for Greg and his team to follow. We didn’t travel very far on day two; my guess is around 1.5 miles, including the shuttling back and forth. We set up camp and managed to go to bed at a decent time– 9:30pm. Sam, Bruno and Monkey slept in the tent with us. Monkey always seems to get a little sick or depressed on long trips. I can tell because she doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t lay down, and she gives me her sad Monkey eyes.

On day three we decided to mush out instead of continuing on. Since we already put a trail in, it took us a little over an hour to get to the dog truck. The dogs were happy to be headed home.

Trip Planning

I didn’t take trip planning too seriously; meaning I didn’t measure dog food and guestimated people food. Last year I brought just the right amount of people food and too little dog food. I think this year I brought the right amount of both– it’s difficult to tell since we got out a day early.

Dog Food

For dog food we brought one 40lb bag of kibble (RedPaw 32) and 20 salmon. Greg cut up the Salmon before we left, so we had bite size chunks for trail snacks and bigger pieces for appetizers. We also brought a scoop-full (around 6 cups) of Energy Pack. Feeding the dogs kibble entails melting snow and mixing the kibble, energy pack, and water in a bucket. The idea is to get the dogs to drink so they don’t get dehydrated. Some of our dogs drink while camping, but many dump their bowls and just eat the kibble, or they don’t eat at all.

People Food

Breakfast: Muesli; Oatmeal with some sugar. Greg threw in the oatmeal at the last minute and it’s a good thing he did. If we had stayed another morning we would have been short on breakfast. I didn’t bring a lot of Muesli because last year we didn’t really eat breakfast (I think it was too cold and we just wanted to have hot drinks and go). This year it was super warm and we didn’t mind hanging around to eat breakfast.

Lunch: 10 homemade power bars and a small bag of homemade gorp.

Dinner: For dinner I tried something different this time. Instead of cooking dinner in the field, I cooked at home and seal-a-mealed it. Dinners were chili, stew, and pasta. We didn’t eat the pasta since we left one night early

Drinks/Spices: Tang and tea. Greg forgot his coffee :( 1 small bag of brown sugar; 1 small bag of pepper; 1 small bag of dry soymilk.

One of our neighbors plowed part of the road down to the dirt. grrrrrrrr.

Ran the 10 dog/20 miles Valley Funale on March 31st. We were super slow. I left first (bib #1) and came in 15th (out of 16). The line up was:

• Nikki and Roo (in Lead. Originally they were in point but Frankie and Decker didn’t want to lead)
• Decker and Simba (in Point. Frankie was in Point but ended up riding in the sled for half of the way because of an injured and painful paw)
• Rattles and Monkey (in Team. Originally it was Rattles and Simba. Monkey and Pumpkin, but Pumpkin didn’t pull at all)
• Asa and Higgs (in Wheel. Asa ended up with Monkey at some point in time)
• Pumpkin (in Wheel. She started in Team and didn’t pull at all)
• Frankie (in Sled. He started in lead, then was in point, then in team, and then rode in the sled.)

Last weekend (March 23-26) we mushed in Denali on the Park Corridor Trail. Mushed into igloo Creek. Broke trail for the first day. The dogs were tired, working hard, and were pulling heavy sleds. Teams were: Frankie and Storm, Simba and Rattles, Red (by himself), Pumpkin and Chester (Chester ran free most of the time), Ilana (as Musher); Decker and Nikki, Roo (by herself), Peetie and Monkey, Asa and Higgs, Greg (as Musher). Pics are on Flickr. Next year I need to bring more dog food and dog snackies; the dogs were pretty hungry and lost weight. It was a GREAT trip!