Part 3: Kaltag - Nome
After the dogs not eating I decided to give them more rest and leave around 7 a.m., where they still did not eat, so by waiting I gained nothing. It would have been much better timing to leave Kaltag at 4.30 instead of 7 a.m. and now looking at the runtimes of the other mushers, those 3.5hrs would have moved me from 40th to 32nd place in one shot. There was no need to rest 8 hrs after a 5 hr run, dogs eating or not. I dropped Neuro, he had nothing wrong with him at all, but his line was more slack than tight and I got tired of looking at that.
The run over to Old Womans Cabin was somewhat sluggish and Rick Casillo passed me about 1 hr out of Old Woman. Last year I missed that nice cabin and ended up running all the way straight to Unalakleet. If I would have left at 4.30, I could have run till 20 miles outside of Unalakleet. There is actually a sign there saying UNK 20 M. It also is pretty much the only sheltered spot along a river with big trees to hide out of the wind. Than I could have run straight though Unalakleet. Last year I had a bad rest there and this year it would be the same thing. Now I needed shutting the team down at 1 p.m as it go way too hot. There were quite a few teams at Old Womans. I cooked a meal and wondered if the dogs would eat or not. Everybody did. Very strange, basically they skipped one whole checkpoint eating. We left Old Woman at about 5.30 p.m. and made it to Unalakleet at 10 p.m. Along the way we passed Judy Currier who had some lead dog issues and she followed us in. Rick and Fabrizio passed us short before Unalakleet. Than all for sudden I could not see any more trailmarkers and we lost the trail, but with Unalakleet visible in the distance I just made a B line for it, hoping there would not be any open water in between.
Unalakleet was windy once again, from what I understand much better than the day before, but still very windy for the dogs. I had a pretty harsh run in with Lavon Barve one of the officials about me taking some straw bales to make a windbreaker for my dogs. He told me that that was not allowed and started taking the bales away, while right in front of me a team had about 30 bales piled all round them. I took 5 bales in comparison, for each pair of dogs one, and used my sled as a windbreaker for the wheeldogs. Worse off there were even more baled sitting in the wind unused. I got so upset that I requested to phone Mark Nordman the Race Marshall, but had to wait in line on the phone as other mushers had complaints too. I was surprised to hear from Mark that numerous Mushers had been complaining about Lavon. That made me feel somewhat better but I wondered why he was still in the position of a race judge than. I went back outside to put the bales back and Lavon had the nerve to come back one more time to tell me to not use the bales and that he would not back down on the issue. I told him to talk to Mark and leave me the hell alone, which he than thankfully did without taking the bales again. I ended up talking to a local musher for quite a while and wished that there would be more time in the race to meet local people. There was a big workshop we could use to warm up and rest. I got some nice sleep before heading out around 4.30., still with the 12 remaining dogs. This run to Shaktoolik ended up very wet for me last year as I broke though the ice. Leaving Unalakleet there is a lot of glare ice. Tang is like a locomotive and never misses a beat or command and once again I was very thankful for that leader. We started catching up to a team ahead of us, which turned out to be Rick Casillo, I had no idea he even left ahead of us. From behind Hand Gatt came flying down the trail. There was no wind, very unusual for this area and the sunrise was spectacular. To the left we could see the open ocean with the moon, to the right the inland mountains with the sun rising. I actually started running up most of the hills, there are quite a few on this run, and worked up a pretty good sweat, still Hans passed me. Rick and me stopped on the way down to Shaktoolik to take some nice pictures of our teams side by side. There is a shelter cabin at the foot of the mountain, reminding us of how ugly the conditions can be here. We had no wind to contend with, just some more glare ice.
Shaktoolik lies along a long sandbar, right in the wind, with absolutely no vegetation. What a strange place to live. It is one of my favourite Checkpoints though, the people here are just fantastic. We pulled in after only 5 hrs running time, I had no idea we were moving this well. It crossed my mind to skip the checkpoint and run straight to Koyuk still trying to catch my goal of being in the top 30, but than opted against it. I have to admit that I was really dreading a night run. After so many days on the trail between the Quest and Iditarod, I was beginning to get pretty tired. Getting up, specially at 3 or 4 in the morning was getting very challenging. If I would have pulled through here, that would have gotten me into Koyuk around 4 p.m. and thus out again around Midnight. No way I thought, I am not going to do that. Not just to reach another number. What is the difference if I am 40, 35 or 29. None, just a number. There is no financial difference in those placings. It would be another story being 25th, 20th or 15th. So I stayed on my running schedule, running morning and evening. Today with normal sleep I see that of course different, but at the time the decision to not run at night seemed completely reasonable. The checkpoint was pretty full and there were a lot of mushers snoring all over the place. Earplugs do the trick and I got 3 hrs of nice sleep before heading out to Koyuk. The last time I ran this stretch at night and in a lot of wind, this time it was calm and sunny. This run can be super ugly in bad weather but we were lucky. Here on the coast my seat comes in super handy, I sit all the time, sometimes doing nothing, sometimes skipoling. From all the Skipoling I did throughout the race my arms were getting really sore, it was as if I pinched a nerve, they would constantly fall asleep, especially while resting. That started bothering me quite a bit. Rick Casillo, Hans Gatt and me ran in sight of each other most of the way to Koyuk, once again a fast time with only 5.30hrs on the trail. I had no problem with that, as that meant more sleep..., yeah sleep holy sleep.
In Koyuk the dogs ate well. No more massaging, so taking care of the team took now only about 45 minutes instead of 2 hrs massaging. The vets suggested to drop Spook as one of them heard some irregular heartbeat. That was a damper to my rising mood, but I still had 11 strong dogs left. Just with leaders I was getting a bit tight with Spook being one of my main command leaders besides Tang. Inside the checkpoint a TV was blaring right over my head while I tried to get some sleep. When I got up to turn if off, I damn near got killed. I had no idea why, but quickly realized that everybody was sitting down to watch Jeff King finish in Nome any minute. O.K. that is a reason to leave the TV on, I got the point. Here I also realized of how close we were getting to Nome. Nome yipeeeeee. The personal food I send out to the checkpoints once again sucked, I really need to take the time next year to precook some yumee stuff. I always foraged though the left overs of the front runners. Each checkpoint I ended up picking some vacuum packs which had the same handwriting on. Somebody here told me that they belonged to DeeDee Jonrowe. I have to remember to thank her for feeding me so well on the trail. Hans was chowing down a big plate of pasta when the whole works hit the floor and also spilled all over his pants. "I might as well scratch was his response" which got us laughing pretty good.
Although I got some good sleep in Koyuk I really had to fight to stay awake after leaving the checkpoint, hitting the trail around 5 a.m. As soon as it got daylight it got better. Rick Casillo passed us and Judy Currier caught up but than fell behind again. There are many cabins along the beach on this stretch, fish camps I guess. Motorboats look out from underneath the snow, blown in almost completely. Rick wanted to run straight through to White Mountain but once I got into Elim he was also camped there. I finally could change my runner plastic. Back in Shaktoolik I had changed my blue to grey, but that grey was dragging like hell. I could hear it crunch and drag. It annoyed me a lot, but I made the mistake to leave to old blue behind and the only spare I had in the sled was also grey. Here in Elim I had a new set of yellow. It got very warm over the afternoon hours and I was wondering about when to leave. Simple math questions are real challenges when you are tired. It took me about an hr to figure out, that when I wanted to leave White Mountain at 6 a.m. that I than would have to get there at 10 p.m (mandatory 8 hr rest). That would mean I would have to leave Elim at 3 p.m. anticipating a 7 hr run. So at 3 p.m. I left. The trail went different than last year, not over the sea ice instead we climbed some more mountains. It was hot but beautiful out. Nice trees here and a lot of snow. Coming down the other side of Little McInley it was getting pretty windy for a while but than calm again once we reached Golovin Bay. I could see RIck Casillo in the distance which meant that I was moving pretty fast. After leaving Golovin the dogs every once in a while wanted to lope... which I was stupid enough to let them do. There are trail markers here every 50 yards, hundreds alone on this stretch to White Mountain, this is how bad the weather can be here.
We signed into White Mountain still in daylight at 20.48, after a fast run. Daylight is getting very long in these necks of the woods this time of the year. Checking the dogs which had been trouble free for a while now, I was disappointed to find a sore triceps in Polar. I was so proud of that little dog for making it all the way. She was a last minute addition and doing a lot better than I had hoped, but I knew that she was not build for loping. Also Gas was favouring his right hind leg, he had been doing so for the whole race, off and on, with neither me nor the vets being able to find anything, and he would also warm right out of it as soon as we left a checkpoint. This time he was also sensitive to me touching it and I ended up dropping him and Polar here. That left me with 9 dogs, the smallest team I have ever had in a long distance race, so far I had always finished with 11 or more. The rest time in White Mountain felt good, but getting up at 3.30 was painful again. Besides me fighting being constantly tired, and my arms falling to sleep all the time, the other thing bothering me pretty bad was my back, from putting all those booties on all the time. This was count down, one last time of booting up the dogs if all goes well. That was welcome news. I emptied all useless stuff out of the sled, but that was not much anymore, as I had been travelling very light for a long time.
Rick took off 20 minutes ahead of me with 10 dogs, Hans would follow 30 minutes behind me with 15 dogs. I was sure he would catch up to me. I had Tang and Herring in lead, as on my last run to White Mountain I realized that Herring would speed up the team a lot. He sure enough did this run too, because I could get sight of Rick ahead of me on some hills. Hills are plenty on this stretch, nothing big, but lots of them, a constant up and down, all above tree line. We had a slight tail wind. I took my big parka off running up the hills, now I had my mind set on catching up to Rick. He obviously had not spotted us as it was just beginning to get daylight, timing him at distinct spots we were only 5 minutes behind by now and made up 15 minutes in 2 hrs. A while later we were only 2 minutes behind him when I could tell that he saw us. From than on he worked up the hills like a mad man. 
The nice race to the finish line was unfortunately coming to an abrupt end for me, as all for sudden Herring started to favour his front right leg. I stopped took his bootie off and massaged his shoulder, but could not find anything. Pulling the hook he would slightly limp again. By that time we were right at the bottom of the last hill, I think they are called Topkok hills, near the shelter cabin. I stopped and snacked the team and decided to load Herring in the sled. My mood was still high as the 8 other dogs did not seem to mind the weight and I sat down to help them skipoling away. About 40 more miles and we would be in Nome. It is funny, along the trail, specially this time at the beginning of the race, Nome seemed so far away. Things looked so bad that I wanted to scratch. Now that the end is near, the thoughts are completely different. As much as it is nice to finish in Nome, finishing also means that the race is over, and thus us re-entering into the normal world. I have always had a problem with normal.
One question I get over and over again is: Why do you run the Quest or Iditarod? There are many answers to that question, from the fact that I like the challenge to simply the lure of being able to spend so much time with my dogs on such an intimate basis. One of the other answers is, that while on the race, I complete forget my "normal" life. Although I get physically very tired, mentally it is the opposite, I get recharged a lot. Almost like a long lasting mediation.
We ran by countless summer camps. They come in all kind of different forms and shapes and I started to wonder if in the summer there would be anybody left in Nome, that is how many camps there are along the beach. About an hour outside of Safety I put Herring back into the team as he did constantly wiggled out of the sled bag. He seemed fine and I had the vet check in Safety. Pulling into Safety I was sure to drop him, but now looking perfectly fine again I took him all the way to Nome. This is the finishing team, 9 dogs:
Tang was running single lead. Behind Libby and Wondar. Than Finn and Marmot.
Followed by Jack and Herring and in Wheel were Rat and Franky.
Tang amazed me once again. She never missed a beat, 9 years old, full of energy always ready to go. I have never once dropped Tang. She has been in every Race I have ever run since I started racing in 1998 where she was a yearling. I had tears in my eyes knowing that this would be her last one, and I have tears in my eyes again writing this. The bond I have gotten to that dog is beyond words.
Almost the same counts for Libby and Wondar. Both born in 1999 they are getting old for racing standards. Libby is absolutely useless in training, she hates training, specially fall training, but once race time comes she shines every time. She is the only other dog in the yard I never had to drop either. Wondar is also somewhat lazy, especially in the summer tours. Most of the guides running him tell me he is useless, but besides once being dropped in Yellowknife he finished every other race with me.
Finn is a yearling and I never expected him to race this winter, never mind finishing the Iditarod. He was always somewhat timid but has gained so much confidence this run that his nature changed altogether.
Marmot is born in 2000, at least that is was Brian McDougal told me a few days ago. Before I though he was born in 2001. Even he is getting old. What a great little leader he is.
Jack is one of my SCL dogs, he does not like very many people and I have to be careful with him. He is an amazingly loyal dog for me though.
Herring the big 70 lb monster is also getting old, born in 99 also. Despite his size he has such a smooth gait that he has finished all the long races with me. This will also be his last 1000 miler for me.
Franky is another SCL dog. He is a shy one. I have had him for 2 years now and first time during this race he actually asked to be petted. He came up to me in Shaktoolik rubbing his head on my legs, definitely one of the highlights of the race. He has iron feet. Luckily because putting booties on him is a real challenge.
Rat is also a yearling, one of Tangs offspring. He finished both 1000 Milers which were not planned that way. Rat was eager to go till the end, just like his mother. He also has iron feet.
A few miles outside of Nome, right on top of the last mountain, I stopped to spend some time with the dogs. Nome was clearly visible in the distance. Once in the finish the one on one time with the dogs will be over. O.K. guys lets do the last miles to Nome.I had a nice welcome, Mike Mraz my host was there, as well as Laurent Dick and some other friends. That made it easy to say good bye to the trail. Back in the dog holding area it was pretty windy, so I arranged a flight out for the dogs for the same night and my own flight for right after the banquet. I again forgot to send myself out some clean cloths, so Mike decked me in some nice Nome fashion. I even had a shower this time in Nome and spent the time between sleeping and exploring town. Libby Riddles gave me a nice tour of town, she used to live here. We had a great dinner at Greta and Laurents place and the second night at Bob Stevers place. Eric, Cindy Gallea`s boyfriend cooked up a hell of a storm.
Iditarod 2006 is over. Writing this already makes me looking forward to next year. With the last snow leaving my thoughts are more at next winter than at the upcoming summer. Once again I like to thank everyone who made this winter possible, either with Sponsorship, Hands on help or just mental support. Many thanks for all the nice e-mails and well wishes, they are greatly appreciated.Rennresultat
Happy trails
Sab
