Racereport KuskoSwim 300

Last night I was ready to kick out Andy. He was constantly nagging me, that I had to write the Kusko report. That was actually many nights ago, in the meantime I managed to finish the german version, now I am onto english. Andy reminded me, that I did not even write one race report since he got here, a fact which is unfortunately true. To my excuse I would like to say, that I ran 5 races in 5 weeks, plus organizing 3 one-thousand-mile-races, doing dog sled tour-bookings and organizing stuff for a film crew with whom I will follow the Yukon Quest. That does not leave much time at all.

 

There is not much to add to the GinGin, Knik and CopperBasin. The CB was an interesting race for me, as I did not run my team, I ran Rudis Iditarod dogs. Many of those dogs I had not driven much or at all since the fall training. One little 14 mile run before the race and off we went. Leaving the starting line with Salty and Angle in lead, things looked o.k., as usual I start rather slow but after 30 minutes had to pass the first team. " On by " I said in usual manner, but while trying to pass, Salty sat down on me. Rather surprised I untangled my team, apologized to the musher and kept on going. Well, the next pass resulted in the same mess and it dawned to me that I will have some very long and challenging 300 miles ahead of me. Out of good feeling, the last second while loading the dogtruck I substituted one of Rudis dogs with Skunk. If I would not have done that, the CB would have had a much different outcome for me. I finished with Skunk in single lead. At that sight, Lance who sold me Skunk, just shook his head, probably wondering why he sold me that dog.

By the time we left Paxson, the team finally accepted that strange guy on the back of the runners and we had a good run, finishing 7^th. Rudis dogs looked nice and steady. The CopperBasin-Trail was the best I have seen in many years.There were also other improvements like a mushers sleeping place in Sourdough. The new CB organization is doing a great job.

 

Rather foolishly I also signed up for the Kusko300, a race I have always wanted to do, but so far each year chickened out for one reason or another. It has the reputation to be tough, but also is very logistically challenging and expensive to fly to Bethel. With running the CB, timing is rather tight: CB start saturday, finish monday, driving to Paxson. Tuesday unloading the CB-stuff, loading up the Kusko-stuff. It was snowing hard that Tuesday which did not make packing any easier, but Laird, Torsten and Gaetan did a great job and the truck was ready in time, pretty full with all the dogs, fooddrops and 14 airline kennels. I spend the day in the office, and opted for not going to the CB300 banquet. Just when I tried to catch some sleep, the phone rang and I got reminded “ to better get my butt down there “, so yep, I got the message, hopped in the truck and we headed to the Brown Bear Roadhouse for the Banquet. Glad we did, not only it was great fun, Eric and Brett now got the nickname Laurel and Hardy , but I also received the Sportmansship Award.

After the banquet we hit the road and headed for the Anchorage Airport. Laird who handled the CB also, fell to sleep and a long 4hrs later we arrived at Northern Air Cargo. It was snowing hard, Hugh Neff was also waiting there. The flight was delayed, yes score, some more time to get ready. The NAC staff did not only help unload the truck, they also helped to put the kennels together, they do offer a great customer service. Dogs and equipment weighed in, I had way too much stuff. $ 1.600 later I was on my way to downtown, to drop off Laird to catch the bus back to Glennallen. Back to the airport, parking my truck, check in, I was glad to sit in the plane on time. I did not even stay awake for the take off and only woke up once we were on the ground in Bethel.

The welcome in Bethel was great. I met my hosts Mike and Nena Bricker and dog truck coordinator and organizer par exellence Joe Kleijka had it all under control. I could not even look as fast as my dogs and gear were on their way to their home for the next few days. And what a beautiful home that was in a little subdivision the name I still cannot pronounce, north of town. Nena and Mike own a nice cedar house, I had my own room and own bath, a luxury I have not had for a long time. But even better was the housing for the dogs. With no trees for shelter and an almost constant howling wind, it is not easy to stake out dogs in Bethel. The Brickers had build an enclosure for their house dog Peddles, right under their porch. Peddles - due to his age - resides in the house now and my dogs eagerly occupied the sheltered space. They enjoyed having nice beds of straw, being close to each other, only Gas and Kavik had to be left out of the mix, not to stir things up too much. Once I had the dogs bedded down I spend most of my time sleeping and Nena and Mike quickly realized, that I was happy just doing that - sleeping. They also offered me their truck to go to the Musher Meetings and I did drag my carcass to a Benefit concert for the K300. Thanks Nena and Mike for giving me such a nice home away from home.

 

There a few things different at the K300 than in many other races, not only the fact that you have to fly in and out, but also that the start of the race is at 6:30 p.m. and that the start chute is set up for a double barrel start. I left number 2 with Paul Gebhard next to me, the number drawing was live broadcasted in the local TV station and the starting chute boasted as many people as a good Yukon Quest start. Also the purse with $ 125.000 is close to that, not bad for a small town of some 5.500 people. Some musher I had never met before offered me the use of her dogtruck to get to the start, while Mike transported my sled. True northern hospitality. Things got a little tight time wise while hooking up but soon I had more helping hands than I could count. The countdown was done by Alaskan author Shelly Gill, a good friends of Libby, they both have co authored a childrens book.

 

3-2-1 go, I was relieved to be on the trail. As usual I was being passed by many teams very quickly, but the double barrel start compounded this effect. The first checkpoint Akiakchak is only 15 miles away, another stop in Tuluksak 35 miles from there. Tuluksak is a spot where we have to stop for 4hrs on the return leg. The trail had quite a bit of fresh snow on it and I also was loaded down. Looking at the runtimes before the race, I decided for the “ John Little “-schedule, which calls for a 2 hr rest at Bogus Creek, which is at Mile 75, the same spot where the Bogus Creek 150 mushers have their half way point. At 2:15 in the morning I pulled over, ridding my sled of the big bale of straw and dogfood, which the gang eagerly devoured.

2 hrs later at 4:30 we were back on the trail, heading for Kalskag, which is at Mile 100. It was getting windier the more we progressed, passing a few teams along the way, this run took much longer than I anticipated, almost 3.5hrs instead of 2.5hrs, for 25 miles. Leaving Kalskag, Paul Gebhard only left 15 minutes ahead of me, but I could not see is tracks. A lot of blowing snow obscured the trail and soon I realized I was on the truck trail, as I came upon a drifted in Suzuki jeep. As they both were supposed to headed to Aniak I decided to just keep going, not before putting a few dog coats on some dogs. Well easier said than done, 2 of them got ripped out of my hand by the raging wind. O.k. so much for that idea. Shortly after we got clear blown off the trail, dogs sled and all. This is one disadvantage of the tail dragger sled, it has a lot more surface for the wind to work on than a regular sled. This was clearly not going to be the 3hr run I planned on. The trail went into a slough, off the main river and there was almost no wind. That meant some time to regroup, put on the dog coats and giving each dog some snacks. Off into the wind we went again. Time slowed to a crawl and I wondered if I will ever make it to Aniak. One of the trailbreaker was out on the snowmachine, securing more trail markers and he told me 11 more miles to go, while I was hoping an answer like 2 miles to go. After a total of 4.5hrs for 30 miles we made it into Aniak as the second team in. Although that earned me the second to Aniak award and $ 300, I knew right away that the running schedule I was aiming for literary blew up in my face.

The run from Bogus Creek had taken a lot of zap out of the team and took 2.5hrs longer than I anticipated. The temperatures by now were well above freezing, which meant no more blowing snow and the following teams covered the distance from Kalskag to Aniak in an hour less than we did. I decided to drop Popcorn and Storm. During the Knik200, my team pulled the front hook and ended up in one big tangled mess, injuring 4 of my main dogs: Popcorn, Gas, Diesel and Keeper, so dropping Popcorn was not a good thing, him being my main man.

 

After the 6 hr rest, 16 teams had passed by and I headed towards Pike Lake. Quite a few hills were to climb on this run, and most creeks were full of ankle deep overflow. The wind was still raging, being a tail wind on the way out, knew it was going to get ugly on the way back. Much of Pike Lake also had overflow and it was a pretty wet run home. This was definitely a night to remember, full moon and storm, a warm wind from somewhere deep down south. Back at Aniak I opted for another rest, racing for positions was out of question for me, although I passed a few teams coming in 13^th. After 4 more hours of rest we left at 4 a.m. towards Kalskag and the run went a lot smoother than on the way up. The wind had died down an lot. In Kalskag I only briefly stopped, had Tex Cody the Vet look at Austin, and kept on going.

Leaving Kalskag I once again passed some teams. Although it felt to me like my team was just crawling my time back to Tuluksack was with 6hr 13 minutes much faster than on my way up. The closer we got to Tuluksak, the worse the trail got: water, glare ice, chopped up ice and little patches of actual snow. At one point going over a Beaver Dam near Bogus Creek, my first 4 dogs disappeared into a skinky water hole. Good thing there was more water to come, to get those dogs clean again.

 

In Tuluksak rest was hard to come by, as a group of school children mobbed the sled, dogs and kept on asking the same questions over and over again. If I would give them different answers each time, they would not even notice, all they were thriving for was attention.

There were teams like Hugh Neff and Martin Buser still in Tuluksak, teams I did not expect to see again. I opted to take more than my 4hrs of mandatory rest, hoping the trail would firm up later at night. That was wishful thinking, leaving the Tuluksak River the first miles were not bad, but once out on the open Kusko the trail was basically gone, trail markers far and inbetween. Finding the trail to Akiak was fairly easy, although it did look nothing like it did on the way up. No more snow it looked more like a giant lake and the dogs tried to find their own way through the most shallow water. Akiak was on the right hand side of the river, not a checkpoint, just a little village we pass by. The next village Akiakchak was a checkpoint and also on the right side of the river. Finding that trail was getting more and more challenging, but my hope to get there o.k. as long as I stay on the right hand side of the river proved to be o.k. In Akiakchak I dropped Oso, a decision I would later badly regret. From Akiakchak to Bethel it is a short 15 miles and I was delighted to see that the trail left the River and went overland. I could not remember that from the way up and I thought that they rerouted the trail to avoid more water. In my mind I saw myself in Bethel in 1.5hrs. Far failed. After a short overland run we were standing of the shores of the Gweek River, only one trail marker in sight on the other side of the river. The water was now knee deep, and I could not convince the dogs to go in there on command. I had to walk in front of the team to get them to the other shoreline.

There were some red blinking trail markers at the confluence of the Gweek and Kuskokwim, but they soon came to an end and I had no real idea of where to go from there. At that point I saw a headlight ahead of me, thinking it would be another musher I headed into that direction. Much to my surprise the headlight belonged to Dean Painter and Andy Angstman who were part of the trail crew and they sank both of their snowmachines in the river. They looked a bit lonely standing there, in the middle of the river, at 3 a.m.. The best I could come up with was leaving them my thermos of hot tea. Once going again, Callie had enough of the water and I needed to load her: 8 dogs pulling and sometimes swimming with one dog in the basket was not plan A.

I spotted a trail marker off to my left, the first one I had seen in a while, the disappointment was even bigger, when I realized that the trail marker I aimed for was floating in the river. I got pretty demoralized at that time, but also started to run out of energy. With the lights of Bethel in sight in about 5 miles distance, I wondered if I would actually get there. I worked myself back towards the right shoreline of the river, a little mad at myself for being stupid enough to venture towards the middle. About 3 miles from the finish the conditions somewhat improved and we passed the “ nomans land sign “, which looked like a joke standing in a middle of a lake. The water was only ankle deep from here on, and we could almost call this mushing again.

 

I was asking myself how I would get home after finishing the race, it was 5 a.m.. Boy was I glad to reach that finishing line, even more glad to see Mike with his truck to pick me up. I was very surprised to learn that Jeff King only finished 30 minutes ahead of me, although he left more than 6hrs ahead of me in Tuluksak. Hugh Neff was not even in yet and I must have passed him somewhere without even seeing him. Obviously I was not the only one who had a run from hell. Back at the house I took a hot shower and disappeared in bed again, glad to be off that river. All toes came back to life.

In the evening was the banquet, a great event with a huge turnout. For my 9^th place I received $ 3.600, which was very nice but did not cover the expenses to run this race. Still I think it was very worth while to go to the Kusko and I am sure to be back one of those years, if nothing but, for the great hospitality of Bethel, but also to see the trail with some snow. The following night the wind was howling so hard, that I could feel the bed shake in the house, something Nena and Mike assured me it was normal in Bethel. The dogs rested well under that covered porch. Oso was still not back when it came time to leave Bethel, worse off, I had to spend 2 more days in Anchorage to wait for his return. Thanks Mike and Nena for doing many trips to the Airport to help Oso make it back home. I know now why they call this race the Kuskoswim, and I also know I need to prepare my teams for some long runs to go back to this one.

 

Since getting back to Paxson the days have been split between long days on the computer and a lot of packing and organizing. First we did Andys Yukon Quest-food drop, brought that to Fairbanks, where I had to leave my truck behind with a fuel leak. Luckily our neighbor Rich Cochoran was in town the same day and could give me a ride back, plus pulling the big enclosed trailer with 2000lb of meat, more food drop stuff, this time for Iditarod. Rudis food drop is also done and delivered to Charlie Champaine, mine is almost done outside. The Quest dogs, 17 for Andy and 13 for Rudi had their vet checks today, my Iditarod dogs will have to go into Fairbanks on wednesday to get their bloodwork done. A lot of driving and organizing right now. Plus from wednesday on I will be busy with an italian filmcrew under the direction of Iditarod and Quest Musher Ararad Khatchikian. I am supplying the logistics to follow the race by snowmachine and dogteam to do a 70 minute documentary. Sadly I withdrew from the All Alaska Sweepstakes,but there is just not enough hours in the day to prepare for another fly in and out only race, right after Iditarod. But I am sure I will find another race to run in that time, the Percy de Wolfe sounds good to me. So if I am behind on writing again, the reason being is that I am out on the trail. 

 

Happy trails

Sebastian