In recent years my favorite sport event has become the Iditarod, the sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. It commemorates the 1925 Serum Run to Nome when relay teams of mushers and sled dogs delivered vaccines to Nome to head off a diphtheria epidemic. In 1972 three Alaskans, concerned that the advent of motor-driven snowmobiles would force sled-dogs onto the Endangered Species List, proposed a rigorous long-distance race replicating that historic event. This year’s Iditarod is its fifty-second running.
It began with a ceremonial start in Anchorage, followed by an official “restart” eleven miles north, in Willow. This year thirty-eight teams left Willow Sunday afternoon, March 3, in a staggered start, at two minute intervals. The trail leads west, eventually into the Alaska Range, where steep slopes and deep snow always provide serious complications. This year the mushers encountered a different problem, a moose taking an afternoon nap in the middle of the trail.
A few miles east of the Finger Lake checkpoint the narrow trail had been cut through snow drifts four feet high on each side. The moose was sleeping peacefully when front-runner Jesse Holmes and his team came upon it. Startled, it got up and avoided an encounter when Jesse was able to swerve past it. The experience was repeated a few minutes later with Pete Kaiser and his team. By now the moose had had enough, and, when Dallas Seavey approached, it attacked his team, severely wounding one of the dogs with its hooves. Seavey responded by pulling out a hand-gun and killing the moose.
Iditarod (and Alaska Game Commission) rules require that any animal killed during the race must be properly “dressed” before the musher can proceed. Seavey “gutted” the moose, dragged it off the trail, and texted the checkpoint with information regarding the event. Something in this process did not satisfy the Rules Committee, so he was penalized two hours for a minor infraction. During the race each team must take three mandatory rest stops at checkpoints, two for eight hours each, and one for twenty-four. The twenty-four-hour stop is incremented appropriately to make up for the staggered start – Seavey’s was increased by an additional two hours this because of the penalty.
The trail on the west side of the Alaska Range, down “the Happy River Steps” from Finger Lake to Rainy Pass, was particularly difficult this year. Numerous videos have been shot showing mushers trying to negotiate the sharp switch backs down the steep slope. This year Jessie Royer experienced her first crash (in twenty-one Iditarods); her description of the trail made it sound like an Olympic bobsled run.
Selecting a specific checkpoint for the twenty-four-hour stop is a major strategic decision. Most mushers choose to take it well before the halfway point of the race. Takotna (milepost 329), famous for unlimited servings of pie for the mushers, is a popular place for a twenty-four. Another popular candidate is Ophir (milepost 362). Both of these checkpoints are in established native villages, with amenities available. In contrast, Cripple (milepost 425), a difficult seventy-three run farther down the trail, is staffed only as a checkpoint.
Seavey chose to blow through Ophir and gamble on resting at Cripple, an aggressive move. His team was moving well and had made up much of the two-hour penalty. He was ninety minutes behind front-runner Holmes when he reached Ophir, where Holmes had already started his twenty-four. Apparently Seavey theorized that his well-rested team could easily make up this deficit in the remaining 550 miles. By the time he got back on the trail, he would have a well-rested team and know precisely where he stood relative to his top competitors. In addition, he won $3000 in gold nuggets for being the first to arrive in Cripple.
By the time Seavey departed Cripple, the staggered start discrepancies had all been eliminated and the set of front-runners established – Travis Beals, Jesse Holmes, Paige Drobny, Ryan Redington, Matt Hall, Dallas Seavey, and Jeff Deeter in order. One hundred and eighty-nine miles later at Unalakleet (milepost 714) the Trail reached the Bering Sea coast. At this point the order was – Holmes, Seavey, Beals, Hall, Drobny, Redington, and Deeter – with the lead changing each time the front-runner stopped for a rest and was leap-frogged by the teams still running. But, to quote old-timer Bruce Lee, “Leap-frogging only works until the frog in the front gets too far ahead to leap”.
And that is exactly what happened on the stretch along the coast and out onto the sea ice of Norton Sound, where Seavey opened up a lead of fourteen miles coming into Koyuk (milepost 804). His lead continued to increase all the way into Nome, where he won his sixth Iditarod, in a time of 9 days, 2 hours, and sixteen minutes, four and a half hours ahead of Matt Hall, followed by Holmes, Deeter, and Drobny. It appears that Seavey opened up his lead over the field by taking significantly shorter rest periods than his nearest competitors. We must assume that all the mushers are doing what is best for their teams; perhaps his team was better conditioned for the long run than theirs.
My enjoyment of the event is a combination of numerous factors – my fascination with the North Country; my love of dogs; my admiration of the mushers and their ability to manage a team for 975 miles in extreme conditions; men and women competing against each other on a level playing field; world class athletes camping out in the middle of the night with the temperature forty below and the sky filled with the Northern Lights; the variety of the venue, from mountain trail switchbacks to Bering Sea ice; the significant role that strategy plays in deciding the winner; and the combination of its extreme length and slowed down pace that permit me to savor what is happening. May it survive and prosper in the future!