anticipation

Every day, the temperatures are supposed to be warmer tomorrow. And every tomorrow dawns just as cold, with the same false hope on the horizon. What is true is that it's been entirely too cold to run the team, and that forty below zero has started to seem warm, and that Xtra now thinks her dog house consists of the couch and the woodstove, and that I am getting more restless with each passing day.

The Yukon Quest starts Saturday. This summer I turned in a volunteer application for the third time, but didn't expect to hear anything back since that has been the case for several years running. As the race start approached, I considered calling the office to see if my information had gotten lost but in the end figured that they were probably just swamped with folks wanting to help out and since I wasn't there in person clamoring for a spot I was out of luck. I told myself that it was better this way. I have several friends from work coming out to the start line on Saturday, and I'd much rather hang out with them in the chute than be running around at the staging area or attempting crowd control along the river.  And this way I'd be free to follow the race from checkpoint to checkpoint. At least, this is what I was telling myself.

But on Friday, I got a phone message from the Quest staff asking if I'd give them a call. Apparently, a load of volunteer applications hadn't been processed and I hadn't be receiving the e-mail updates requesting volunteers. In fact, they still needed people for vet checks and for a few of the checkpoints on the Alaska side of the race. The vet checks were the next morning. I called them right back.

And so I found myself driving down the highway at six thirty am on a Saturday, warily pushing thirty miles an hour in the thickest haze of ice fog I've ever seen. I arrived at a warehouse in the industrial district south of town to temperatures dipping under fifty below zero.

Inside the chilly building, tables were set up for officials to check paperwork and vets to check dogs and volunteers were wandering aimlessly between them, waiting for something to start happening. A hastily scribbled list on a white board outlined a schedule, with three mushers at a time slated to arrive in hour and a half blocks. I ended up with a group which included two other random volunteers - a girl with a husky she hoped to teach to skijor and a smoke jumper - and two veterinarians - one Quest vet-team veteran with purple hair and a newcomer Army veterinarian who had been transfered to Ft. Wainwright less than two months ago. We stood around our bare table, clipboard, thermometers and microchip scanners in hand, stomping our feet on the cold concrete floor and waiting. Eventually, the giant warehouse doors opened and frosty dog trucks began rolling inside along with waves of frigid air. To one side, I noticed a Quest staff person taking phone call after phone call from mushers whose dog trucks weren't starting, or who were stuck on the road somewhere far from town. Once of those was Lance Mackey, who'd been scheduled to arrive in the first wave of trucks.

We started with Kristy Berington's team. I learned later she is running out of the Gebhardt's kennel in Kasilof, and finished in the top thirty in last year's Iditarod. Her dogs looked spectacular, strong and bright-eyed. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Mike Ellis and his beautiful Siberian team cycled through the scales.When Kristy rolled out, Hugh Neff rolled in. While we waited for his paperwork to be processed, he told us how they had stopped for diesel in Delta Junction in the early hours of the morning, and the hose line had snapped in half in the cold. It was interesting to see the different conformations in his dogs - particularly those he'd aquired from John Baker, last year's Iditarod champion. Next was Abbie West, a local musher from Two Rivers, and her tough team of trapline dogs from the Fort Yukon area. The fifty or so dogs I saw that morning ran the gammut, from petite, sprint-type racers to classic Alaskan huskies, from thick-coated, dense 'village type' dogs to classically beautiful and remarkably fuzzy Siberians. Lance Mackey even had one that could pass for a police dog, it so resembled a shepherd.

Lance Mackey weighs one of his classic Alaskan Huskies.

I had to cut it short after Abbie's team came through, as I had to be at work later that afternoon, but I was brimming with proximity jitters from being around so many mushers I've admired from a distance for so long. It was surreal to see them all, joking around with one another, swapping dog food and stories, and interacting with their teams. Mackey and Neff sidled up behind Neff's truck for a few minutes, and Mackey absentmindedly gave one of Neff's dogs the ear-scratching of his life without ever looking at him. The dog was so mellow and blissed out under his hand, and he'll be competing neck-in-neck Mackey's dogs in less than a week. And to see all the different trucks, from Mackey's mac-truck custom rig to fancy walk-in trailers to DIY dog trucks designed and pieced together in someone's garage, was an education in itself.

I also saw the two people who kick-started me down this path in the first place; Paige Drobny and Cody Strathe of Squid Acres Kennel and Dog Paddle Designs. Peter and I house-sat for them, back when they were living in an off-grid cabin with fifteen dogs on the backside of Goldstream Valley. In exchange for watching their dogs over the holidays that year, Paige let me on the runners behind one of their teams and set the stage for everything that's followed for me.  They've been developing their kennel and racing mid-distances for the past couple of winters, and Paige is running her first thousand mile race in this year's Quest. The team included two dogs I'd known as puppies back then, and it was cool to see them all grown up, happy and strong and ready to race.

Cody and Stout, who I met as a puppy.

After all the fuss and my admittedly fan-boy admiration of everything going on around me,  I was even more elated to receive confirmation that I'll be able to work at the Circle checkpoint, at about the 370 mile point of the race. I'll watch the race start on Saturday, drive to Two Rivers and watch the mushers go through there that afternoon, then leave early Sunday morning to follow the Steese Highway as far as it will take me. I spent several weeks in Circle two summers ago, working as a medic on the Crazy Mountain Complex wildfire and I'm eager to see it again in this new context.  I'm also looking forward to sleeping indoors this time - granted on the floor with a sleeping bag and ear plugs - instead of in a tent or in my truck.

This will be the last race I'll have a chance to follow from Alaska for a while, and I'm glad I get to do it in high style. Now, I just have to pack the truck. And spend every spare minute running my little team between now and Sunday morning. Because, against all odds, the temperatures seem to be rising.