Checkpoints :: Part I

It has been almost a month since the Quest started in Fairbanks and I followed it out to Circle City and the banks of the Yukon River. It was a whirlwind sixty hours between leaving Fairbanks and returning in a daze of elation edged with disappointment and no lasting ill effects from the lack of sleep or footsore hours standing on the trail in the cold. This year's Yukon Quest turned out to be the closest in history, with only twenty six seconds separating Hugh Neff and Allen Moore's finishes. It was also one of the mildest, with no snowstorms or teeth-shattering temperatures to contend with. In fact, the second half of the race was too warm for teams to run comfortably during the day. All the teams have been in for weeks now, but it has taken this long to get my own thoughts and experiences sorted out. And I've had my own team to run in the mean time, with our own adventures and mishaps filling up February's days without much room to spare. But it is March now (suddenly!) and I should start writing again before too much time and detail get away from me.

Paige leaving the start line on Saturday morning.

The Quest start itself was quite chilly. Although there was good sized a crowd lining the starting chute for half a mile, the temperature on the river was sitting at about twenty below zero and after the first few teams left folks started to trickle back to their warm vehicles to thaw out. My attempts at keeping my camera battery operational in the cold out didn't go well, but the video camera kept working thanks to sticky chemical foot warmers plastered on all sides of the case. There isn't much to say about the start. It was crowded, cold and fun. The announcer had the irritating habit of announcing the next musher approaching the chute before the musher who'd just taken off had gotten twenty feet past the start line. But the crowd was in to the action, and it was cool to see all the teams and dogs and get to share the excitement of the start with several friends from work.

On Sunday morning, I packed up my truck and started driving out to Circle. I wanted to arrive before dark, but certainly before eight that evening - in plenty of time to get settled and oriented before the first musher arrived.  My first stop was about an hour down the road at Dew Claw Kennel, to say hello to Jodi Bailey and the kennel-mates of Reese, Xtra, Devilfish & Parka. Jodi was in the midst of preparations for her Iditarod run - drop bags were due in a few days. She gave me a run-down of some of the food preparations they were working on: boiling a mush of meat, water and psyllium to be frozen in sheets and then cut into candy-bar sized trail snacks for the dogs, as well as regular and freeze dried meat and kibble and frozen fish chunks being sorted & packed for the team. We sat in her cabin for a while, chatting and rolling dog booties into four-packs for the trail. After availing myself of their doorless outhouse with a spectacular panorama of the white mountains, I hit the road again.

The drive was spectacular. I had forgotten just how beautiful the drive out the Steese Highway is, and even though the day was overcast I was mesmerized by the valleys and mountains rolling out ahead of the truck.  I pulled off the road at the Mile 101 Checkpoint, parked in the row of dog trucks next to the highway and walked up to the small cluster of huts at the top of the rise.

A team checks in at Mile 101

This was the first time I'd been to any checkpoint on a race trail. The leaders were long gone, having arrived and left in the wee hours of the morning, but many middle-of-the-packers and Quest 300 teams were resting and some still arriving. The checkpoint consisted of a small hut with coffee, a woodstove fire, a leader-board and some food for the mushers, and another hut with communications gear (race updates are generally transmitted back to Fairbanks via ham radio) and space for checkers to stay warm. Far down the yard full of resting dog teams were more huts, ostensibly for mushers to get some sleep. There was a couch sitting out in the snow by a four-foot-tall spruce tree decorated with Christmas lights where checkers sat in bright orange reflective vests watching the trail for incoming teams. A banner on the communications hut announced the availability of Hughs Net remote internet at the checkpoint, but a quick check on my phone proved that it was password protected.

Just as I walked up to the "Officials Only Beyond This Point" where several spectators and, to my surprise, handlers, were hanging out, a Quest 300 team arrived and I watched as they were checked in and directed to a parking spot to rest. Several Quest 1000 mushers were working with their dogs, feeding, checking feet and massaging muscles after the run over Rosebud Summit. I was delighted to spot the wild hair of infamous and semi-retired musher Sebastian Schnuelle, who was following the race this year by snowmachine to report on the teams and trails to fans following the race on Facebook. I got a picture of him taking a picture of the Checkpoint sign, but was too shy to say hello.

"Armchair Musher" Sebastian Schnuelle takes pictures for his Facebook fans.

I ran into some folks I know from town - notably Cody Strathe who was handling for his wife Paige. I ended up hanging around the checkpoint for much longer than I'd planned. Paige had recently woken up, and had wandered in a bit of a daze up to the warming hut. It was her birthday, and a picture of her leaving the starting chute the morning before had ended up on the front page of the local newspaper. I decided to wait until she left, so I could get a picture of her team headed for Eagle Summit. While we waited for her to start sorting out her team and getting ready to go, I asked Cody about handling. I had been a little confused to see all the handlers hanging out with the spectators behind "the line" at the checkpoint. I knew that handlers can't actually help mushers take care of their dogs on the trail, but I had assumed they would be with the dog team while the musher slept, or perhaps just hanging out with the musher away from the crowd giving moral support. Cody said that in fact handlers weren't allowed near the teams at all, except to help navigate an exit from the dog yard back on to the trail. Once the musher was clear of the checkpoint, they gathered unused gear, raked up straw and then drove on to the next stop along the trail. Talk about a thankless job. I can't imagine being so close to dogs I had trained and worked with all season, and not be allowed to go over and say hello and offer an ear scratch.

A hot meal, then a nap.

Paige stopped to chat for a few minutes, recounting a harrowing ride down the backside of Rosebud. She still had all fourteen dogs, but one had been riding in the sled when they started down. Wind had scoured the mountain of snow, and her brakes were essentially useless against the rocks. They careened down the steep slope, "My dogs were trying to kill me! They heard the brake scrape against the ground, and just took off," as she and the dog in her sled bag stared at each other in terror and held on for dear life. She told the story wide-eyed and a little shaky still, the fear still not far removed after only a restless few hours of sleep. Then she walked back down to her team to prepare to leave for the next summit - the much more notorious Eagle.

It had been warm at the checkpoint - twenty degrees above zero felt balmy after yesterday's cold start - but it began cooling off as the sun started to sink behind the mountains. Paige was a tiny dot far down the dog yard, circling her team, putting on booties, repacking her bag. I was getting cold, standing around with nothing to do, but I had decided to wait for her to go so I stamped my feet and shook out my arms and waited.

I was glad I did, because Michael Telpin, an eastern Russian musher from the Chukchi region had arrived with his team of nine traditional trapline dogs that he used to hunt marine mammals for a living back home. He participated in the race as part of an educational program in Europe, and back at Dew Claw, Jodi had told me to take a close look at his unusual (for Alaska) northern working dogs and his traditional hand-made harnesses. I was glad I'd waited. His dogs were built so differently from the Alaskan Huskies I've come to expect, with curly tails, short muzzles and thick, powerful shoulders.  And the harnesses were a new thing altogether, looking like they'd been stitched together from old seat belts and leftover nylon webbing. I knew his dogs had run into trouble adjusting to an American-dog diet of kibble and supplements, after being raised almost exclusively on marine mammals in Russia. He had been able to start the race with only nine dogs (most teams start with fourteen,) but the nine looked strong and happy. He steered his team over to the parking spot and started making their dinner as Paige continued making preparations to leave.

Michael Telpin's Chukchi dogs in their hand-sewn harnesses, waiting while he checks in.

I got pictures of Paige as she took off, but by then was pretty chilled from standing outside for nearly four hours - a sign of things to come in Circle. I rushed back to my truck and hit the road again, enjoying the sunset and full-blast heaters as the truck made the climb up to Eagle Summit. I stopped for a while to watch a herd of caribou cross the summit (you can't see the race-trail from the road) and slowed on the other side to follow a few more of the beasts traversing the highway near Central - the next checkpoint on the route. I had planned to stop in Central to see which teams had come in and get a hot bite to eat, but the bar/restaurant/checkpoint was packed full of handlers and locals watching the super-bowl and the tiny parking lot was bumper-to-bumper with dog trucks already. It was dark now, and I still had a long, slow drive down the curving, narrow, hairpin road to Circle. I decided to forgo the hot meal and keep on driving.

Paige (lower right) leaving Mile 101 for Eagle Summit.

:: To Be Continued ... ::