Willow-Tug 300 pt 2

One of the things I love about racing sled dog is that life gets real simple.  It is arduous, but you only have to worry about getting to the next checkpoint with healthy, happy dogs.  The mortgage, credit cards, health issues, and any family problems all go away for the duration of the race.  The Willow-Tug was no different.  I had run all these trails before and while I knew some better than others, there were no problem areas here.  I quickly relaxed and the dogs settled into a nice pace.  The trail ran gently through the trees in the Nancy Lake State Park down to Big Lake to the old Iditarod race trail.  Four hours later we arrived at Flathorn Lake and pulled off for a planned three hour camp.

I had intended to stop on the other side of Flathorn, but this spot was sunny and I thought the dogs would enjoy it. Job one was to spread out straw and get the dogs resting, then take booties off and feed them a light meal using the hot water in the cooler.  Then fix those darned chewed tug lines.

The Seavey double tree system has a spreader bar on the gangline that makes the tugs run straight back from the dogs harness.  That means you can run shorter tug lines and shorten the entire gangline.  To make that work you have a loop in the tug to fasten to the gangline, then pass it through a hole on the spreader bar, with a knot in the line on both sides to keep it from slipping too far, to another loop that connects to the harness.  My tugs are longer with a loop in each end.  That meant I had to undo one loop to get an end that would pass through the spreader bar hole, tie the two overhand knots and a knot or two to adjust the length, then make a loop at the end.  Do this twice and check my watch to see how much longer to rest.

Just time for a snack for me, bootie the dogs and we were off again.  It was 30 minutes later when I realized I had misread my watch and we only rested 2 hours instead of three.  I apologized to the dogs, promised them more rest on the next loop, and vowed to double check any more time calculations!

Fifteen years ago on my first trip over this trail, the drop onto the Susitna River took me by surprise.  It was almost 15 nearly vertical feet.  My leader gleefully plunged over the side and by the time I saw it and got the sled stopped, she was standing on the river while my swing dogs and first team dogs were leaning against the wall mostly suspended by their harnesses.  There was no cure but to plunge over the side and follow them.  It was a lot like falling.  I’ve done this drop many times since then, some better and some worse depending on how low the river was when it froze and how much snow the trailbreakers had to build a ramp, but that first memory was always there.  This year was pretty mild.

Martin Buser was traveling the trail by snowmachine, mostly in the back of the pack, to mentor potential Iditarod rookies using this race as a qualifier.  As we crossed the Susitna to go up the old Rabbit Lake trail (where Susan Butcher was stomped by a moose in 1985) Martin went past us pulling a large trailer sled.  The ramp up off the river on the other side was a twin to the one we had just come down.  Martin gunned the machine but it stalled half-way up.  He tried to back down, but the trailer runners were designed to go forward and got stuck.  He is completely blocking the trail, and apologized to me – got off the sled and tried to pull it sideways, he finally had to unhook it and I helped him pull it off to the side.  As I went past him I smiled – I mean how often does a back of the pack musher like me, driving a dog team in a race, get to pass Martin Buser. Martin just laughed and said it probably wouldn’t be the last time in this race – and he was right!  He is a great guy.

We had a heavy dump of snow the week before the race, resulting in deep unpacked snow and overflow at the planned half-way point.  At the start they told us they couldn’t get there from here and were re-routing the trail.  Rather than go to TalVista lodge (by back trails to make up the miles), we would loop from Yentna to Skwentna and back twice.

The Rabbit Lake Trail had about 5 feet of snow on the ground and was trenched deep enough that the dogs couldn’t see over the edge much of the way.  Martin calls that “trench warfare” – it make passing extremely difficult and stopping for any reason is sure to build a traffic jam.

Sure enough about half-way to Eagle Song Lodge we hit a jam.  Some poor driver up ahead was having problems and 4 teams were stuck behind him.  Martin tried to swing around us and stuck the snowmachine and trailer again.  When we finally got passed the lead team, we saw cupid had been the problem all along.  There was a girl in heat, an unplanned mating and it took 30 minutes to clear – poor guy had his team off into the snow at the side of the trail and if God hadn’t made his legs meet in the middle he would still be sinking.

The rest of the run to Yentna was a beautiful trip under clear skies and dropping temperatures.  The forecast before we left was a low of -10 F Friday night, warming up Saturday to +30 F with Saturday night getting down to +15.  I debated my light bibs and parka in those warm temperatures, but at the last minute decided not to risk it and wore my heavy gear.  Boy was I glad – it was pushing -20 F on the Yentna as I finished my chores and walked up to the lodge to find a place to sleep and wait out our mandatory 6 hour rest.



Keep 'em Northbound


Eric