John Conrad is attending the 1996 Iditarod and is sending the reports to us. I add the reports sequentially here, one after the other. Enjoy!
We'll I'm back from the start of Iditarod 24, and I'm still in one piece! When I arrived the weather was 20deg and snowing. I stayed the first night across the street from Iditarod headquarters in Anchorage. The hotel I was in had a Alaska Info T.V channel that we nick named the "Mushing Channel" because of all the mushing content.
The next morning we ventured to Iditarod headquarters, there were about four dog trucks in the parking lot , there we ran into Roger Dahl, a musher from Norway and we sat and talked to him for a hour, we asked him if he needed dog handlers and to our delight he said YA!! please! thus began our adventure.
We left Iditarod headquarters and drove through Anchorage on the way to my cousins house were we were staying , and on the way we passed the Tozer Sleddog Race track. The race track is almost centered in Anchorage and there were about four dog trucks there so of course we stopped. The people there were really friendly and all had teams of at least 10 dogs . One thing that stands out about the Alaskan Huskies in Alaska vs. the Alaska n Huskies here in Washington is size. The Alaskan Huskies we saw were between 55 to 75 lbs and looked more like Siberians, were as here in Washington the Alaskans are much smaller and more houndy. One musher coming in off the track had encountered a Moose during his run and had to fire a flare at it to keep it off the trail.
Monday:
We left Anchorage and headed for Wasila to the other "Iditarod Headquarters". on the way it was snowing and visibility was about zero, we saw a road sign that said "WHITE OUT CONDITIONS" we kept driving. We made it about one more mile and could no longer see. Notice.... when in Alaska ..and the sign said WHITE OUT believe it.
We headed back to Anchorage and went to " Rays Harness Shop". This place was incredible in the eyes of some one from the lower 48. I guess there was about 1000 to 2000 pre-made harness hanging from the ceiling in every color you could imagine. There were three nice toboggan sleds out front, and every other piece of gear you could ever need (hundreds were spent here) and return trips to Rays were planned.
Tuesday:
Headed for Wasila again for the "Rookie Meeting" , this time the weather was crystal clear and the scenery was breath taking. As we drove we passed the Eagle River Iditarod Check point #1 that is located next to the hwy.
The Rookie Meeting started at 9:00am there were about 25 people in the meeting including Doug Swingley and the head Iditarod vet. The first part of the meeting dealt with the starting in Anchorage and how to bring your team into the start. the topic then changed to identifying trail markers and the fact that there has been so many trail markers placed through the years that you need to make sure you are on the right trail as the trail may change a few yards from year to year to miss fallen trees and overflows. Doug Swingley then presented his experience of being a rookie and some of the mistakes he made . He stressed the fact that you need to run your own race and not to change just because some one is doing things a bit different, he described his check point protocol to organize your self to be efficient at the check point some tips were to know were every thing that is mandatory is in you sled bag and have it accessible. This way the official will verify the mandatory gear and be done in one to two minutes. During this time he snacks his dogs and leaves them still bootied but removes the tug lines, as his dogs eat there snacks, he gets the water heated and goes to get the dog food, by the time he returns with the dog food the water is ready and he feeds the dogs, removes booties checks each dog and lets the vets do there check. He then goes to eat and sleep all of this within 5 minutes of entering a check point. The reason for this is to get the dogs feed and resting as soon as possible and eliminates the need to disturb the dogs by walking up and down along the dogs .
After Doug finished, the head vet whent through a extremely thorough routine on how to check dogs for injuries, frost bite, mussel problems , hydration, heart rate and even dog CPR. He presented this with slides from previous Iditarod ( my favorite slide was one with dog drops on the side of a plane).
The meeting then broke for lunch, and I had a chance to talk to Doug and a few other mushers and to my surprise I found Rob Carss who is on Sleddog and is running his first Iditarod this year ! we know Rob as "Maddog" we'll we hooked up with Rob several times after the rookie meeting and ended up handling for him at the start and restart.
After lunch the meeting focused on hypothermia and having been through this before, we headed back to Anchorage.
Note: The Iditarod head quarters in Wasila is a must see , they did a nice job of showcasing the sport and the history, in fact, Togo (Sepplas lead dog ) is stuffed and on display (kinda morbid)
Wednesday:
Back to the Tozer track, one dog truck, we stuck around for about a hour to see who would come in . Our wait paid off, in came the nicest all matched 12 dog Siberian team (all reds!) I have ever seen. As we stood there he got off the sled , set the snow hook walked passed all his dogs perfectly lined out and started to prepare dog food all this with his dogs remaining perfectly lined out. We talked to the musher for about a hour, helped him load his dogs and off to the "Iditarod Headquarters" for out daily check in.
Thursday:
This was a busy day, we started at 8:00 am at Iditarod Headquarters in Anchorage for the main mushers meeting. All the big names were there including Susan Butcher, we sat in the back as the meeting started with all the main sponsors addressing the meeting. Half way through the on onlookers (any one not riding a sled to Nome , like myself) were asked to leave because of noise levels. So we went to the lobby and had a chance to talk to Susan Butcher for a while .
We waited in the bar for about 3 hours with every one else and finally the meeting let out and every one poured into the bar. We were able to talk to Dee Dee, Doug Swingly, Martin Buser and all the rest for about two hours before every one went to the main banquet.
The mushers banquet is a bit over rated, basically you get dinner (good food) and you can walk around and meet any musher you wish , the mushers really try hard to make themselves accessible. One by one they go up on stage , draw a starting position and thank every one. One thing that I didn't realize is the honorary musher selected for the race is always number one so when Dee Dee picked number two she actually was the first musher through the start on Sat.
The best part of the banquet for me was that I sat at a table next to Norman Vaugn and I had my Picture taken with him and had a opportunity to chat with him for three hours. If you don't know who Norman Vaugn is, he is the man that was in charge of Admiral Byrds dog teams during the Anartic expeditions, has run the Iditarod, and at the age of 89 climbed Mount Vaughn ( the mountain thatByrd named in honor of Norman) in Anartica.
All for now, tomorrow I will write about the start, restart and the Kinik check point...
By John Conrad
Saturday "Iditarod Day":
Saturday started early, we headed to down town Anchorage to 4th st where the race starts. We arrived at about 7:00am there were about ten dog trucks there and more pouring in. The dog yard/dog truck area is located right behind the starting line continuing down 4th st opposite the starting line. This way the teams run straight up 4th to the start without having to maneuver around corners.
All the T.V and communication companies were all ready setup and spectators started lining both sides of the street. Within one hour the street was solid with people and dogs.
As I stood near the starting line and looked down 4th toward the dog area I was blown away at the magnitude of the Iditarod, 1000 dogs 60 dog trucks thousands of people, this is truly the Supper bowl of dog sledding.
I was impressed at how organized the Start of the Iditarod , and the mushers were. Each team was led to the start by a army of friends, and handlers. Its impressive to see teams like Dee Dee's and Martin Buser come to the start with all the dogs wearing matching harnesses and booties with the sponsors name on them and all the handlers in $1200 matching parkas.
We watched each team start ( this was easy because we were handlers for the last team out) then we left the start and drove to Eagle River check point.
By the time we arrived half the teams were in, loaded in trucks and gone. We waited for Roger Dahl and Rob Carss (Maddog) to handle there teams when they arrived. In the mean time we watched team after team come down the trail through the first check point . It was a hot day for a dog race 40+ . Two teams came in yelling for vets with over heated dogs. The army of vets that rushed to these teams was impressive, at least four or five. and the crowd that was there quieted down noticeably until one of the vets announced that both dogs were fine. One of the two dogs was dropped at this cheek point the other was allowed to continue.
Both Roger and Rob came in within 20 minutes of each other so we tended to there teams, loaded the dogs and off they went.
This check point is a VFW hall and was staffed by some of the nicest people I have ever met. All the handlers, mushers , vets ect... were treated to coffee and beef stew. Up stairs were all the spectators are there is a bar and the party up their was fun too!
Sunday "Wasila Restart":
The restart was much the same as the Anchorage start with a few exceptions. All the sleds are loaded with gear, the expensive parkas are replaced with functional ones every one is down to business.
Once again I had the chance to walk around the dog yard and talk to mushers and help with harnessing dogs. I met a lot of nice people there that I hope to keep in contact with. As I was being my usual Iditarod groupie, some one behind me said hi, so I turned around and there was Norman Vaughan again he too was wandering around the dog yard so I took advantage of the moment and had my picture taken with Norman again this time he was dressed in out door gear so we posed with two lead dogs.
As the restart got under way teams were firing out of the start every two minutes. By the time the 50th musher was heading for the start all the dog handlers seemed to have disappeared? It seems they forget their are 60 teams in the race we had our work cut out for us , we probably handled for 20 teams by the end of the day .
After all the teams had left, me headed for Kinik 14 miles away. The Iditarod trail parallels the road to Kinik and is by far the best place to watch the race. Their are people all along the trail with fires, barbecues all cheering mushers on. As we drove we saw about ten teams running along side the road, we even yelled at Rob Carss recieved a wave, and snaped a picture of his team on the trail
The Kinik check point is a tavern, and the last check point accessible by road, so you could imagine the party that was going on here (yes , we fell victim) each team stopped just long enough to drop there second sled and bid good by to civilization.
Every year I go to the Iditarod. I get asked by a lot of people "why use up your vacation to go to Alaska in winter...yuk!" "you could go to Hawaii? Well, until you have seen this event for your self its hard to explain, all I know is, I Know what to expect in Hawaii, I never Know what to expect at the Iditarod.