MARCH 14 7PM—Don’t try this at home, the pack almost into Nome
Snow has been falling today, glueing to ice with a two inch cushion. Even pedestrians in Nome are benefiting as they can now navigate glazed walkways and one can imagine the relief of our last seven mushers filing off the trail into Nome.
Marshal Newton, the veteran musher from Jamaica, with Bob Marley played from a smart phone into the checkpoint microphone, made landfall in Nome at the very civilized hour of 4PM, a huge crowd cheering him into the chute. He joked about his scrapes with danger and near death, but gave some of his mushing trail partners, including Monica Zappa big credit for keeping an optimistic view point.
By chance, I bump into family and friends waiting for the back of the pack. Alex Beautow, who had a shot at 44th place a couple of hours ago. His Dad Eric ran the Iditarod in 1983 and 85 and Uncle Mike Madden, who happens to be an Iditarod judge this year, ran the race in 1989, 90 and 91. The family has an Iditarod tradition and all, including , his mother are waiting for him to polish off the Iditarod with a final 2 ½ hour run from Safety to Nome. His mom, clearly an expert on the tracker, first noted that he left in direction Nome—-great, we a get a nice reasonable daylight arrival of about 7:30pm. But, then, a startling realization—all hopes of a mid afternoon arrival have been dashed.
Alex turns around and goes back to Safety. Even the Tracker can’t get all the information. What? What has happened? Scenarios are offered—mayb e a dog got loose and he’s following it back to Safety Checkpoint. Or, the leaders weren’t up to the task to fight the wind and he’s returning to Safety to wait for another team and follow it out. That seems logical because musher do it all the time. Alex and team remain at the checkpoint as this article gets published. This is a story to be continued.
Monica Zappa, running her first Iditarod, is meanwhile burning up the trail with her 14 dog team she trained with her partner, Timmy Adsit, a veteran Iditarod front runner. Her mother is waiting in the Idiarod headquarters for more information. Monica has been traveling with Lisbet Norris.
Lisbet’s mom is sitting at the same table as the Zappa entourage, and offers that Lisbet is driving a full team of Siberians from the famous Norris kennel . As far as I could detect, the Norris and Zappa camp were satisfied with progress, leisurely chatting about the race.
On leaving the community center, I see Dallas wearing his trademark black, high top, lace running shoes. These are the same type of shoes he wore in 2012 when he ran the hills with painful blisters. This year he wore the same model for the entire race and clearly was taking advantage of their light weight when he sprint into Nome for first place.
Don’t do this at home—-you could freeze your feet! I tease Dallas about the dangers of a lightweight running shoe, but he defends his habit by describing his elaborate back up system. Apparently he has a pair of old style wiggie boots that he can put on in a jam—like if the temperature drops to 40f below—complete with high tech liners, and foot pads .
I forgot to mention another cool idea for mushers that may encounter another boulder strewn Dalzell Gorge or NikolaI Burn without snow. As the reader may recall, many mushers were terrified in these sections of trail mainly by the raw power of the team. Even with necklines attached to most of the dogs, save the leader and wheel dogs who were snapped to their harness, the team was too powerful for safe navigation. Mushers complained that the dogs pulled like crazy, even on their collars.
Of course, this is a fact that pet owners with Labradors know all about. Dogs can really pull on the leash on a walk around the block. At the White Mountain checkpoint I talk to a volunteer who has a dog walking business in Seattle. “Oh, yeah, how many dogs do you take for a walk?”
Sometimes ten, she tells me. Wow, that’s impressive. I assume they must all be trained to walk at heel but I learn the opposite. No, she tells me, she just uses head collars and finds the dogs can pull very little, if at all on the leash. Someone tells me that they are a little controversial, but it sounds like a great idea to me. Snap a lead off the tow line to the head collar and you have a nice sled dog going for a Sunday walk. If a musher was taking 12 dogs on a leash for a Sunday walk, and had four reliable dogs on the harness, I think the bad parts of the Iditarod trail are doable.
Seven mushers on the trail, the rest of the pack secure in Nome.
