Sunday March 3rd and one might think all the action is taking place on Willow Lake in preparation for the restart at 14:00. True, there’s been plenty going on there since well before sunrise but there’s plenty of action in every checkpoint on this side of the Alaska Range. Being part of the communications team at Skwentna, I can vouch for all of the man/woman hours that are going into preparing for the arrival of the mushers later on Sunday evening and early Monday morning.

Currently, forty-four volunteers are working on preparing the checkpoint. Fifteen snowmachines cruised past the Skwentna Post Office and parked in front of the Outback Cabin late Saturday afternoon. They are the River Crew. They organize and operate the checkpoint down on the river. They’ve been busy sorting drop bags, lining out straw bales, drilling a hole in the ice for water, hooking up the stove to heat the water, taking inventory, erecting the banner, marking the outbound trail and much more.

Up in the Outback Cabin, the Skwentna Sweeties are preparing food for the checkpoint crew. The food doesn’t stop with Sunday supper. They’ll be cooking and baking all night. When Angie Taggart, Aliy Zirkle, Travis Beals and all the other mushers walk into the checkpoint, each will received a warm steaming lemon scented face cloth to freshen up with then a plate of Sweetie Pie and a right out of the oven caramel roll.

While this is all going on, the communications team is hard at work establishing a connection between the computer that’s sitting on the old Singer Sewing machine in the Outback cabin and the computers sitting at Race Headquarters in the Anchorage Millennium. We’ll be testing the river to cabin walkie-talkie communication system that’s equipped with lithium batteries a little later this afternoon. To send traffic reports from Skwentna to Anchorage Race Stats we’ll be using an Iridium Sat Phone with a dial-up connection.

Six veterinarians have been down on the river setting up the drop dog line. They’ve inventoried and organized their supplies. They too will be up all night as the sixty-five Iditarod contestants pass through.

Roger and Myra Phillips Skwentna residents and checkpoint hosts are in on the action too. As planes arrive with volunteers and supplies either Myra or Roger scoot over to the airstrip to transport the goods back to the checkpoint. The river has to be prepared. Initially an area the size of three football fields is packed down by snowmachine and left to “set up” over night. Then it’s groomed by snowmachine and pull behind groomer. There’s no end to what Roger and Myra do in preparing the checkpoint and taking an active roll in the operation. Facility management is their specialty.

There’s lots of action out at Iditarod checkpoints and plenty of cameras are capturing it. Lights? It’s the big one in the sky shining through a few thin clouds.