SPK Dog Log

Here is a map of a portion of western Alaska. You can see the village of Kaltag, which is still inland, and the layout of the first three Iditarod Checkpoints along the ocean: Unalakleet, Shaktoolik and Koyuk. The route from Unalakleet to Shaktoolik is predominantly over land, heading due north along the seashore. The route from Shaktoolik to Koyuk first crosses the peninsula to the north and then crosses the (hopefully) frozen ocean directly towards Koyuk.

Episode 15 is taken about 15 miles outside of Unalakleet. This is the first video taken along the Western Coast of Alaska.

I wisecrack about the forests along the coast because there aren’t many. Trees start to become few and far between as we near the ocean. Planting the annual Nome Forest is a joke in January when the Nome residents bring their used Christmas trees out onto the frozen ocean in front of the town and “plant them” in the sea ice.

In this video we are traveling along the Unalakleet River to the east of the village. I comment how this frozen river is lacking some of its ice as well. It was certainly a warm race.

There is a quick glimpse of Jessie Holmes’ dog team in front of mine in the video. You can see his red orange parka as his team climbs up the river bank.

Episode 16 is coming into the Koyuk Checkpoint. The village looms large in the video but the dogs perspective is quite different than ours so they don’t see it. While I am talking the dogs do notice two snow machines driving out in the distance. They are in front of the team, driving perpendicular to our route but the dogs can easily pick up their movement across the ice. To my dogs, the presence of snow machines means humans are near by and they get excited. That’s why I get worried about them speeding up and “hurting” themselves in the deep snow blown trail. We had a steady and slow jog for over 8 hours across from Shaktoolik and we didn’t need to get any silly injuries from speeding up just at the finish of a long run.

This particular run from Shaktoolik to Koyuk was a a big challenge. It often is. This year we had strong winds at the start, then snow drifts obliterating much of the trail and even a hail storm. We also came upon two unusual circumstances that can plant doubt and confusion in a dog team’s and a musher’s psyche. The first was when we trotted past Nic Petit’s dog sled. It was parked just outside the door to the shelter cabin beyond Shaktoolik. We didn’t see or hear Nic or any of his dogs. There was absolutely no commotion in the area. It was very disturbing. Race rules dictate that dogs still entered in the race can not go indoors for any reason. So I knew then that Nic and his team were out of the race. Until then, most people were expecting him to win. The next sighting was several hours later in the middle of the frozen ocean. Mitch Seavey was sitting in the leeward, protected space next to his parked dog sled. I could make out his dogs underneath the snow drifts that poked up in front of his sled. To say I was surprised is an understatement. I stopped my team and wasn’t sure what to say. I had to say something so I asked him, “Do you think this is halfway?” He said “Yes.” He didn’t seem to be in any kind of trouble and he even asked me if I wanted to camp with him. I declined but told him that Jessie Holmes was right behind me and he should see him soon.

Strangely, I had no worries during that stretch of trail despite the obstacles. I had complete confidence in my team and myself. I had Mismo back in lead. I even played games with my dogs. I often have conversations with them while we are mushing. I told them that I really wanted to see a seal. I had heard that several years ago Jeff King saw a seal pop out of an ice hole in the frozen ocean. I was quite jealous. So, whenever there was a big wind gust and we got blown off course or couldn’t find the marked trail, I would ask my dogs “Are you following a seal? Did you guys find one?”. I joked with them for almost nine hours about tracking down a seal. We never saw one, but we sure looked.

The team composition is down two dogs from our last video. Driver woke up from his nap in Unalakleet and had a swollen front leg. It’s ironic that unexplainable and weird issues pop up just when I start thinking that a specific dog is doing great. Driver was having a fantastic race and I had even moved him up to run in single swing, directly behind the leaders before arriving in Unalakleet. Amber is the other missing teammate. Her wrist was sore and although she was more than willing to continue, it was best that she stay in Shaktoolik with the Vet Team. Her wrist bothered her for two weeks after the race. I think that she must have sprained it while running in the challenging conditions on the Yukon River.

Both of these episodes are taken along the old Portage Trail which runs from the last Athabascan Indian village inland, Kaltag, to the first Inupiat Eskimo village along the Western Coast, Unalakleet. Over this 85 mile leg there is a huge metamorphosis in geography, vegetation, culture, animals and weather. It really feels like we mush thru a time travel type machine. It must have felt even more drastic for the Indians and Eskimos who traded and fought battles along this trail for thousands of years before me. It’s kinda creepy to look around and wonder what happened on certain parts of this trail. There are definitely areas where I feel like I could be ambushed, even today.

In Episode 13 the team just left the Kaltag Checkpoint. We rested for 8 hours prior to this run and the sun is coming up. I feel perky and so do the dogs. The team line up is: Spark and Dutch in lead, Driver (single swing), Q.T. and Five, Jefe and Rodney, Mismo and Bruno, Nomex and Amber and Violet and Decaf (in wheel.)

The Portage Trail is still heavily used today. On years when there is deep snow, the tracks on the snow machines can’t help but to “churn up” these huge moguls with the excess snow. You can see how much snow is on the ground by how high the berms are along the edge of the trail. In some areas they are above the dogs’ heads.

Moguls are a pain in the tush for dog teams as well as snow machines. You can hear my sled pounding as it jumps over and hits the next one. My sled was loaded with a full cooler of dog food as well as food and supplies for a rest stop at Old Woman Cabin. I’d rather ride over these hummocks on a dog sled while standing up than while seated on a snow machine. Ouch!

In Episode 14 we are farther out the Portage Trail. This is where we really start to leave Interior Alaska behind and enter the Western Coast. Which, to me, means: wind, ice and no trees.

There are still occasional stands of small spruce trees here and there. You’ll notice that I get pretty excited in this video because I think this little group of trees is the group the we camped alongside back in 2016. It’s very possible that I am correct, but there are LOTS of miles on the Portage Trail and LOTS of little spruce trees that we pass. I’ll let you guys tell me what you think. Here is the video from 2016.

What do you think?

Rain is just rain. Right? But, obviously, it bummed me out… lots! I guess that stems from living in Interior Alaska. Normally October to April is winter. It’s cold. Often very cold. Sometimes -30ºF or -40ºF for weeks on end. So rain and winter just don’t go together for me. My brain is hardwired to believe that winter is cold. The fact was that I was soaking wet and didn’t see any opportunities to dry my gear anytime soon. I was also confident that the temperatures were going to get cold again. If I remained drenched, I would be more than uncomfortable, I’d be hypothermic. So my brain was signaling: “Danger. Danger. Danger.” That’s an impossible alarm to ignore. And that’s why rain bothers me so much.

I talk about being miserable in the moment. Knowing that this moment will pass but still accepting the fact that I’m currently miserable. Everyone feels miserable once in a while. We hope that it will pass with time but there’s no reason to not admit what you’re feeling. 

It rained on the Iditarod in 2013 as well. That year I did not have any rain gear packed. Since then I have packed a half a dozen cheap plastic rain ponchos. I used a few this year!

The rain became more of a light, occasional drizzle. That was great. 

But the trail had soaked up much of the rain fall and had become a saturated, slushy mess. On the ‘good sections’ of trail the dogs’ paws didn’t sink too deeply into the slush because the trail was still somewhat frozen. My team could still navigate from good section to good section. 

The ‘bad sections’ of trail were BAD! This is where the trail became a wide swath of Yukon flavored 7-Eleven slurpy. We were not in danger of dropping through the Yukon River. This slushy water was technically just “overflow” because it was water that was “flowing over” the icepack. But the depth of the water was deep. Some holes were over the dogs’ backs. My dogs tried desperately to avoid these bad sections. They dislike water as much as I do. That meant that they would zigzag often jumping over deep troughs of water. My sled was always the last part of the zigzag train and it would inevitably hit the deep troughs! 

I always used a single lead dog here. This was so that only one dog would navigate and try to find the best route through the mess. But I did I rotate leaders every hour. I used Mismo, Spark and Dutch in the rotation. These guys felt a lot of pressure finding good trail because there really was NO good trail. It amazed me that they would continue to forge ahead. 

I tried to give the team reasonable rest breaks. This video shows the team as we were stopped.  This was one of the only spots where I could video how bad the trail was without having to stop the team in water. If the team seems a bit unenthused, they should! The conditions were deplorable.

I always ask my team “Are you ready?” before I ask them to continue down the trail. This gives all the dogs a chance to stop eating snow, stand up, turn around and face forward. You can see that Spark took his time getting ready to go. There was no way I was going to get upset at any dog for being tentative on some of the worst trail conditions I have mushed on in 25 years. Spark was basically saying “Are you sure?”. Yup. Eventually he took his position and looked back at me like “Yes… I guess I’m ready.” Good boy!