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Rookie’s Journey – Ruby to Kaltag
June 1, 2006
The dogs are
resting in the Ruby Checkpoint.
The community center is in the background
with the Yukon River behind it. Dukat is sitting up in
the foreground with Sisco standing beside him. |
We arrived in Ruby at 49 minutes after
midnight and I was just flat tired. I hadn’t realized how much
physical work Iditarod would be. While there were times I could just
ride the sled either sitting or standing, a large portion of the time
I was actively driving the sled compensating for cross-winds or side
hill (Side hill is when the trail slopes perpendicular to the direction
of travel and the sled wants to slide sideways downhill). Think of
it as the difference between driving a straight flat interstate highway
with no traffic versus driving a winding mountain road. It wasn’t
the difficulty of the trail as much as the amount of moderately difficult
trail.
Balu hadn’t been pulling on the way in, but the vet could not
find anything wrong with him. It was cold and the wind was blowing
even in the checkpoint. I fed the dogs, put their coats on them and
used the whole bale of straw to try to shelter them from the wind.
Ruby was a good checkpoint for
me. I had friends there who wished me well and watched over me. There
was a microwave to heat my meal. Just as I started to loose focus
and talk instead of sleep my friends chased me off to the mat on the
floor behind a curtain that was reserved for sleeping. I laid out
my pad and sleeping bag, took off my outer layers and boots and hung
them up to dry out and climbed into my sleeping bag. As soon as my
head hit the ground I was out. You could have hitched a dog team to
my feet and drug me out of the checkpoint and I would never have known.
At 7:30 I work up only because my bladder was about to burst. I went
out to take care of my dogs and asked a vet to check Balu. Balu just
looked tired and looked like he wasn’t feeling real well. I
had pretty much decided to drop him when the vet told me he thought
Balu looked anemic and sealed the issue. It turned out that Balu had
a bleeding ulcer that everyone missed and we almost lost him before
Bonnie Foster in Anchorage caught the fact that he was in real trouble.
He is fine now, but only thanks to Bonnie’s sharp eye.
Remember how I commented on the long downhill run on a plowed road
into Ruby. I was standing on my brake the entire way down. Luckily
I had new carbide tips in the brake and they kept the dogs more or
less under control. Randy Cummins had worn carbide tips and told me
he was out of control the entire way. The checker told me that one
of our female competitors said that the first time she ever saw her
leader run was when her sled passed her leader on that long downhill
run. To say it was thrilling would be an understatement.
Dog team on the
Yukon River between Ruby
and Galena. Note the windblown trail.
The trail itself is well packed, but the
snow to the side is soft, although not very deep. |
About noon I got up again and fed the
dogs, put the booties on their feet and left Ruby at 1:43 PM. It was
20 degrees with the wind blowing 15 to 20 mph in town. As we started
down the Yukon we had what I was starting to refer to as “The
Standard Crisis in Leadership”. I had Dash up front with Bass
and we were the 3rd of 4 teams to leave the checkpoint. The first
two teams pulled slowly ahead and then the last team, Randy Cummins,
caught and passed us. Keiko really likes to chase and was barking
to go, so I moved her up into lead with Bass, even though she hasn’t
led well this year. She did very well for about 30 minutes and then
she started to back off the tug line. Then she was pulling back on
the neckline between her and Bass. Finally she started to come back
into the team and tie knots in the gangline. I put her back in the
team and moved Platinum into lead with Bass. Randy had pulled completely
away and I will not see him again until Galena.
The trail down the Yukon is windblown
with shallow drifts of a few inches. While the trail itself has a
good base if I get a sled runner in the softer snow off the trail
it pulls the sled off and rolls it over. The snow is shallow enough
it’s not a big deal, but it is frustrating and time consuming.
I’m also noticing that Bass is stopping frequently to try to
stool, but only gets these small little spots every time. This is
one of the signs that Bass is getting stressed out and having a hard
time dealing with things. I haven’t seen this in two years and
it sends a clear message.
The rest at Ruby, the prayer for help with my attitude, and the music
are helping. I’m remembering that these dogs and I have run
2500 miles so far this year and completed three races as a team. Bass
is reacting to my stress and attitude over the last two days, even
though I’ve tried to conceal it. The dogs read me like a book.
Buildings on
the Yukon River between
Ruby and Galena |
The dogs are never wrong. They do what
they do because they are dogs. If they make a mistake it is because
I have failed to train them properly. I know this and believe it,
but before now it wasn’t part of my soul. When I got tired and
frustrated I reverted back to “it’s the dogs’ fault”.
Now, thanks to God’s help, when the dogs stop I don’t
see them saying that they won’t keep going and I say “Oh,
yes you will.” Instead I hear them say that they can’t
keep going and my response is “Sure you can. Let me help you.”
Then I go up and take the leaders harness and lead them down the trail
myself for a while. Then I let go of the harness and let the sled
catch me and I climb back on. It looks like a subtle change, but it
is a real sea change mentally and the dogs respond to it. We I’m
not over this yet, but I am starting to make real progress.
We pull into Galena at 10:02 PM after an 8 hour run. The other 3 teams
running today made this run in 6 ½ to 7 hours so we are slow.
Sisco wasn’t pulling well and I ask the vet to check him. The
vet can’t find anything. Since Nulato is just a short run down
the river we agree that I’ll check him again there. Galena is
a nice checkpoint. The actual building is a small lodge with 4 bedrooms
for the mushers to sleep. Outside there are three buildings in a large
U. They park the dogs in the U to get some shelter from the wind,
and it really helps. There is even a shower in the lodge. I can understand
why Paul Gebhardt came here for his mandatory 24 hour rest. The checker
told me that when Karen Ramstead heard about the shower she had to
have one. It turns out the lodge is not on the Galena water system,
but instead has a 2000 gallon tank and as luck would have it, they
ran out of water for Karen. When the tank goes dry they call the city
water truck and the city hauls the water out, then it has to heat.
I heard that poor Karen had to wait nearly 2 hours for her shower.
My adventure was a little different. Evidently when Jessie Royer came
through the tired volunteers saw Rogers on the drop bags as Royer
and took my bags to Jessie. She realized the problem as soon as she
opened the bags, but neglected to tell the volunteers and just left
the bags at her spot. When a musher leaves a checkpoint the volunteers
go through the bags and sort out unused kibble, meat, fat, people
food and miscellaneous to either share with the local people or trash
as appropriate. By the time they realized their error my meat and
personal food were gone. The staff felt terrible and offered me anything
they had from previous mushers. So it wasn’t a complete loss,
just inconvenient.
I had a good rest in Galena (I
had my own room!), but just before I was going to get up to leave
I came down with a bad bout of diarrhea. I took two Imodium and started
some antibiotics that I was carrying in case I caught something on
the trail. I went back to bed for two hours to give the pills time
to work. When I got up I was feeling better and we left Galena at
8:38 AM under clear blue sky at -20 degrees with the wind at our back.
We had another crisis in leadership leaving Galena. I had Platinum
and Dash in lead, but Dash was tired. So I put Bass in lead with Platinum.
That worked for a while, but Platinum got tired. The checker in Galena
commented that Dukat, my wheel dog, looked like he still wanted to
go and asked if I tried him lead. I moved Dukat up with Bass and we
made good time for ½ hour, then Dukat realized what he was
doing and stopped. Just like people, sometimes dogs think too much.
Next I tried Bass in single lead. He was still stopping to stool every
few hundred feet, the stress reaction I mentioned earlier, but I’m
handling it better and he seems to be improving.
Sisco still isn’t pulling well and I stop to see what his problem
is. I’ve got the dogs running in their coats to try to block
the wind and Sisco’s coat had slid down his front. When I take
the coat off I can see it has rubbed two raw spots right beside where
his harness fits. I bought three harness rub jackets just for this
problem, but cannot find the large one in the sled. I apologize to
Sisco, rub some ointment on the raw spots and change to a different
fitting harness. But now I’m getting down because I feel like
I’m not taking good care of my dogs. I’ve dropped a dog
in every checkpoint but Galena that I’ve stopped in since McGrath.
This is like the early days in my career before I learned to condition
and care for my dogs properly and finish with happy dogs. I’m
not seeing a lot of happiness in my dogs and it’s really bothering
me. I’ve got to kill this self doubt problem or the dogs will
pick up on it and my race will come to a screeching halt. Another
prayer for my attitude and a quick pat to let the dogs know I still
love them and we are on our way.
We came into Nulato after 8.5 hr run that should have taken 6 hours.
Most of the dogs are eating well, but Sisco didn’t eat. I asked
this vet to take a look at him. The vet couldn’t find anything
wrong with Sisco, so I’ll run him to Kaltag, another short run,
and have the vet there check him again. While I’m in Nulato
two of the other mushers told me they had their teams stop and not
want to start again. It took Kim Kittridge almost as long as it took
me to get to Nulato. He said he was not sure he could get his team
into the next checkpoint, let alone make it to Nome. I’m starting
to feel a little pride in my team. We are terribly slow, but we kept
going and there is no doubt in my mind that we will make it to Nome.
My attitude is definitely improving.
We left Nulato at 5am and my leaving the checkpoint drill is getting
slower. This is partly because I’m tired and not feeling well,
but mostly because I’m losing focus. The Nulato checkpoint is
the community building at the far end of town from the river. The
checker told me the trail went out the same way we came in. I went
back down onto the river and took the trail going downstream. There
were no markers on this trail and it was more windblown than the inbound
trail had been. After 15 minutes without a marker I wasn’t worried
about missing Kaltag, but was worried about the slow trail making
things even tougher on the dogs. We turned back to Nulato to find
the marked trail. The Yukon River has high banks and it turned out
the Iditarod trail (staked) turned downstream at the top of the bank
while I had gone down the bank and then turned. The two trails probably
came together downstream, but I didn’t want to go any further
on the slow trail. The Iditarod trail was better packed and faster
traveling, just as I suspected. Sisco is looking better, but not 100%.
One hour down the trail from
Nulato the dogs suddenly get excited and go into chase mode. The full
moon was bright but low in the horizon. It provided enough light to
see by, but you couldn’t make out details. My headlamp isn’t
helping much. I look up and see this big hulking mass, several hundred
pounds, maybe 2 or 3 feet tall, just up the trail. I haven’t
seen much on the trail, the only game has been two flocks of Ptarmigan
as we went over Rainy Pass and several Ravens. There has been nothing
else. So what in the world is this big hulking mass at the side of
the trail? Is it alive? Is it a threat to me and the dogs? As we get
closer I get more nervous and the dogs get more excited. Now what!
Finally get close enough for my headlamp to help and see it is a dead
snowmachine. After the race, I’m talking to Kurt Jokela who
did the serum run just before the Iditarod race. He encountered overflow
under a coat of snow on the Yukon. Kurt told us how the snowmachine
partners in the serum run spent one day winching each other out of
overflow that the dog teams traveled over without breaking through.
The serum run folks had a tough time of it. When Kurt went down the
Yukon it was -40 degrees. One week earlier it was +50 degrees and
raining in Kaltag. What differences a couple of weeks make, and thank
heavens we didn’t have to deal with the extreme warm weather,
lack of snow, and rain.
We get into Kaltag just at 10:23 am, after a 5 ½ hour run.
Not fast, but better than before. I’m commenting on my problems
and the race judge asked me how many veteran dogs I had. I answered
none. He pointed out that the longest race I had done previously was
300 miles. A 400 or maybe even 500 mile race was a logical extension,
but a 1000 mile race was a revolutionary, not an evolutionary change
for the dogs. The dogs were wondering if this was ever going to end.
He said that by Kaltag most rookie teams (dogs and mushers) started
to get into the mode where it was ok if it didn’t end and they
traveled forever. That was just part of life. That from here on out
things should get better.
The dogs are
resting at the Kaltag checkpoint.
We parked the team tight against the building
to help shelter them from the wind. |
Bass snapped at Dash at the checkpoint.
I have no idea what brought this on. Bass is dominant, but male and
Dash is a young female. I need to watch tempers and appetites. Picard
didn’t eat his dinner. Basil did and I gave her some extra that
she didn’t eat. Picard decided he was hungry after all and tried
to eat some of the extra that Basil had left and she snapped at him.
Things are much better, but these are still signs of stress in the
dogs. I ask the vet to check Sisco again and we still don’t
find anything wrong. Sisco did better on the run to Kaltag, but if
I leave with him it is 90 miles to Unalakleet over Old Woman portage
before I can drop him.
Dealing with frustration is a large part of Iditarod. You are tired
and the dogs are tired. You come into a checkpoint and the checker
wants to park you in a clean spot, but the dogs want the first straw
beds that they see. And as soon as you pull in they start to scarf
up all the food that the checkpoint staff couldn’t get off the
snow when they raked up the old straw. This is just dogs being dogs,
but it’s frustrating to the musher who is trying to keep them
from catching a virus from the previous occupants. I work on my attitude
and figure I’m part of the team and my job is not to correct
the tired dogs, but to help them do it right. With my improved attitude
I can see the improvement in the dogs, their stress levels, and their
attitude as we go down the trail. I was listening to the PBS station
in Galena and heard an interview with Jeff King. Jeff said that Iditarod
reveals your very soul and that some people don’t like what
they see and they don’t come back. I’m starting to understand
what he means and agree with him.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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