Iditarod Restart may move north

WASILLA -- For the third year in a row, it appears the Iditarod Restart won't take place in the city billed as the Home of the Iditarod.

A final decision won't be made until noon Monday, Iditarod Trail Committee president Rick Koch said. But unless a significant amount of snow falls in Wasilla in the next couple of days, the restart will move to Willow as it did in 2002.

Last year, Southcentral Alaska's crazy weather required an unprecedented restart shift to Fairbanks. Have Wasilla and Knik seen their last years of Last Great Race revelry? Some people are starting to wonder.

"This is April weather," Koch said Wednesday. "Given what our weather patterns are, it's just a bad deal. I grew up in Anchorage and it was really different then."

The city of Wasilla will christen its new sports complex the day before Restart morning, March 6. It was to be the starting point for the 32nd edition of the race. But glare ice at the staging area and along the trail's early miles toward Knik makes that a dangerous proposition because mushers can't stick a snow hook into the hard surface to stop their team.

"The problem is if a dog goes down, with 15 other fresh dogs pulling, it is very difficult for them to gain their feet again," Koch said. "They could very easily strangle."

Also, there's overflow on Lake Lucille.

Wasilla Mayor Dianne M. Keller said the sports complex open house March 6 will go on as scheduled from 3 to 6 p.m., with a special ceremony at 4 p.m.

"It just happened it coincided with the restart the next day," she said.

The mayor said loss of the restart would "impact us somewhat" in lost revenue from race fans. However, she said people would still drive through town on the way to and from Willow, and they'd probably buy gas and food and other items.

ITC members will get together via telephone today for a brief meeting, and weather will be high on the agenda. If the committee has to move the restart north, Koch said, it will be a painful choice for everyone involved.

"It is a difficult decision not only for Wasilla but also for Knik," he said. "We have a warm spot in our hearts for Knik and the folks who live there. To bypass them is a bad deal, and it's not a decision that comes lightly.

"Maybe we just have to figure out another way to make this happen."

Koch noted that some people have proposed permanently moving the Iditarod Restart to a spot along Knik-Goose Bay Road, since that trail generally is passable beyond its intersection with Fairview Loop.

Others have suggested starting at Knik itself, where there's usually abundant snow and racers would whip right into the wilderness. But that has the drawback of attracting 5,000 people to a congested site with only one road in, possibly causing a bottleneck if fire or EMS vehicles had to roll for an emergency.

The most plausible change, one ITC members have seriously discussed, involves holding the Iditarod in February. That might conflict with some qualifying races, Koch acknowledged, but Iditarod officials encourage rookies to complete those races over a two-year period anyway.

"That's probably the easiest alternative," Koch said. "If this race runs three weeks earlier we're OK."

Iditarod executive director Stan Hooley could only shrug about the situation.

"Conditions in the core area have deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks," he said. "Most problematic is the area of the proposed restart, which consists largely of ice. It simply is not prudent to start a 1,000-mile sled dog race in such conditions."

Bypassing Knik is particularly upsetting to Iditarod followers because of its proximity to race founder Joe Redington Sr.'s home. There's an economic factor for Knik, too. John Huizenga, cook at the Knik Bar, says the restart is far and away the bar's biggest day of the year.

The grill turns out hamburgers non-stop as Hobo Jim plays in the bar and race fans mill around outside.

"You get 600 people parked on the lake," Huizenga said. "We're still hoping that it's gonna come through."

He mentioned something that Valley fans have brought up in past years when snow is scarce.

"The way I look at it," Huizenga said, "they haul snow into Anchorage for the ceremonial start. What's to stop them from patching up the trail to get here, too?"

Every year, crews employed by the Municipality of Anchorage truck in snow for the Fourth Avenue ceremonial start. The cost is paid from a community events fund in the mayor's office budget.

The difference between that and the restart, according to the municipality's director of maintenance and operations, is that only a mile of Anchorage streets are covered with snow for the ceremonial start. Near the Sullivan Arena, teams take to the ski trail system, said Alan Czajkowski.

"Your whole area gets windswept sometimes," he said of the Valley.

Contact Steve Kadel at steve.kadel@frontiersman.com.