Iditarod restart moved to Fairbanks

MAT-SU — After a day spent flying over the historic Iditarod Trail, race staff reported marginal conditions Tuesday to the committee’s Board of Directors, who then decided to voted to move the restart from Willow to Fairbanks.

The decision was unanimous.

Iditarod Trail Committee CEO Stan Hooley said only part of the trail is impassible, but enough sections pose a threat to the safety of mushers and dog teams that the course had to be rerouted.

“There are portions of the trail where no snow or very little snow isn’t a deal breaker. Then again, there are areas of the trail, like the Dalzell Gorge, like the top of Rainy Pass, where those kind of conditions become very unsafe and not, frankly, not passable via dog team,” Hooley said.

Musher Paul Gebhart was one of four board members — Aaron Burmeister, Rick Swenson and Mike Jonrowe rounded out the crew — who viewed the trail from a helicopter Tuesday.

In Gebhart’s 18 years of running the Iditarod, he said he’d never seen the trail so bad.

“I been through the gorge obviously 18 times and it (now has) by far the least amount of snow I’ve ever seen, and the most boulders exposed that I’ve ever seen,” he said.

In addition to the precariousness of falling boulders from above, boulders on the trail would not leave much room for maneuvering a dog sled, forcing mushers to take to the creek to get through the Alaska Range. This would not be a viable option either, however, as the creek is currently covered with glare ice — except for the gaping, 3-feet-deep holes in it, some the size of “a small pickup truck,” Gebhart said.

“It was pretty much, in my opinion, undoable,” he said.

Last time the Iditarod Restart occurred in Fairbanks — the only other time the restart was moved — it was much worse. In 2003, mushers had already completed their food drops when the decision to alter the course was made, and bags were still being moved when the race began, Gebhart said.

That year, even with the move, 20 of 64 teams scratched, which Hooley said may be the highest percentage of a field to scratch in race history.

Last year was almost as bad, when 19 of 69 scratched. Though Iditarod officials decided to run the traditional trail in 2014, a significant “warming spell” just a couple weeks before the race made for poor conditions, which led to the high number of dropouts, Hooley said.

The weather doesn’t seem to be getting better, either.

“I think people who’ve been in this area for any significant length of time would agree that winters just don’t seem to be winters in the way that they once were,” Hooley said.

That’s why, after last year’s race, race organizers decided to plan an alternate route ahead of time. Gebhart said the committee mapped and cleared the new course last June, so if the racecourse did have to change, there wouldn’t be “as much of a scramble” to reorganize as there was in 2003.

The new course skips the following checkpoints from the intended Southern Route of the Iditarod, used in odd years: Yentna, Skwentna, Finger Lake, Rainy Pass, Rohn, Nicolai, McGrath, Takotna, Ophir, Iditarod, Shageluk, Anvik, Grayling and Eagle Island.

“It’s a bum deal for the villages…that we go to normally, because we’re a big part of their winter,” Gebhart said.

Hooley said communities spend thousands of dollars each year on preparation for Iditarod traffic, which makes “a significant financial impact” for many.

Mushers will hit new checkpoints Nenana, Manley and Tanana before coming to Ruby, then will essentially follow the pre-established Northern Route with added checkpoints Huslia and Koyukuk. The new course will be 19 miles shorter than the standard trail.

Now that the decision to restart in Fairbanks has been made, mushers and race officials, for the most part, are feeling a bit better about everything.

Four-time Iditarod racer and three-time finisher Kelly Maixner, of Big Lake, said he “would’ve trained differently” if he knew there would be fewer checkpoints — meaning longer distances at a time — but the new route is “probably a lot safer.”

With his experience in Dalzell Gorge last year, Maixner was able to get over any disappointment about this year’s reroute very quickly.

“I was pretty worried about people last year. I was the first one through (the gorge) and I told the checker to tell people to be careful because I thought they’d get hurt,” he said.

Fortunately, the checker took Maixner’s advice, and no serious injuries — i.e. head trauma were reported.

“I think we got lucky last year,” Maixner said.

Rookie Iditarod runner Ben Harper said the change in course makes him “a little nervous” for the same reason it does Maixner — longer stretches between checkpoints — but he too doesn’t see a major difference in his race planning.

“I think just ’cause I’m a rookie, it’s new to me either way,” Harper said.

Also, knowing that the course may be less rough has at the very least built his confidence in his gear, he said.

Bryan Bearss, the Anchorage musher standing in on the runners for Willow’s Karin Hendrickson, ran the Northern Route of the Iditarod in 2006, and this is his first year back. He agreed that the biggest issue will be those long runs, many of which include large, flat, icy expanses.

“The challenge to us is to watch our dogs and keep ’em going slow so we don’t run the risk of overheating them…or make them run into their energy reserves before the end of the race, Bearss said.

But like any Iditarod race, mushers must always use caution.

“This is the Iditarod, and you can’t make it entirely safe, but you can make decisions which mitigate some risks that just aren’t acceptable,” Hooley said.

All aspects of the Iditarod leading up to and through the Anchorage start will remain unchanged. The restart will occur at 10 a.m., Monday, March 9 in Fairbanks.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.