Trials of the Trail

WILLOW — Mount McKinley sat white against blue-gray clouds, presiding over the restart of the 37th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Sunday afternoon, as a sign of what the 67 teams that left Willow Lake were up against.

Just like the stature of North America’s tallest mountain, the rigors of Alaska’s longest sled dog race hold tremendous significance in the 49th state.

While the 2009 race field of 67 is loaded with 52 veterans, more than a dozen mushers will be experiencing the Last Great Race for the first time.

Wasilla’s Lou Packer, a native of California who was drawn to the allure of Alaska 22 years ago, is one of 15 rookies in the race. Without the first-hand knowledge of what’s coming, Packer tries to maintain a Zen-like peace before the race.

“I feel calm, and I feel like I want to get on the trail,” Packer said. “I got eight and a half hours of sleep last night, so I feel rested. I won’t feel like this for two weeks. This week is chaos. With all the hype going on, several mushers have told me this is the worst week ever. Now I know why.”

As Packer and the other 66 mushers move north on the trail, at points catching closer glimpses of the great Mount McKinley, the rookie will soon be tested by the trials of more than a 1,000 miles of trail.

There are the obvious geographical obstacles, such as the steep elevations of the Alaska Range and the windswept tundra that boarders the coast as mushers make their way toward Nome.

Geography aside, mushers are also tested by the mere endurance of the competition. Rumored to be the hardest part of the Iditarod, Packer and all the other mushers face extreme isolation. Their dogs are the only company for days on end.

“I listen to the music of the spheres,” Packer said when asked if likes music on the trail. “I like the quiet.”

And if that is not enough, mushers will have to contend with difficult conditions which include sub-zero temperatures and near record snowfall along the coast.

“The snow is heavy and deep and scary. I’ve never dealt with waist deep snow,” Packer said, showing a bit of nerves before his first 1,000-mile race. “But if I have to put my snowshoes on and rope my lead dogs, I’m walking to Nome.

With more than three-quarters of the field claiming at least one Iditarod finish, Packer is certainly part of the minority. But there are plenty of veterans in the field who take the annual trek to Nome.

Having dealt with just about every sled dog race obstacle, veteran Cim Smyth is thinking about taking an iPod not for company, but to keep him awake.

“I don’t get bored. I like watching the dogs. But staying awake is a real difficulty for me,” the Big Lake musher said with a laugh. “I don’t even know what music’s on there. I’m not setting the thing up.”

With more than three times the experience of even Smyth, DeeDee Jonrowe, of Willow, is a sage in the staging area. She knows how long the race is and that it’s not won in the first day.

“I know that there are some circumstances that we need to be cautious with, with the snow,” Jonrowe said. “That kind of makes me feel good about it because that means it’s in the best interest to take it easy to get out of here, rather than bolting out front”

Her fellow Iditarod elder, Martin Buser, added another race to his training regimen this year — a mere 1,000-mile Yukon Quest that finished less than two weeks ago.

“It’s totally different challenges and approaches to the race. I just basically camped around the course to have a good time,” said Buser, a four-time Iditarod champion, who finished fourth despite this lax attitude. “I’ll see whether it was a good move or not. We’ll find out in Nome.”

Another four-time champ, Denali Park’s Jeff King is not doing anything different this year, except not taking a nap at Elim. Last year, with a slim lead over Lance Mackey, he closed his eyes at one of the final checkpoints. Mackey slipped quietly out of camp, King never caught him, and Mackey went on to win his second straight Iditarod crown.

“I’ve got a nice team, and I’m healthy as I’ve ever been,” King said. “But it’s going to be a different race. The weather could really change things, you never know.”

Some experts say there are as many as 30 teams in contention this year, but King said the statistics don’t support that.

“There’s a lot of great teams, and it does seem to increase,” King said. “Thirty sounds a little steep, however, to me.”

The musher with the biggest target on his back is Mackey. For the last two years, he has won both the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Iditarod back-to-back with his lead dogs Hobo and Larry. This year, Hobo will not be with his team. Also, Mackay chose to stay fresh by not running the Quest, a decision he jokes he will regret if he finishes 30th at Nome.

“Maple and Rev will be leading me out of town today,” he said. “All the dogs that got me to where I’m at were young at one time too. I do have a core from the last two years. Everybody knows it don’t take 16 to win this thing. I have eight to 10 that have been doing it for a while and I’m confident in their abilities.”

The heavy accumulation of recent snowfall along the trail is among the obstacles Mackey and his fellow mushers will have to overcome in order to score a top spot in the 2009 race.

“I think it’s going to be challenging,” Mackey said of the conditions. “But what year isn’t? Every year we have something new to deal with. That’s what makes the Iditarod what it is. It’s never the same old boring race.”

The man in charge of maintaining some order on the ever-changing trails is race marshal Mark Nordman. Via satellite phone, he checks in with the volunteers that clear the trail around their local area and the trail breakers that leave shortly before the mushers.

“We’ve got our trail breakers, they spent the night before last in Finger Lake working on the steps, which look really good,” Nordman said. “Normally, it’s a big drop off to the last one, but it looks like a nice ramp now. These guys are really great, tough guys with really the right equipment.”

Contact Frontiersman reporter Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com.