Along the Iditarod Trail . . .
Sort of . . .
Tonight’s post is a mix of intriguing stories being reported over the last several days from along the Iditarod Trail. It is a glimpse of the determination of some of the competitors and the many adventures experienced in the thirty fifth Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
I guess this could be called, the good, the bad, and the ugly but what I think this is might be more in the vein of the spirit of what the original serum run had going for it so many years ago. It takes grit, spirit, and a great sense of self for these men and women who run this race.
Here are three stories from the Anchorage Daily News reports and wire reports.
Iditarod Air Force pilot finds missing musher safe but far off the trail
Staff and wire reports Anchorage Daily News
A pilot with the volunteer Iditarod Airforce located a missing Iditarod musher about 18 miles from the Rohn checkpoint at the foot of the
Deborah Bicknell, a 61 year-old rookie musher from
The next checkpoint of Rohn is 48 miles away, and that portion of the trail has been besieged with high winds, blowing snow and subzero temperatures. Mushers normally make that trip in no more than nine hours.
It was unclear exactly where Bicknell lost the trail, but she ended up heading through
Kevin Klott Anchorage Daily News
A search team of local snowmachiner’s scrambled late Thursday night and helped
The 49-year-old rookie lost his 15-dog team just after sunset. But with the help of speedy snowmachines, he found the team sleeping four miles off course on the
“Everything’s good,” Cox said. “They looked happy and healthy.”
Rossi lost his team 21 miles outside of Nikolai and hitched the remaining 27 miles on the sled of fellow musher Gerry Sousa of Talkeetna, according to race judge Lavon Barve.
The pain can wait until Nome
TOUGH AS THE TRAIL: Musher pushes on despite a leg most likely broken.
By KEVIN KLOTT
MCGRATH -- Using a wooden handrail to support his battered and probably broken left leg, Iditarod musher Bryan Mills carefully made his way down a flight of stairs to tend to his laundry, then his dogs.
Afterward came time for a home-cooked meal. He ate with pink cheeks wrinkled in pain behind his fuzzy red beard. "Man, this hurts like hell," the 42-year-old
Five days and more than 200 miles back on the Iditarod Trail, Mills ran over a root frozen in ice. It whipped back between the runners of his dog sled and smashed him in the shin. Doctors who happened to be at Perrin's Rainy Pass Lodge told him that in the best case his tibia was badly bruised, but it was probably broken.
Mills wondered about putting it in a cast so he could continue the race.
One doctor told him, "There's no cast, and you'll just have to deal with the pain. You should drop out of the race."
A veteran of two previous Iditarod’s, Mills instead pressed on. He appears determined to finish what he started Saturday in
It will not be easy.
As of Friday night, 19 mushers have been knocked out of The Last Great Race by unusually tough trail. With the race not even at the halfway point for many, the record number of 25 scratches from way back in 1980 could be matched.
Among the first and most notable mushers to quit were four-time Iditarod champion Doug Swingley of
That's the stretch of trail that got Mills too, but there's no way he wants his name added to that list of scratches.
"I won't quit until my dogs quit," he said.
Since
"It's real difficult,'' he said, "but we're through the technical part now -- I hope. It was so cold coming down the Dalzell Gorge, I didn't feel my leg."
His spirits didn't get much of a lift here when he read the Iditarod standings. "My friend (Ben Stamm of
Mills can't understand why any musher would spend tens of thousands of dollars to race in the world's longest, most prestigious sled dog race and then drop out just because they were in pain.
Dealing with adversity and overcoming your worst fears are what the Iditarod is all about, he said. Driving through nasty, frozen tussocks and gravel bars on the Farewell Burn is simply a challenge to be met.
"I fell off the runners and was drug more than two dozen times (Wednesday) night," he said of his 80-mile trip from Rohn to Nikolai across the Burn. "But I'm not going to quit."
A stay-at-home father who says his occupation is that of full-time musher, Mills trains his team on four-wheeler trails and logging roads in the
"I train all year long with these dogs, and my one race is coming to
The girls were born March, 11, 2005, while Mills was in Takotna, taking a mandatory 24-hour layover required of all mushers at some checkpoint along the trail. People have told him this year, "Why don't you just scratch?"
"Well, it's not that easy when you're thinking: 'I missed the birth of my kids to run this race.' '' he said. "It's kinda sick when you think about it, but this race is kind of like a drug. It's addicting. You swear to God you'll never do it again. Then you get to
Some blamed the ice-rink trail from
Afterward, McCarthy rookie Jeremy Keller remarked that "this is the year to find out if you really have a sled dog team."
No one would blame Mills if he gave up in the face of all this, but he's pressing on, still hoping to better last year's 30th place finish. He's come a long way from his rookie days that began with 12 dogs bought for a measly $200 and another $200 spent on borrowed harnesses.
"It was redneck heaven," he said.
Coming through
Seavey asked Mills, 'That's the only light you have?'
"They didn't know what to think of me," Mills said.
If he crosses the Burled Arch next week, they'll know what to think of him for sure -- one tough dude. He already claims the distinction of being only one of two
I will say these people are truly adventurous and have the determination of champions. It is not whether one finishes this race but that they tried and because of that everyone is a winner.
If you get the chance to see the OLN coverage of the Iditarod it is great.
Current standings – Saturday night 3-10-07
1 Jeff King IN TO Kaltag (KAL-tag)
2 Martin Buser OUT OF
3 Paul Gebhardt IN TO
4 Lance Mackey IN TO
5 Zack Steer IN TO
6 Ramy Brooks IN TO
7 Ken Anderson
8 Ed Iten IN TO
9 Mitch Seavey IN TO
10 Cim Smyth IN TO
Ice
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