Bruce Linton and the Iditarod Sled Dog Race

Diary of my Iditarod Journey 2008

The journey to get to the starting line of my second Iditarod started on September 3, 2007. We hook up our race team of 32 extremely enthusiastic Alaskan Huskies for the first run of the season and ran then for two miles. The training season got off to a good start, but it was more difficult than my first year since I had a job as an Environmental Scientist and I had to be away from the kennel and home for weeks at a time. My employment took me up to the North Slope, 250 miles North of the Arctic Circle, to the largest producing oil field in North America. I was optimistic though, since a friend (Brooks Cobb) who used to own a kennel who I had met in Vermont a few years ago came on board to help train the dogs. He moved down from Anchorage and helped me trained the 32 dogs on my race team and a team of 14 older dogs and puppies.

Our training progressed really well until the critical month of December when Brooks hurt his arm when he was training the race team on Lake Wolverine about 8 hours north of where we lived on the Kenai Peninsula. He informed me, upon diagnosis from his doctor, the day before I was scheduled to return to the North Slope for the remainder of the month of December, that he could no longer train my dogs for the rest of the winter. I was very depressed as I returned to the North Slope knowing that all that I worked so hard for and my race season was at risk. Even though the dogs had a lot of miles on them, I was unsure if they could catch back up to where they needed to be with the extended break they were about to receive. December is critical for training the dogs and is the time we do 50 mile runs every other day so that they will be ready for January and the start of the race season.

I returned from the Slope on January 1st and was fortunate enough to find another handler named Brian to help me get the pups back into shape. We ran the dogs around 800 miles in January and concentrated on training and not racing. I felt that the dogs were not ready for racing so we did not go to any of the races that I had originally planned. We did enter the Tustamenta race at the end of January which was a local 200 mile race. It was a tough race and the format was a hilly 100 mile run, then an 8 hour rest and a 100 mile run back. The dogs had a great 100 mile run to the checkpoint, but I over fed them and ended up only doing 50 miles the second day and scratching from the race. Although I didn’t finish the race, I was encouraged about some of the younger dogs on my team. They seemed faster than my Iditarod race team from the year before even though many of the same dogs were on the team. The difference were some new younger leaders that Brain and I spent a lot of time training over the past month.

February was filled with more intensive training and all that is required to get to the starting line of Iditarod like Vet checks for the dogs, preparing 1,750 pounds of dog food to be distributed along the trail, etc., etc. I felt that the dogs were ready when we made the drive up to Anchorage for the March 1st start of the race. In some ways, the training season had been a big balancing act and a struggle with work, but I felt that I did the best that I could have done given all of the unexpected hurdles.

In front of 2,000 spectators, fans and mushers, I drew 8th position at the banquet so I would be in front of the pack of 95 mushers when I pulled the snow hook and left civilization behind. Just like last year, I was relieved to get on the trail at 2:12 pm on Sunday March 2nd. The pre race activities, press interviews from around the world, and all that you need to prepare to just get on the trail was again exhausting for me. I spent the first couple of hours waving to the thousands of fans and trying to slow down my team in the warm afternoon temperatures. The team looked good.

One big difference this year was the attention that I was receiving. Original Productions had been hired to shoot a six episode TV show for the Discovery Channel and I had been chosen as one of eight “primary characters”. They had chosen me because of my type 1 diabetes and thought I would make a good story as I made my way to Nome. I was informed that this production was a big deal – it was costing millions to shoot and was expected to be watched by 9 million people a week in October. The production company had a lot of experience and was responsible for producing the very popular show on Discovery Channel called “Deadliest Catch” among other popular productions. One of the cameramen named Tommy visited my kennel a week earlier and spent the entire day at my home getting some background and going on a dog sled ride.

As I pulled the hook for the start of Iditarod, my sled was completely wired with a permanent camera attached to my sled facing the dogs, another camera facing me and I was wired for sound. In addition, I was chosen to test a new satellite tracking system and was one of 18 mushers in the race that carried a tracking device which enabled fans from around the world to track me every step of the way (my wife really loved this!). On top of all that, Medtronic Corporation which is the company that manufactures my insulin pump that I was wearing gave me a new product to test called a Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS). The CGMS produced a reading of my blood sugar every five minutes and then transferred it remotely to my insulin pump so I could actually see what my blood sugar was while I was moving down the trail. This new technology was critical for me and was an enormous ease on my mind. I could now go about my task of running the race without being so worried about being hypoglycemic. With an insulin pump attached to the left side of my body, the CGMS attached to the right side of my body, a camera filming my dogs, a camera filming me, a live wire recording what I was saying and a tracking device being beamed every five minutes to a satellite above which not only determined my exact locations, but also provided other data like speed and temperature, I was fully wired! It was crazy!

I realized about an hour on the trail that my dogs were looking strong. I was on the brake most of the time, but was not being passed by other mushers. All of the best mushers in the world had started around me so for many of them not to pass indicated that my team was doing just fine. I really tried to slow them down even more after I started passing some teams. Many teams have burned out after a few hundred of miles on the Iditarod trail in years past.

I blew in and out of Skwentna (the first check point) 44 miles into the race and smiled at Jake. I had to drop Jake there last year because he started cramping from the very beginning of the race. This year, his gate was looking smooth. The dogs really picked up the pace as the sun disappeared below the horizon and the warm temps finally dipped a bit. I came into Yenta (the second checkpoint) in fourth place. After 77 miles on the trail nobody had passed me and I found myself having a late dinner with Lance Mackey the defending champion. I was shocked at my run times and quickly realized that my times were almost identical to Lance’s – he was four minutes faster after 6 hours and 44 minutes of running down the trail! I knew that this meant little in a thousand mile race, but it felt good that my dogs were moving at a good clip and looked strong. It felt good that the most famous musher in the world commented on the speed of my pups!

Soon, other mushers started to arrive and the roadhouse at Yenta got extremely warm. Some mushers went upstairs to nap, but I found it way too warm so I went outside and got one good hour of sleep alongside my dog sled team before I woke, bootied my team, and headed off the river and into the woods towards the next checkpoint of Finger Lake. I had rested the team 6 hours and four minutes at Yentna and left right on my schedule at 3:05 am.

I got into Finger Lake after a five hour run and rested the team for five hours there. The temperatures were extremely warm (in the 30’s) and the trail was slow and soft. The depth of snow at Finger Lake was 90 inches! I pulled the hook at 1:30 in the afternoon with several other teams. Many teams were confused on how to get out of the checkpoint and onto the trail again because there were a lot of other trails leading to cabins in the woods. I called on my leaders Kiwi on Maya and directed them out of the checkpoint with my commands of “gee” and “haw”. As I was watching them, it was obvious that they remembered their way from last year. This was the same spot where they had gotten loose from my team last year and trotted down the trail by themselves and I knew that they remember this. Kiwi and Maya knew they were on their way to Nome again!

We left the checkpoint and made our way to the famous Happy River Steps. The “steps” are a series of steep near vertical falls where many teams flip or sometimes pinwheel down a steep ravine. I was running between two grandsons of the founder of the race - 19th and 20th place finishers in 2007 Ryan and Ray Redington. I was becoming increasing nervous as I traveled the 10 miles to the steps and they hit me without warning. I had successfully negoiatated them all without mishap when I went whipping around the last sharp left hand turn to find a snow machine turned over and in the middle of the trail towing a 12 foot trailer. I had virtually no time to react – it was either to the right down the ravine or to the left where I had about a foot to try and get by. I couldn’t control the power of my team and I yelled to Maya to “haw over”. She moved to the left and the team just missed the snow machine. I was not so fortunate and crashed right into it. Luckily, I hit the left side of the machine and the force of my 16 dogs drove me past the machine. If I hit the machine on the right side, the force would have undoubtablely shattered my sled, injured my dogs, or snapped my steel cable filled gangline which would have ended my race. I was shaking when I hit the bottom of that last ravine. Ryan Redington stopped and said he was going to wait for his brother to make sure that he was alright. I continued on, happy to still be in one piece. Hopefully, the cameras were rolling on my sled when this incident occurred!

About a half an hour later, I came to a field and a sign that said hot water for mushers. I looked over and saw several mushers with their teams resting there. It was not a checkpoint, but some locals who wanted to help the mushers. I kept going and left the field. I stopped to snack my dogs and made a rookie mistake of not stopping in the field that I had just passed. I had chosen an area where the trail was narrow and the snow was deep on both sides so when a musher who had been resting in the field quickly approached me there was little room for him to pass. Since the snow was deep and soft, my snow hooks were not firmly set and when I tried to help the dogs and musher behind me get by my dogs, my dogs lunged forward and off went my team! I ran after them, but could not catch them so I ran back to the musher who was trying to pass and jumped on his sled. I looked up to the musher wearing reflective goggles and said “Hugh Neff”? And he said “No its Martin”. Martin Buser is a four time champ and is famous in the world of mushing. He recognized me and said “Hi Bruce, how is your diabetes?” I said great and off we went in pursuant of my team. I was obviously a bit agitated by what had just transpired, but he reassured me that he had seem many of lost teams and that the snow hooks would catch on the soft snow any second. The trail ahead was technical with many turns and switchbacks and Martin struggled with the extra 170 lb load as we tried to catch up to my team. After every turn, I got more and more nervous since losing your dog team can be very dangerous for your dogs. If we were on a lake or flat section of the trail they could run for hours. Many turns later and what seemed like an eternity to me we came across my happy barking team with the snow hooks firmly planted in the trail. The dogs and sled were fine and I quickly jumped on and preceded down the trail to Rainy Pass the next checkpoint. Martin was extremely patient and waited for about 20 minutes until he was able to pass me.

I arrived in Rainy Pass at 5:00 pm and came to my first big decision of the race. Do I rest the dogs all night or do I dare run the famed Dalzell Gorge at night? My dogs were moving and I really didn’t want to rest the dogs long and fall back in the standings like last year so I pulled the hook at 11:00 pm for an all night running of the gorge. It was a beautiful night unlike the year before where I got stuck at Rainy Pass in minus 22 degree temps and 80 mph winds in a ground blizzard that delayed me 32 hours and put me in the back of the pack. I was not able to sleep at Rainy Pass and was feeling tired since I was running on one hour of sleep from the night before and one hour at Finger Lake, but I was feeling good because all 16 of my pups were running strong. I was reflecting how great everything was going when all of a sudden my lead dogs stopped dead in their tracks. It was Kiwi. She saw the water crossing directly ahead and wanted nothing to do with it. Before I could get up to her to help her across, she did a buttonhook and all of my 16 dogs were now completely tangled. What a mess I was in. The dogs really wanted to go and some were lunging, some were growling, some were barking and I was trying to remain calm…

One of the big decisions I had to make after consolation with several veterinarians before the race was whether I should take two of my best females on my race team even though they were in heat. I had already decided not to take a third female that was in heat and that I should at least try it with these two. I really didn’t have any other good race dogs left so I decided to at least give it a try even though the vets were not very optimistic that I was going to get to Nome without some problems. I had sandwiched these two females in swing position between the two female lead dogs and two females behind them and it had worked fine for the first day and a half on the trail. However, now, nature took its course and as two mushers came up from behind me my two females that were in heat tied up with two of my best males. So we waited and waited. After about half an hour, and after the breeding, I was able to get all the dogs lined out and off we went again as fast, if not faster, than before.

The pass was beautiful as steep walls were illuminated by my headlamp on both sides of me. It was windy and snowing lightly, but no ground blizzard this time around. My first big error in judgment had occurred during that first water crossing when I put Kiwi back in lead. I hadn’t heard of any reports of water crossings in this section of trail in the prerace meetings so I assumed there wouldn’t be anymore. Also, I reasoned, that I really couldn’t put any of my males in lead because they would just turn around and go after my females that were in heat so my options were very limited. As we began our decent into the gorge, the sled was being pounded by deep ruts that were formed from the soft deep snow. I was having problems controlling the power of my team and began bouncing off of small trees. I was working up quite a sweat and was becoming increasing apprehensive of the impending gorge. It was 3:00 am and I was exhausted, but committed as there was no turning around 16 crazy dogs on the trail that was only two feet wide. As quickly as the dogs sped up to a full lope in a wide opening in the trail, they came to a screeching halt again as Kiwi saw another water crossing. This one must have just opened up because of the warm temperatures and was much larger than the first. It was about 15 feet wide with a two foot drop off on each side made of ice. The water that was flowing was about a foot deep. Kiwi button hooked again and I quickly had my second massive tangle. This was one of the only times in the race where I thought about scratching and if I could have easily done that I probably would have. I was at the end of my rope. The ball of dogs produced more growls and barks and I tried to untangle them as quickly as possible. I finally unhooked Kiwi and carried her across the stream and tied her to a small tree. Upon my return, I noticed I had my third and fourth breeding of the night! So I began untangling other dogs while nature took its course. I then carried the two females that were in heat across the water and tied them to trees. While I was doing that other race participants, Cindy Gallea, Robert Bundtzen, and Clint Warnke came upon the scene. It probably took a good part of an hour, but we helped each other get our teams across the water and finally dropped into the gorge. I successfully traversed the gorge with its ice bridges and steep chutes with only minor collisions to some boulders and trees.

I came into the Rohn checkpoint at 4:40 am exhausted and dehydrated looking forward to a full three hours of sleep. I quickly took care of my dogs and dropped the two dogs in heat. I feel asleep around 7:00 am and was awoken 1 ½ hours later by an Iditarod volunteer who apologized for waking me. She explained that when she was bringing Merri (one of the dogs that I dropped that was in heat) to the airplane to be flown to Anchorage that the dog got nervous and slipped out of her collar. She wouldn’t listen to any of the strangers and she was now running around the wilderness. In my drowsy state, I immediately thought of last year when a musher that I was traveling near me named J.B. Jones lost a dog here. He ended up scratching and the dog was lost for 10 days. I spent the next hour and a half walking down to the Rohn River calling her name and the name of her litter mates. Merri finally heard my voice and tenetively came up to me. When she verified that it was actually me she jumped up on me and started crying. I was SO relieved and proudly walked back to the checkpoint to sounds of cheers from the volunteers, mushers and race veterinarians.

Because of my extended hike through the wilderness, I was delayed getting out of Rohn, but I didn’t care. I had Merri back and I knew it could have been a lot worse. Just ask my friend and neighbor Kim Franklin. She was a rookie in this race and was from England. She leased a dog team from my neighbor Dean Osmar who is the 1983 Iditarod champion. She had spent two full winters in Alaska preparing for this race and her dream. When she went down the gorge a few days after me she hit that first water crossing and apparently her dogs balled up like mine did. In the process, one of her swing dogs chewed the tug lines of her leaders and she ended up losing her two lead dogs. They unfortunately were not found for several days and she ended up scratching at Rohn.
I stayed at Rohn for 8 ½ hours and pulled the hook at 1:00 pm to tackle the crossing of the Rohn River, the famed “glacier” and the Farwell Burn. In many years, this section of the Iditarod trail was the most challenging. The crossing of the Rohn River was difficult, but my team was very sensitive to my numerous verbal commands and we crossed the mile and a half of sheer ice, gravel beds, areas of driftwood and logs without incident. Once over the river, I prepared myself for the glacier. I had heard horror stories of the glacier where dog teams had to pull their sleds up an icy incline for hundreds of yards. In bad years, teams could get stuck there for hours trying to make their way up. There was no way around it. I had brought crampons so I could help the dogs pull the sled up the ice and when I reached the base of the climb I put them on. This year, the glacier was not much of an issue because of the extremely warm temperatures. When I hit the glacier, it was sunny and around 40 degrees so the glacier was melting which made the surface easy to grip to. We went up and over fairly easily and I yelled encouragement to the dogs the entire way.

Once over that, we next had to traverse the Farwell Burn which is famous for no snow. Last year we had 56 miles of frozen boulders and rocks and my sled was destroyed in the process of going over it. This year, there was more snow and only a few miles of the trail were dirt and gravel. I did have some fairly severe barrels rolls though and was still, after several days on the trail, trying to slow down my dog team. Once over the burn, I came to the “Buffalo Camps” where fresh wild buffalo droppings were everywhere. I was a little nervous since these 2,000 pound wild animals can be very unpredictable if startled by a barking dog team. I didn’t come across any buffalos and made the decision not to rest my team at the halfway point of this long 75 mile run. I continued onward running into the setting sun. My dogs picked up the pace as the temperature finally dropped. I came upon Jason Mackey, neighbor, friend, and brother of race champion Lance Mackey, who was resting his team. He asked if I saw the wolf that had been in the area. I did not, but apparently it was following his team for quite a while. We shared some trail stories and I told him I would see him at the next check point. My team looked awesome after a very long hot day on the trail. Four minutes shy of a full 10 hour run, my dogs loped into the rural interior village of Nikolai. I was feeling tired, but really good knowing that the pups were looking strong and barring any blizzards or severe weather events that most of the difficult parts of the trail were behind us!

I gave the dogs a long, well deserved, 10 hour rest, before we pulled the hook at 9:17 the next morning. It was another very warm day and the flat 56 mile river run to McGrath seemed to go on forever. A normal 5 ½ hour run, it took my team and hour longer than that. I was frustrated, but after looking at other musher’s run times realized that my team was doing fine. Many of the other mushers took over seven hours and some as much as eight. I decided when coming into McGrath that I didn’t want to stay. I loaded the sled with some more food, did some more talking to the cameramen (which were always waiting for me at every checkpoint) and then left for the next checkpoint Takotna.

Takonta was a “short” 18 miles away and I couldn’t wait to get there. I decided to take my 24 hour rest there (it is required at one checkpoint in the race). I was hoping that maybe after a day of rest, the weather pattern would change and we would get some colder air to come into the area. The run to Takonta was miserable. The dogs were tired and not motivated. They came loping into McGrath thinking that they were going to get a bed of straw, a long rest, and a warm meal. When we left that checkpoint, they did so reluctantly (which was the only time in the race that they did that). It had been a long and extremely hot day for them. About five miles into the run, Vitus, my big wheel dog started limping and Cobb decided she had had enough. I was thinking of turning around and was kicking myself for not stopping at McGrath, but I knew Takonta was the place to be for my 24 hour rest. I took the tug line off of Vitus and gave Cobb a ride in my sled. It took us almost three hours to get to Takonta. I was so relieved to finally pull up to their community center. The small village was famous for their hospitality and their fantastic food.

I spent the entire next day eating, socializing with other mushers, doing camera interviews, and most importantly giving some well deserved TLC to my pups. I was hoping that a day of sleeping in the 40 degree sunshine would recharge the batteries of my dog team. I pulled the hook at 10:30 at night and realized after about 10 miles that Vitus was limping again. I had spent so much time giving her massages and working on her shoulder injury, but failed in completely healing her. The next checkpoint of Ophir was only 24 miles away so 2 ½ hours later I dropped Vitus. I was frustrated because I really wanted him to make it to Nome. He was my kennel stud and father to many of my yearlings that I had at home and I had to drop him last year because of a shoulder injury as well. He is just such a powerful dog and never will stop pulling, but the soft snow caused him to get injured. He is almost 10 years old so he will probably not go on Iditarod again. He will still run a lot though. His main job now will be to train his children so that his offspring can run proudly down Front Street in Nome.

The run from Ophir to Cripple was the longest run of the race. I continued to Cripple without resting in Ophir and pulled the hook after dropping Vitus at 1:39 am. I planned to go about three hours longer and then I would rest the dogs for four hours in the predawn hours. About an hour out of Ophir, I came to a fairly long water crossing. The dogs crossed it without incident which was a huge accomplishment for my dog team. I was very proud of them! However, now I had to stop to take off their booties so their feet wouldn’t freeze. Once that task was completed, I decided to snack them. I took out my knife to cut apart some frozen pieces of meat and I ended up stabbing my finger. My index finger was bleed profusely through my glove liner on my left hand and I was annoyed at myself. I continue to snack my team while holding my bleeding finger and somehow two dogs snapped at a piece of meat at the same time. I wasn’t paying attention because of my bleeding finger and one of them got a hold of one of my fingers on my right hand and accidently bit it hard. This caused a finger in my right hand to start bleeding. Just as that was occurring, my insulin pump started vibrating which warned me that I had low blood sugar and that I need to eat something immediately. If this wasn’t enough, at the same time, Peter Bartlett with his team of 15 extremely loud and enthusiastic dogs came up from behind me and wanted to pass. What else could go wrong! I yelled to him over the screams of his barking dogs that he would have to wait a minute since there was no room on the trail to pass. I quickly ate something, bandaged both of my fingers the best I could, and proceeded to a spot on the trail where he could pass. He was very patient. He was an old friend and I had gotten several dogs from him years ago. In fact, four of the dogs on my team were from his kennel. I always looked up to him as an experienced Iditarod musher when I lived in Vermont and it felt good that I was running with him so far into the race. He would end up scratching from the race in Galena.

I continued down the trail until I found a place to pull over right around 4:00 am as planned. I snacked my team and fell asleep on my sled for a few hours. I rebootied my team and got moving again at 8:30 am. It was another very warm day and the trail was very slow. The trail seemed endless and we traveled until 5:30 pm when we slowly walked into the Cripple checkpoint. I was exhausted and was not feeling well. It was the beginning of a sickness that I would carry for me for the next week. My spirits were low as I fed my dogs. In addition, I had lost my IPOD at the Rohn checkpoint and found that I really needed my music at times especially when doing the 2 am to 8 am runs. I was used to it from training my dogs in the fall and all winter long and it helped me immensely at times to stay awake.

Other teams were talking about leaving around midnight so that they could travel during the coldest parts of the night over to Ruby which was anticipated to be another long 10 hour run, but I knew that I needed to take care of myself or I wasn’t going to finish this race. At every checkpoint, I was asked by the veterinarians whether my dog team had diarrhea. They were surprised to learn that my dogs did not have it since many of the teams did. Even though my dogs did not have it, it didn’t stop me from getting it. I was not surprised as my personal hygiene was not the best on the trail. I had diarrhea, a fever, and aches and pains all day. The last time I snacked my dogs on the trail I could barely pull the snow hook out of the snow and when I reached down to do it my entire body was in pain.

I rested at Cripple for almost 11 hours. I slept three hours waking at 2:00 am and not pulling the hook until 4:30 am. I was moving slowly. I had tried really hard to take advantage of running in the early mornings and early evening (when the dogs like to run best), but just couldn’t get on a good run rest schedule. I had joked to my wife before the race that my new Cabelas suit had an upgrade from last year which was a zipper in the back area so you didn’t have to pull down the entire suit to do the number 2 and I can attest that it worked well. It was another extremely tiring day with many big climbs. My spirits were raised when I FINALLY saw the houses in the village of Ruby perched on the banks of the Yukon River. It had taken us 11 hours to make it to Ruby, a non-stop run during the heat of the day.

Ruby was beautiful. My dog team was perched on a hillside a couple of hundred of feet above the frozen Yukon River and they were completely asleep in minutes as they basked in the warm rays of the setting sun. It must have been 40 degrees, 65 degrees warmer than last year (and 100 degrees warmer if you factor in the wind chill).

All mushers are required to take an eight hour rest somewhere on the Yukon River and I decided to take it in Ruby after the pups long run through the daytime heat. I was able to sleep two hours and when I woke, the temps had cooled down nicely. I was in the process of placing booties on my dogs when cheers erupted from people around me. I looked up to see the most dazzling display of Northern Lights that I could ever imagine. They covered the entire sky and the intensity of the colors of pinks, yellows, oranges and purples were something I could only have dreamed of. They danced for hours and were so bright you didn’t even need a headlight to see.

I pulled my hook and my dog team loped down onto the river at 11:30 pm. Before leaving, I overheard one of the volunteers exclaim that she had lived in Ruby for 25 years and never have seen the colors of the Northern Lights so vibrant. After several minutes on the trail, my team shook off their groggyness, the temperatures dropped, the trail became firm, and the pups started motoring. Finally, at last, one run that was not hot! I turned off my headlight and listened to the intense breathing of my pups as the silhouettes of their moving bodies were cast on the snow beside them from the cathedral of shimmering lights that danced above us. It was an unbelievable moment for me. From a child growing up on the streets of Philadelphia to now having the indescribable privilege of standing on the back of the runners behind this astonishing dog team as we traveled by ourselves down the immense expanse of the Yukon River illuminated be Mother Nature’s greatest display.

I did another all night run and emerged from a thick cloud of ice fog to the distant lights of Galena at around 6:30 am. I was exhausted, but also energized from the run and got a few hours of really good sleep there. The checkpoint was one of the best ones on the trail and the locals were all really friendly. We were treated like royalty. I enjoyed two breakfasts of pancakes and bacon before I took my nap.

I pulled the hook around 4:00 pm fortunately missing the heat of the day. The dogs started off really slow since they had been sleeping all day, but as the temperatures cooled they began to switch to a higher gear. When I was in the checkpoint, I notice a young women named Molly who left with her dog team a few hours before me. I noticed her because I knew she was running a dog team of Dave Monson’s (husband of the late Susan Butcher) and I knew that she was about a day in front of me just a few days ago. I found it odd that I had caught up to her. About half way into my seven hour run to the next checkpoint of Nulanto, I came across her on the Yukon River. She was not moving and explained that her best lead dog broke her toe and had to be dropped and that her second main lead dog became sick and had to be dropped as well. She was definitely having “leader issues” and I helped her for about 20 minutes as she switched one dog after another trying to see if any of her other dogs would take up the responsibility of leading her team. Her team would go some, but then ever time would ultimately stop. She was 25 and was going to Cornell in the fall for vet school. This was her one time shot at her lifetime Iditarod dream and had handled for three years for Dave to get to this point. As my dog team sped away and as she became smaller and smaller on the horizon, I couldn’t not feel sorry for her. I learned a lot from her as her attitude was so upbeat and optimistic the entire time I was there. She continued onward and finally made it to Kaltag which I thought was remarkable. Even more remarkable, she decided to continue onward down the trail and spend the next five days trying to make it to Nome. She got as far as White Mountain (only 77 miles and one run away from the finish) when she had to scratch. I met her mother at every subsequent checkpoint that I traveled through and she was as upbeat and optimistic as her daughter until she finally cried on my shoulder in Nome upon telling me how her daughter had to finally call it quits just a few hours earlier from her one time shot of fulfilling her dream.

I was inspired as I drove my dogs up the banks of the Yukon River for the last time in Kaltag. My dogs performed spectacularly on our 146 mile run on the flat, monotonous, sometimes mind numbing, trip down the river. We rested just 6 hours there and I pulled the hook right on schedule at 8:00 pm for the long 90 mile run over to Unalakleet. I was still sick and was really getting tired of being sick. I rested my team about 50 miles into the run at Old Women’s Cabin finally closing my eyes at 5:00 am. By now, my dog team had become sick. Upon waking at 7:00 am, the stench of diarrhea was everywhere and it was still really hot. It was really disgusting and I got out of there as fast as I could.

The mostly flat 40 mile run over to Unalakleet was one of the most difficult of the entire race. My dogs were moving extremely slow and were sick. I woke for the fifth day with the same sickness and my mood was in the gutter as one team after another passed me in the hot late morning sun. Dog teams and mushers who had been traveling with me for days and who had become friends along the way were now leaving me behind. I had my only meltdown of the race as my dog team was resting in Unalakleet. It was short lived and I continued on to Shaktoolik right on schedule after a 6 hour rest. Upon my arrival in Unalakleet, one of the cameramen for the Discovery Series had a surprise for me. He had found my IPOD in the bunkhouse way back in Rohn. I lost it when I was awaken to the news that Merri was lost and running around the wilderness. He had carried it with him for a week so that he could give it back to me. Considering I was preparing myself for another late night run I was ecstatic that I got it back. The next leg was really hilly with some monster climbs, but I ski poled and sang to my dogs the entire way.

I left Unalakleet at 7:30 pm and got to see the sun set over the vastness of the frozen Bering Sea. It was another incredible moment. I stopped my team after the first major climb and stood there in amazement behind my fearless friends as they proudly looked down over this vast expanse of sea ice only 100 miles or so from Russia. I felt at that moment that they were as proud about themselves as I was of them – realizing that they pulled me with all of our gear across the entire state of Alaska. In my state of sickness and sleep deprivation, the site that lay before me is one that I will never be able to adequately describe.

After a six hour run, my pups loped into Shaktoolik at 1:45 am. I fed them and bedded them down and went inside just in time to watch Lance Mackey win the race on live TV. I knew I was getting close to finishing and I woke the next day FINALLY feeling a little better. We left the checkpoint and made our way across the Norton Sound. Frequently, cruel winter storms can cause whiteout conditions along this run and many teams have scratched here. This year, it was other warm day and foggy. It was very surreal; I spend five hours in a white fog. I felt like I was on the moon and it was exhausting.

By this point, I was feeling better and I was excited to get moving to the finish line. In my new state of feeling almost normal, I realized that I and my dogs were doing much better than last year. In reality, it was actually me that was doing better getting out of checkpoints since it was obvious that I was the weak link last year during my rookie run. As I was preparing to leave Koyuk, right on my schedule after a 6 hour rest, I confessed to the cameras that I had recently established some new goals. I wanted to finish 4 days faster than last year, I wanted to finish in less than 12 days, and I wanted to finish in the top half of the field. 96 mushers started the race so I would need to be in 48th or better. Recently, I had been anywhere from 50th to 54th.

My dogs had a great run to Elim and I passed one musher on the trail and almost got another as we loped into town at 4:15 am. I left at 10:00 am and had another great run to the last checkpoint to White Mountain. We had some major climbs along the way, but my dogs had renewed strength as they were finally getting over their diarrhea. I was in good spirits when I fed them their last meal. I was relieved that the race was almost over.

However, at 12:30 at night when I pulled my snow hook right on schedule after my mandatory 8 hour rest, I was a lot more melancholy. I knew that this experience that I had spent a good part of a year preparing for was about to come to an end. As I watched the lights of White Mountain get dimmer and dimmer and as the sun came up several hours later, I reflected on how truly lucky that I was to be able to fulfill my dreams. I am still amazed that in a span of 18 months I was able to move across the continent and not only get to the starting line of Iditarod twice, but actually complete both of them. Every musher in the world who ever ran a dog team would one day dream of running Iditarod and I was about to finish my second one! I owe a lot of this to the sacrifices that my wife has made and will always be grateful.

My team got to Nome and the finish line around 10:30 in the morning after a long, but beautiful all night run. I ran alone with my team the entire night without any mushers in sight. I stopped right after the siren sounded, which alerts all the residents of the town that a dog team arrival is imminent, and thanked my team for the last time. The moment for me was emotional and my pups all gave me kisses back. The ones that were on my team from last year knew exactly where they were and we loped off the sea ice. They quickly trotted onto Front Street and down the center of town to the finish line and awaiting crowd as the announcer proclaimed over the loud speaker “This is one of the best looking dog teams I have ever seen finish this race”. I couldn’t have been more proud. We finished 4 days and 4 hours faster than last year in 11 days 19 hours and 36 minutes in 46th place.