Mike Dillingham - Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers - The Adventures of Balto, Back of the Pack, Honor Bound, Rivers

As we make our last checks and put the pistols where we can find them in a panic, we realize even this artillery would only annoy a polar bear. Indeed, someone in Unalakleet reminded me to make sure the front sight of my hand cannon is filed down so it won’t hurt so much when the bear takes it away from me and sticks it up my nose.

We enter the alleged bear territory in an hour or so. The trail comes back down to the beach after skirting inland around a hill, passes an old building at the fish camp, crosses Egavik Creek, and then heads back up a steep hill. As we move toward the building the dogs seem to be nervous, but we don’t see anything which might resemble a bear nor do we see any tracks. We have the distinct feeling of being watched, though, and we decide not to go looking for an Ursus maritimus just to say we saw one.

The brush-lined creek has a 50-foot stretch of overflow and the dogs balk, requiring us to stop and lead them across. We are not at all comfortable being stalled in such a vulnerable position and move on with unseemly haste. A few hundred yards later we lose the trail in a windswept area and again have to dismount and lead the dogs back to the markers. We still haven’t seen any sign of the bears, but we’ve both got a strong feeling they’re not far away, almost certainly watching us. The dogs are jumpy and looking around and we’re intensely relieved when we start back up to the open ridgeline.

Once up on the ridge we have a more immediate problem: the wind. It’s apparently been blowing quite hard up here for some time. This isn’t the promised new snowstorm, but a persistent wind can be just as troublesome and maybe even worse. With all the new snow on the ground from last night to move around, the gale has already piled drifts across anything it can reach, including the trail.

I know the trail sweeps came through here not an hour or two ago, and Andy has been here even since then, but I can see only the faintest signs of their passing. In places Andy’s sled tracks are covered by foot-deep drifts. It seems our run over the Blueberry Hills to Shaktoolik won’t be as easy as we’d hoped.

Fortunately the trail is well marked and Socks is able to find his way as darkness falls. Whenever we drop into the lee of the ridge and have a chance to look around, we can see it’s a beautiful moonless night with stars almost bright enough to illuminate the trail by themselves.

After an hour or so of slogging up hills, breaking through drifts, and careening back down into intervening valleys, we see Andy stopped ahead in a sheltered grove of trees. He says the wind and drifts were tiring his dogs and he had to rest for awhile. We wait while he gets his team up and then move on with him in the lead.

It’s slow going as his leaders break trail and we make frequent stops. After a steep climb up an exposed 100-foot slope in howling wind which requires us to break through hip-deep drifts on foot so the dogs can follow, he says his team has had enough leading. It’s time for Socks the Wonder Dog to do his thing.

I move out front with Socks in the lead. We are by now running mostly along the treeless ridgeline, steadily climbing, but with occasional surprise drops into ravines. The trail is marked well, but the wind is gusting to more than 50 miles an hour and at times I can’t even see the front of my team in the swirling snow, much less the markers.

Socks pushes resolutely forward, feeling out the trail and heading for the markers when we spot them. Between gusts I scan among the drifts to find the intermittent snowmachine tracks of the trail sweeps. Occasionally Socks misses the trail and I have to redirect him; all I can do is shout “GEE!” or “HAW!” at the top of my lungs and hope he hears above the screaming wind.

Finally we catch glimpses of the lights of Shaktoolik out on the flats to the west and we know we’re nearing the top of the Blueberry Hills. Although the lights are barely 15 miles away they seem impossibly far, a tiny island of amber sodium-vapor light in a vast sea of darkness, a cluster of stars fallen from the glittering sky above. It’s already taken us eight hours to cover 20 miles from Unalakleet; I don’t want to guess how long it will take us to cross the black windswept snow desert to the golden oasis hovering in the distance.

After fighting through a final mile of blasting wind and drifting snow across the barren mountaintop, the hurricane suddenly calms as we come to what appears to be the edge of the earth. Christopher Colum-bus would have appreciated this; I wonder what he would have told his superstitious sailors to convince them to push on into the unknown.

Of course, our crewmen don’t need any urging, and there’s the rub. The trail drops abruptly down a steep slope into the tree line and our dogs will try to do it at warp nine if we let them. It looks like the entrance to the world’s most dangerous luge run and we’re about to try it in the dark with rocket-powered sleds.

Lisa has been here before and suggests we spread out and go down the long hill at least 10 minutes apart. This will give each of us time to recover from any spills and get moving before the next juggernaut comes hurtling through the forest. The dogs will be moving at 15 miles an hour, so we should reach the bottom easily within half an hour.

We agree this sounds like a plan and Lisa disappears over the edge. I wait nervously for another 10 minutes, pondering where the wind has gone and estimating my chances of reaching the beach intact. Finally I give Socks the okay and hold on for dear life.

The dogs obviously appreciate the rest they’ve just had and respond by trying to drag the sled and me through the sound barrier. Whatever other problems I may have, I don’t think I need to worry about their strength and spirit. We hit the tree line at better than 15 miles an hour despite my booted foot jamming the brake so hard we’re leaving a rooster tail of snow behind us. I barely scrape through several turns lined with heavy brush and spruce trunks as the trail plunges down the mountainside.

If this continues I’m going to miss a cue somewhere and imitate Linda Joy’s dances-with-trees routine. In one singularly fascinating series of switchbacks I graze one spruce, kick away from another, and take a face full of willow branches within about five seconds. Just as I’m about to intentionally spill the sled to try to regain control of the situation the trail levels out briefly and the brake begins to take effect. The dogs have blown off their excess steam and I’m able to get them slowed to a fast trot.

Now I can drop into my Dalzell Gorge mode and concentrate on basic sled driving. The trail is actually in good shape after its recent fresh snow and packing by the trail sweeps. When taken at a velocity slower than a speeding bullet the curves aren’t all that bad. However, like the Gorge, there are more than enough hazards waiting to ambush an inattentive driver and abruptly end someone’s Iditarod.

We reach the bottom of the hill in about 20 minutes; at least for this little stretch of the trip we’ve gone as fast as the front-runners. As the trees scatter out and the terrain levels I see Lisa stopped ahead. We’re back in a windswept area and she’s lost the trail. Andy thunders up in a few minutes and we all fan out to try to find a trail marker. After our experience on the tundra outside of Unalakleet we’re getting good at this and I locate a tripod and then a reflector within 15 minutes.

I point Socks at the marker and we’re off. The wind picks up again as we leave the shelter of the hills. We pass a deserted cabin, cross what looks to be frozen overflow, and then pull up a 20-foot rise. Suddenly Socks disappears over a steep bank and I slam on the brake. After I set the hook and walk up to see what’s happened, I’m shocked to find we’ve run right over the barrier dune and onto the beach. My headlamp shows nothing but jumbled slabs of sea ice.