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

As we climb around Cape Nome the wind starts to blow, as it always does here, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. I stop and wait for Lisa, who shortly pulls up. There’s been some confusion about how the trail is marked through a construction project up ahead and we proceed carefully past a six-foot excavation in the middle of the road. The road is plowed beyond this point and we can’t run on the icy gravel surface, so we look for alternate trails.

I work my way for a couple hundred yards up the shoulder to the point where the marked trail departs the road and heads down to the beach. When I look back I don’t see any sign of Lisa. I take my team down the trail for a quarter mile, thinking she’s taken a shortcut, but I can’t see her headlight anywhere. I stop the team and walk back up to the road, where I hail a passing motorist to help me search in the 30-mile-an-hour wind and blowing snow.

Eventually I find tracks heading down to the beach; Lisa has obviously moved on ahead. A couple of miles on up the trail I catch her. Her headlight burned out as she skipped the gravel and headed for the beach, so she couldn’t signal me. We’ve lost 45 minutes while I looked for her and she groped along the moonless trail. I loan her my spare light and we both get a good laugh. The trail god had to throw us one last curve ball to remind us not to get complacent.

The end of the trail is in sight at last at the far end of Front Street, Nome’s main avenue. (This is the author’s team at the finish of the 1997 race.)

For several miles we run within sight of the road, accompanied by a steady stream of cars. We’re listening to KNOM on our Walkmen; the radio station has a spotter car out looking for us just like big-city stations have traffic reporters. We stick to our plan to have Lisa go in first, which means I have to periodically stop my by-now-faster team to let her pull ahead. When I’m running close behind her I also turn off my headlight to avoid distracting her dogs. This apparently causes no end of confusion to the watchers on the road, and the radio reporter never does figure out exactly who is who or where we are.

Finally we pull up a steep bank onto Front Street, where our police escort is waiting with lights flashing. The finish line is 10 blocks ahead. As we work up the legendary thoroughfare in a tight two-team convoy we’re swamped with shouts and honking horns. I’m amazed at the number of people out here even though it’s past midnight and we’re not exactly Jeff and DeeDee.

As we near the arch I stop to let Lisa go the last couple of hundred yards by herself. After a minute or so I give Socks his final “Okay!” of the race and he charges up the last block in a blaze of speed I wish he’d shown back on the trail. As we pull into the chute Jack Niggemyer gives me a high-five and Bert and Bobby Lee and Joanne Potts and Lois Harter and Steve Adkins and most everyone else I’ve worked with on the race over the years are waiting under the arch. I only wish Ron could have been here, but he couldn’t make it; I know he’s here in spirit, though, and that’s good enough.

Once we stop I run up and hug Socks. This has been his race at least as much as mine, and I don’t know how I — or Lisa or Andy, for that matter — could have made it without him. Amid the shower of congratulations and hugs and handshakes (each of which reminds me my hand is still broken) and the traditional radio interview, I slowly start to register it’s really over. I’m actually here under the arch after two interminable years. It’s been a long wait, but it’s been everything I’d hoped and a universe more besides.

As much as I’d like to stay here all night and celebrate, the accumulated fatigue of two weeks won’t be denied and I almost nod off while I’m talking to someone. We have to get the dogs settled in the dog lot and then I’m going to go get something to eat. And then I’m going to go to sleep for the first time in a fortnight without having to worry about getting up in a few hours to get out of the checkpoint.

March 19—The Iditarod: Nome

After sleeping the sleep of the near-dead in a real bed in my hostess’ house (her name is Holly Aldrich, but no relation to Ron, we’ve discovered) I get up to meet Andy. As I expected, once he got moving he made bullet-train time from Elim to White Mountain and on into Nome. He pulls in just before 10, in 49th place with red lantern in hand. Quite a crowd is waiting for him under the arch, including Slim and the trail sweeps, who have finally finished their own eventful trips from Anchorage.

With Andy safely home we can celebrate our collective victory, because Lisa and Andy and I have shared it in more ways than we ever anticipated. We each fought through our own problems and chased our own ghosts, but it took all of us to give each other the chance to do it.

Amazingly, we’re the fastest tail-end in the history of the race: Andy’s red-lantern time is 16 hours faster than the old record. Indeed, his trip of just under 16 days would have made him a contender little more than a decade ago.

After an afternoon to recuperate we assemble for the Red Lantern banquet. It’s completely sold out, with at least 200 people jammed into the Nome race headquarters. Several of the back-of-the-packers who finished ahead of us didn’t get to say much at the real banquet so they get their open mike tonight. It’s about as relaxed a party as I can remember and everybody has plenty of tales from the trail.

The last musher to make it to Nome always goes into the Iditarod record books as the winner of the fabled Red Lantern. The tail-end driver is given the symbolic lantern as he enters Front Street and carries it with him to the finish line. After he crosses under the burled arch at the finish, he extinguishes a similar lantern (called the Widow’s Lamp) that has been burning under the arch for the duration of the race, signifying that the Iditarod is finally over.

When Lisa takes the stage, she mentions she promised Socks a steak if he got us through the blizzard outside Unalakleet. Then she pulls a choice sirloin out of a bag and her mother brings up Socks, who has been hiding under a table at the back of the room. To the cheers of the crowd our real hero calmly devours his just reward. It’s only fitting: Socks gets his steak even before we do — and I fully intend to see he has a chance to earn lots more next year.

After the banquet I have a little time before Bert and I are to meet Lisa and her mother at the Board of Trade saloon for a quiet celebration. I wander the streets for awhile, the solid weight of my newly awarded finisher’s belt buckle tugging at my pocket. The burled arch and the chute leading to the finish line have been taken down and Front Street has reverted to its workaday self. The long-promised storm is starting to make its move and the wind is beginning to whip through the streets; another day and we’d have been facing its wrath out by Topkok. But we’re safe here in Nome; the storm can do its worst.

Without question these have been the most eventful two weeks of my life. I’ve ridden a physical and emotional roller coaster which soared to the summits and plunged to the depths and back again so many times, and in such a short period, I still don’t fully comprehend everything that’s happened and maybe never will. Driving a dog team to Nome may be a mundane matter for the professionals, but the first time for me has been beyond words.