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

There seems to be a change in the team. They realize this is a major watershed. This is what the endless boring training in front of the four-wheeler and on the short local trails has been about. Now we’re doing some real mushing and they’re even more anxious than I am. The next several hills are bigger and much steeper than the first one but the dogs need no urging to conquer them. They have united to become a powerful engine capable of surmounting anything in its path.

After another five miles we climb one last brutal hill to the halfway point of the run. Eventually, instead of turning back at this point, we will continue up through the thinning birch and spruce along the South Fork of Montana Creek onto the wide-open uplands of the Talkeetna Mountains. That trail ends maybe 15 miles farther on at the 3,000-foot level, about the same altitude as Rainy Pass on the Iditarod. It’s as close as we will get to the Alaska Range until we actually head out on the race, but it’s a reasonable approximation, especially for being right in our back yard.

Training runs with smaller teams occupy many weeks before the first races. Most mushers prefer to have at least 600 or 700 miles on their dogs by New Years.

Tonight, though, I stop the dogs at the top of the hill and give them each a biscuit while I look out over the valley to the west. There are only a few lights along the Parks Highway and the Talkeetna Spur Road seven miles away. Otherwise the blackness is complete. Even though it’s dark I can half-see, half-sense the 20,000-foot bulk of Denali looming barely 70 miles to the northwest, faintly silhouetted against the starry night sky. Beyond it lies the great interior of Alaska with Nome beyond.

Most Alaskans have never seen the other side of the Mountain, either literally or figuratively. I’ve been lucky enough to see much of the state from the air over the years, but the thought of seeing it from the back of a sled like the old-timers did is overwhelming. Tonight the black void beyond the tenuous thread of lights along the highway looks vast and mysterious, a world I’ve seen and taken for granted before but now will experience in a completely new way within a couple of months.

Socks figures I’ve taken enough time to admire the view and signals his impatience by yanking the snow hook. I grab the handlebar as the sled shoots by. We run for three miles on an easy trail down an unfinished road. Then we reach the end of the improved section and plunge into a narrow winding corridor of willow and alder.

Barrie has told me there’s an open stream where a temporary culvert has washed out, but before I can figure out where we are the black gap of rushing water yawns ahead and the dogs have launched themselves across it. I yell “On by!” to Socks and hang on while the sled crashes into the foot-deep water and slithers across the rocks of the creek bed. I manage to stay upright as we slam over the two-foot bank on the far side and the dogs gleefully haul on up the next hill.

Fortunately I’ve waterproofed my new boots and my feet stay dry. Bert has told me about his numerous misadventures with the wet stuff on the Iditarod, including one time in Dalzell Gorge when he went in up to his chest to keep a dog from being dragged under an ice ledge. Ron has amplified these tales with his own, and I’ve resigned myself to seeing flowing water on the trail. I know I’ve seen open water all along the Iditarod from the air even at 40 below, so this is only a slight taste of what’s to come. I guess I’m starting to pay my dues, but so far it’s nothing I can’t handle.

The trail winds on for another half mile and then all I can see in front of me in the headlight beam is yawning blackness. This must be the hill I vaguely remember from my trip through here on the four-wheeler this summer. By the time my memory banks dredge up the information this is the longest and steepest hill on the whole trail, I realize I’m rocketing down it at a high rate of speed and the dogs are yelping in delight as they continue to accelerate.

I don’t dare yell to the dogs to whoa up because I’d overrun the team before I could get the sled stopped. So, I jump on the drag and shift my entire weight onto it to try to slow down the juggernaut and keep the gangline taut. But in doing so I sacrifice what’s left of my balance, and the deed is completed by a snow-covered rut and the Willis sled’s inherent tendency to go with the flow.

In a flash the sled tips and I flail behind it as it slides off the near-vertical embankment and down into the bordering brush. The quick-release cord still wrapped around my wrist keeps me from flying off into the deep ditch, but at the price of several pulled muscles in my arm. The dogs stay up on the trail but they have so much momentum they drag me like a sack of potatoes for what seems forever through the scrub and over the rocks. Sometime in the 15 seconds or so before things come to a grinding halt I bang my right knee against a rock and the pain is almost enough to make me yell something ungentlemanly, which I’m sure Socks would enjoy.

However, the old pro knows to stop when the sled tips over and he finally gets around to doing it. I lie there for a minute or so getting my bearings and catching my breath. Slowly I get myself and the sled untangled from the grabbing branches. As I lever the sled back up onto the trail, I can see Socks looking around and I swear he’s smiling. As usual, he’s moving the instant he thinks I’m reasonably upright and we tear off down the trail again.

Half a mile later we come to another hazard Barrie warned me about, a tree down across the trail that is outflanked by a contorted makeshift bypass winding for several hundred yards through the forest. The sled capsizes a couple of times in the deep snow but the dogs are barely moving so nothing untoward happens. Then we pull up a sharp incline back onto the road. Socks veers to the right and then stops; I see he’s turned us back into the downed tree from the opposite side. I sigh and tell him to come haw (double back to the left).

After a minute he pulls the team around and heads down the trail in the right direction, but the wheel dogs, Weasel and Bear, are hopelessly tangled. I stop the team and go up to sort things out. I must completely unhook Weasel’s neckline and tugline for a few seconds — and at this exact instant the team jerks and I lose my hold on Weasel, who darts off to one side.

Weasel is one of my favorites, a pure white female who’s run the Iditarod a couple of times and has even been from Nome to Russia on the international Hope race. She has a bouncy and lovable disposition but also displays a mind of her own at times. She won’t come to me when I call and darts out ahead of the team as if daring us to follow. I don’t have much choice but to head on back to the lot. I’m reasonably certain she’ll tag along; she’s smart and is a good trail leader in her own right, so I know she’ll find her way home if she gets separated. Still, the thought of having a loose dog on the trail is a musher’s worst nightmare, and losing a dog is the most fundamental sin a musher can commit. If this is paying dues, I’m writing big checks tonight.

Socks treats it all as a game and streaks after Weasel, who dances ahead like a pale ghost. I occasionally get a glimpse of her glowing green eyes as she pauses to check where we are. After another half mile I realize I’ve still got a few dog biscuits in my pocket. Weasel is a pushover for a biscuit, and I think there’s a chance I can lure her back. I stop the team, set the snow hook around a log, and then creep out in front of Socks. Quietly I call to Weasel, who is about 20 yards ahead, watching me with what must be amusement.