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

This up-the-mountain trail is about 10 miles long; the last four or five miles climb about 1,500 feet, topping out around 2,500 feet above sea level, which is well above the tree line up here at 62 degrees north latitude. Of course, once onto the treeless upper expanses, the sky’s the limit. Given the reasonably firm snow of late winter, there’s no real reason an intrepid driver couldn’t take a team on up into the heart of the Talkeetnas, whose 10,000 square miles and peaks ranging up to 9,000 feet constitute one of Alaska’s lesser known — but no less magnificent — wilderness areas.

I haven’t been up this trail before for any number of reasons, but chiefly because it’s been repeatedly trashed by the resident moose population. Pothole-like moose tracks in a dog trail can be deadly, dislocating canine shoulders and even breaking legs. No sane musher would willingly run a team over such a trail without a very good reason, no matter how good the training would ordinarily be.

Now, however, new snow and several weeks of heavy use by snowmachiners have yielded a near-perfect trail, smooth and hard. The moose seem to have headed down the mountain in search of more amenable tree-munching areas, leaving the upper slopes to us, although now we have just that many more of the ornery critters to worry about around our dog lot.

I decide to take 10 of the dogs I ran in the Copper Basin 300 and go up the mountain before something else happens to ruin the trail. The dogs are sluggish for the first 10 miles, undoubtedly bored out of their minds by hitting the same old trail again for the umpteenth time. But at the usual turnaround point, when I gee them onto the new trail, it’s like I flip the overdrive switch. They instantly sense a new adventure at hand and pull up the first big slope like a space shuttle heading for orbit.

I went a few miles up this trail yesterday but had to turn around before I made it all the way up. Today I think I’ll have time to get to the top before it gets too dark to appreciate whatever treasures I might find up there. We’re gaining several minutes of daylight a day and it’s plenty light until well after six.

Shortly past our previous turnaround point the trail leaves the birch forest and pushes into the open spruce woods. Periodically we cross broad snow-covered meadows that are bogs in the summertime, climbing steadily. Ahead are sweeping vistas of the high peaks of the Talkeetnas painted gold by the late afternoon sunlight. Over my shoulder I can catch tantalizing views of the entire Susitna Valley spread out below. I realize I’m at a much higher altitude with my dog team than I normally fly with my airplane.

The dogs pull resolutely up the interminable slope. Unlike the monster mountain on the Copper Basin 300, though, we’re up here exploring on our own volition and it’s a mutual enterprise. They want to see what’s up here as much as I do and are fully alert and intent, peering off to the side of the trail or up at the peaks. I think they really do appreciate the view; I know from driving Silvertip in my car and flying him in my plane that he thoroughly enjoys seeing the countryside. Other mushers have told me good long-distance sled dogs must be intelligent and curious enough to want to see what’s around the next bend. Otherwise they’d never be able to handle the hours on the trail in the bigger races without going sour and refusing to pull.

This climb easily rivals our Copper Basin nemesis. Today, however, there is no hesitation, which is the underlying reason I brought the team up here. If I can get them to take every hill as if there’s something new and exciting at the top, they’ll be much less prone to balk even if they’re tired. And I know there are so many hills on the Iditarod the total climb would probably add up to several trips to the top of Denali.

Mental preparation of this sort is just as important for the dogs as for the drivers. Indeed, top-flight drivers like Martin Buser send a second team of younger dogs on the Iditarod every year. These canine rookies aren’t pushed: the goal is to give them an easy trip to Nome so they will come to see the trail as a fun place to be. (And judging from the success of Martin and others using this strategy, it certainly seems to work.)

Finally all I can see ahead is a thin stand of stunted trees and brush. As we pull past them, it’s like we’ve broken out onto the top of the world. The unbroken slope continues up perhaps another quarter mile to a lone snow-frosted boulder atop a knoll. The dogs can sense this is our goal and redouble their efforts, practically loping up the 15-percent grade.

Abeam the great stone, I stop the team. We’re on a rise overlooking a vast expanse of tundra leading up to the rugged peaks. The snowmachine trail we’ve followed up from the lowlands splits into many tracks, each leading to its own mysterious destination behind a ridge or up a side couloir. We’re certainly not pioneers up here, since this is a popular weekend destination for motorized explorers, but I know we’re the first dog team to make it up here in some weeks. From our perspective it’s a whole new world.

Behind us, the sun has just set and the clouds are aglow with vivid reds and golds over the Alaska Range far to the west. Far below, in the valley whence we’ve come, the lights along the Parks Highway are twinkling on as the late-winter darkness creeps in. There are so few lights they barely disturb the immensity of the silent forests and swamps and rivers. I know there are more than 5,000 people living in the Maryland-sized Susitna Valley, but their impact seems minimal from this lofty viewpoint.

It’s taken us less than two hours to get up here from our dog lot, but we might as well have traveled to another world. As much as I’d like to push on to explore the high country, night is falling quickly and I have to get back to feed the other dogs. I hate to leave, but I know I’ll be back. Besides, the dogs are already screaming to go; the climb hasn’t even fazed them.

I turn the team around and we start back down the trail. The dogs have apparently been anticipating the downhill run and immediately break into a lope. We barrel back down the trail and into the tree line like the Twentieth Century Limited. I ride the brake but there’s no way I can stop the dogs quickly when they’ve got the bit in their teeth like this. I suppose Captain Hazelwood had a similar feeling when he tried to stop the Exxon Valdez. The problem, I suddenly realize, is the hills. Several steep sections we trudged up earlier now become twisting carnival rides as I struggle to keep the sled upright and me on it. And there’s worse to come.

I’ve come to classify really serious downhills in two categories: “yee-hahs” and “omigods.” The former is the kind of whistling descent with enough elements of fun and adventure and sufficient pumping adrenaline to overshadow the likelihood of imminent disaster. There is a reasonable chance of survival or at least a smiling demise. My mental behavior model for transiting these declivities is the late, lamented Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove astride his trusty H-bomb, wildly waving his Stetson on his drop to glory.

The other flavor of hill is the kind that, on a ski slope, you take one look at, break your own leg, and crawl away from on your hands and knees begging for mercy and a hot buttered rum, heavy on the rum. These plunges have no redeeming social value and seemingly offer a direct descent into the underworld. On a dog sled, however, there is no turning back, and in any case you’re already committed to the free fall sans parachute before you can do anything about it. After the shock of the initial surprise, as the enormity of the situation takes hold, the chief emotion is a strange type of Eastern fatalism, perhaps accompanied by a fleeting glimpse of the major events of your life and a passing regret at not updating your will.