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

After I mix up warm food for the dogs and get the sled repacked I start the endless round of find-the-leader again. Slipper is cranky after her night in the snow and snaps at any other dog who gets close. Bea is more personable, but she won’t start the team by herself. About 10 a.m. I finally put Pullman back up front, even though I don’t think she’s going to go.

When I hook up Pullman, Slipper is right behind her in the swing position. Slipper seems to have a grudge against Pullman and promptly tries to bite her in the tail, which causes Pullman to start forward with a jerk. With Slipper and the other females growling behind her, Pullman takes off, apparently running for her life. Unbelievably, we’re moving again, although not in the manner I’d quite intended.

After a few miles, though, Pullman settles into her normal leading routine and Slipper and the rest of the female heat (or hit?) squad quiet down. It looks like we’re back on the trail, and I’m overjoyed because we’ll cruise into Finger Lake and on to Rainy Pass in no time at this clip. I’m back in the race and we’re making up time.

Now I can relax and look at the scenery and appreciate where we are. I suddenly realize we’re within five miles of my 40 acres of wilderness land on Red Creek, where I hope to finish a cabin one of these years. I staked it out with a couple of friends 12 years ago, picking out the land I wanted and then brushing out the boundary lines with a machete and a hand compass. I fly out here frequently during the summer in my little float plane to visit my neighbors’ working homestead and to just sit on my 200-foot bluff above the creek looking at the storybook view of Denali to the north.

I wish I had time to detour over to the property. We’d planned to make a trip out there with the dogs before the race, but we were overtaken by events, primarily my cracked rib. Now I wish we’d found some way to make the four-day out-and-back from Montana Creek; the experience of being out on the trail would have been good for the dogs and for me as well, and I might have learned how to anticipate some of the problems I’ve run into the past couple of days.

But now I have to refocus on the task at hand — keep the dogs running until I get to Rainy Pass, where I’ll obviously have to drop several of them. Fortunately, this part of the trail is in remarkably good condition and we’re really cruising. For the most part, it’s a snow-packed highway maybe six or eight feet wide, running up long snow-covered meadows and cutting through the occasional stand of birch and spruce.

The dogs are thoroughly enjoying themselves and have apparently forgotten about the sex bomb which seems to detonate every time we stop. For now, I have almost nothing to do except stand on the runners in the glorious sunshine and silently thank whoever is listening up there for getting me back in the race.

A little after noon we drop down onto Finger Lake and steam into the checkpoint. The checkers are there to meet me, again wondering where I’ve been. Tim Triumph is still there and he’s glad I made it; he was concerned after my guys wouldn’t follow him last night but he had to try to keep his own team moving. I explain about the unexpected slumber party back at Shell Hills and say I want to move on to Rainy Pass as soon as I can. The dogs can’t be tired — after all, they’ve done a lot more resting than running since we left Wasilla.

Some remote Iditarod checkpoints are little more than tents thrown up next to a frozen river or lake where skiplanes can land.

It’s barely 30 miles to Rainy Pass Lodge, the next checkpoint. The dogs are moving well and I’ve got time to make up. I think about dropping Blues and Rosie and maybe even Bea and Slipper, the main actors in the ongoing sex scandal, but decide to wait until Rainy Pass since they’re pulling strongly for now and I may need them on the long ascent I know is coming. I tell the checker I’m just going to snack the team and keep moving without dropping any dogs, but I’ll need more Heet for my alcohol cooker.

While the assistant checker is getting the Heet, I chat for a minute with one of the chief pilots for the Iditarod Air Force, for which I flew last year. He wishes me well and I tell him I hope to be flying next year after I get this trip completed. We’re ready to go barely 20 minutes later. The checker takes the leaders’ tuglines and runs the dogs out of the holding area, past the inviting straw and distracting bits of food left by previous teams. Pullman and Bea hesitate, but pick up after maybe 50 yards of pacing by the checker, who is quickly out of breath. I thank him profusely for his help as we head off the lake and into the woods.

We quickly leave the checkpoint behind. The team is running as if nothing untoward ever happened, keeping up a solid 10-mile-an-hour pace. This is the team I’ve trained all year and I finally start to believe we’re back on track.

The trail meanders through the woods and down onto two-mile-long Red Lake, then up a long draw onto a wooded plateau leading to the infamous Happy River. The dogs show no sign of flagging despite the bright sun and temperatures nearing the thirties. Fortunately, enough of the trail is in cool shadow to keep the sun from heating the dogs’ dark fur coats.

We periodically break out of the woods onto easy open swales where I can see we are making significant progress into the mountains. Then we plunge back into the forest for another mile or two of twisting excitement as I try to dodge trees and ruts, not always successfully. The dogs seem to be enjoying the run as well, looking off to the sides of the trail. Every tugline is tight and we are covering ground quickly.

After 10 miles or so the trail begins to dip into gullies as it approaches the main declivity to Happy River. The Happy River steps are a series of several precipitous sidehill cuts by which the trail descends a couple of hundred feet to the Happy River at its junction with the Skwentna River. Every year numerous mushers crash and burn here; the spot is notorious enough for cameramen to go to great lengths to make the trip out on snowmachines and helicopters for action shots of mushers in various states of disarray. I’ve seen some of the clips from previous years and I wish I hadn’t: sleds and mushers hurtling through thin air, wrapped around trees, rolling end over end down the impossibly steep slope beside the narrow trail.

There won’t be any media vultures here today, though — they’re all up the trail with the leaders. I’ll have to do this without an appreciative audience. Of course, I have no idea what condition the steps are in, especially after they have been battered and gouged by almost 60 other teams and who knows how many snowmachines. I’ve become completely fatalistic about it all. The only thing I can do is slow the team down as much as I can and hope I can keep the sled slick side down between the curbs.

I’m anticipating the steps, which are still a mile or so ahead, when the team shoots down a draw into a 50-foot-deep gully. As I stomp on the brake I catch a glimpse of an overhanging tree on the right side of the trail. The dogs swing abruptly into a right turn at the bottom of the ravine and cut the sled straight for the snag.

I have about half a second to avoid disaster. I try to throw the sled over onto its side but miss by a hairsbreadth. The handlebar catches on a protruding knob and the sled comes to a instant stop, suspended about an inch off the trail. The dogs are still pulling, keeping the gangline quiveringly taut. Several fingers of my right hand are jammed between the handlebar and the tree and even through my glove I can feel the beginnings of pain.