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

With some difficulty I lever my fingers loose; I’ll worry about them later — at least they don’t feel broken. This is a very interesting situation, especially considering dog teams don’t go backward — not easily, anyway — which is what I will need to back the handlebar off the snag on which it’s hung up. I’m not even to Happy River and I’ve already got a mess on my hands.

Looking at the tree, one solution pops into my mind. I can get my ax out of the sled bag and hack the four-inch protrusion off. Before I start swinging with a sharp blade in a confined space at a branch under immense tension, though, I figure it’s worth a try to see if I can yank the dogs back momentarily even an inch or so. I go around and grab the wheel dogs’ tuglines and yell “Back!” Surprisingly, they yield an inch or two. The handlebar slips down a little on its obstruction and I go back to see if I can work it off.

As I take hold of the handlebar to try to work it free, the team figures it’s time to go and gives a tremendous lurch forward. The rotten wood of the snag suddenly splinters and the sled shoots off with my previously damaged fingers wrapped around the handlebar, ensuring they receive yet another blow from the vengeful tree as we careen off toward Happy River.

In another 10 minutes we finally come to the dreaded Happy River steps, marked by a handmade sign inscribed “Hill Ahead” and illustrated with a stair-step line. I stop the team to make last-minute mental preparations and to make peace with whomever seems appropriate. Then I tell the dogs to go, with the brake applied as hard as I can stomp it into the yielding snow.

The first step is a sharp downgrade with a very deep rut, which we negotiate surprisingly easily. The passage of the teams ahead of me has actually helped, because my sled settles into the foot-deep trench in the middle of the trail as if it were on railroad tracks. The second step is a 100-foot sidehill carved diagonally down a 70-degree bluff; again, everything stays stable and upright thanks to the brake-gouged ditch which confines us. The third and fourth steps are equally anticlimactic and before I realize it we’re out on the ice of Happy River headed downstream. It’s a shame the photographers weren’t here — I would have loved to see their looks of disappointment at my relatively dignified passage. I’ve either been lucky or good, but at least I’m still in one piece.

After another half mile we come to the flip side of the steps: the Happy River hill. This is a quarter-mile upgrade leading from the riverbed up a narrow draw at about a 45-degree grade. The sides of the trail at the bottom of the hill have been wiped out and the sled slides off despite my best efforts. I manage to get it upright, but now I’ve got another problem: the team won’t pull up the grade. I figure it’s mostly the heat — it’s almost 40 degrees and the entire hill is in full sunlight — so I have to dismount and walk the leaders up the slope.

As soon as I start the ascent, the males in the rear pull the sled up into the females and I have another major tangle on my hands. Fifteen minutes later I manage to get the team lined out on a part of the hill steep enough so the males can’t catch up easily. Painfully slowly, I walk the team up the killing slope. I’m so hot I strip off my coat and hat and unzip my fleece liner. And if I’m this warm, the dogs must be miserable.

After half an hour of stop-and-go plodding we crest the hill and I quickly find a place to rest the dogs in the shade. I undo their tuglines and let them lie in the cool snow while I unlimber the alcohol cooker to make water, as much for me as for them. I make a quick soup for them, which they appreciate; I figure this is just what they need to get moving again.

After 45 minutes of quality rest, I hook them back up and try to go, but my nemesis has returned. Pullman won’t go; instead, she goes right back over to the side of the trail and lies down. Bea won’t start on her own and just looks back at me. I put Slipper back up front with Bea but she won’t move either. The only thing my efforts produce is yet another tangle. The males are screaming to get at the females and the females just don’t want to go.

It’s happened again. I try every combination of leaders and non-leaders I can think of: Bea and Weasel, Pullman and Weasel, Pullman and Slipper, Wild Thing and Bea, Wild Thing and Slipper, even little Maybelline and all of the others. Nothing works. I think to myself we’re stopped cold because of the heat, but somehow it doesn’t seem very humorous.

After what seems like an hour of frustration, I hear several big snow-machines coming up behind me. These are the trail sweeps, whose job is to police up the trail behind the race. They also help tail-end mushers within the limits of the rules and generally keep the rear of the race moving. I ask them if they can help me get my dogs started by running the leaders for 50 feet or so on foot, like leaving a checkpoint. I’m reasonably sure this will get the dogs moving so they will switch back out of the “sex” mode and into the “run” configuration.

However, the sweeps say they aren’t sure they can do that, even though I tell them I don’t think it constitutes outside assistance. They say they’ll have to go on up to Rainy Pass Lodge and see what the officials say. Half an hour later I hear another team coming up behind me. This can only be Tim Triumph, who I know is the last musher on the trail. He pulls to a stop and I tell him my problem. We agree my dogs might follow his so he pulls around and stops. After several false starts I put Bea and little Maybelline up front and we finally start and keep going.

We immediately come to yet another hill, not as bad as the one we’ve just ascended, and Tim leads us up and around a sharp left turn at the top. As we round the turn, my gangline catches on a tree at the side of the trail; the team hesitates for a minute and then lurches ahead. The sled pulls free of the grabbing tree but something is not right; indeed, it quickly becomes apparent everything is terribly wrong.

Once around the bend I can see the team lined out ahead. Yankee is stretched out prone and seems to be choking. I set the snow hook and run up to him, where I see to my horror the impossible has happened: the cable gangline has broken, right next to Yankee and Silvertip. Yankee is caught in the middle with his tugline attached to the sled and his neckline attached to the forward section of gangline. Silvertip would be in the same situation except he has slipped his collar.

Yankee’s neckline is the only link holding the still-straining front 12 dogs to the sled. He is being brutally clothes-lined and I frantically try to find a way to free him before he strangles. Unfortunately I can’t just cut his neckline because the dozen dogs in front of him would bolt down the trail. Without the restraint of the sled they could easily wrap themselves around a tree or tangle up even worse than they are now, with possibly fatal results.

Luckily, Tim has quickly stopped his team ahead of me and is running back to help. He yells to me I have another dog down; I scream at him to cut it loose while I work on Yankee. Tim quickly frees the front dog (Blackie) who is only tangled in a line but is also in danger of choking. Then he rushes back to help me secure the remains of the gangline so the front part of the team won’t run off while we cut Yankee loose.

Yankee and Blackie regain their equilibrium within a couple of minutes and are apparently uninjured, but I am shaken almost to the point I cannot stand up. The whole episode, from stopping the sled to finally freeing Yankee, took less than 60 seconds but it seems like a year. Without Tim’s help I could have had a major disaster and very possibly a dead or seriously hurt dog, not to mention a runaway team.