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

We know we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next couple of weeks and keep up a genial banter as we pass each other and occasionally run together. It’s a little too early to organize convoys; these will coalesce naturally down the trail as conditions require. For the time being we’re all feeling out our teams and getting mentally prepared for the long haul.

By six o’clock we’re approaching Flathorn Lake, 40 miles from Wasilla. Almost everyone else has stopped and rested for couple of hours by now. My team has continued to look strong and I’ve kept going, albeit very slowly, sometimes no more than a few miles an hour along the soft, punchy trail. I’m starting to pass some of the front runners who have camped out during the heat of the day. They’ll be up and running shortly. When they blow by me after their siestas it will probably be the last time I’ll see any of them until Nome.

I can already see this trip will be a hare-and-tortoise exercise, with my plodders playing the turtle. I wish I had some more speed so I could spend less time on the trail and more time in the checkpoints, but it’s just not going to happen. I guess I’ll have to content myself with looking at the scenery from the back of the sled for hours on end. Sooner or later we’ll get to Nome.

The shadows finally start to lengthen after Flathorn Lake. We pick up a little speed as we tumble (literally) down onto the broad frozen expanse of the Susitna River. I’d been warned about the short, steep grade down onto the river, but nobody told me about the reverse curve in it; I manage to hang on to the sled as it bounces on its side onto the river ice. Nothing is hurt, and I’m sure this will be only the first of many spills.

Two dozen snowmachiners are having a trail party near the mouth of the Yentna River. Such parties are common sights for mushers until well past Skwentna. At night their bonfires form a line of beacons strung out for miles up the river.

There are half a dozen parties out on the ice, each with a bonfire and an attendant cluster of snowmachines. The fires twinkle in the deepening dusk, a series of beacons marking the way up the river. As we pass each one Socks wants to go see what’s going on; once or twice I have to stop the team and go up to lead him past the temptation of free hot dogs and other goodies.

We quickly move the next 15 miles up to Yentna Station under a brilliant full moon. I leave my headlamp off most of the time; I can actually see more without it. In any case, this is all familiar territory; the dogs have been out here at least half a dozen times in the past couple of months and they seem somewhat bored with it all.

We pull into Yentna Station just before nine. I’m actually ahead of many of the fast teams who are only now moving up the river after their afternoon rests. However, I stop longer than I’d planned to give my guys a breather, and a number of teams I passed roar through with only a brief pause on their way up to Skwentna and Finger Lake. I doubt I’ll see any of them again.

March 4, 1996—The Iditarod: Yentna Station to Skwentna (35 miles); Skwentna to Finger Lake (45 miles)

While I’m feeding the dogs at Yentna Station the checker comes over to warn me about a particularly bad overflow condition up ahead. Apparently water from Moose Creek, a tributary of the Yentna, is flowing out on top of the river ice and has blocked the main trail with cold slushy water as much as two feet deep. He says a trail has been marked around the inundated area, but even as he talks to me someone comes over and says six teams are reported to be caught in the mess.

I decide to wait and go with another musher after we’ve got some more information. Overflow can mean nothing more than wet toes for the dogs, or it can entail a serious swim through chest-deep water. I’d prefer not to get in any deeper than I have to, and I’d rather have someone there if anything untoward happens.

Just before midnight a trio of snowmachiners pulls in from up river with word of a good trail around the overflow. Steve Adkins and I decide to move out and get past it before it gets worse. We run up the river for a few miles and then hit a wall of fog, actually steam from the open water of the overflow condensing in the cold night air. The bright full moon helps, but there are still stretches where we can’t even see our lead dogs. As we’re probing our way through the fog, I feel like we’re sneaking past some malevolent dragon lurking in the mists.

Steve has pulled 100 yards ahead of me when I hear a shouted “Whoa!” Through a fleeting rift in the fog I see Steve wading out to pull his leaders back to a dry stretch of trail. I barely get stopped before Socks goes in, too. The overflow is almost impossible to avoid; I was lucky Steve was ahead of me or I’d have been in it. As Steve maneuvers onto the bypass trail, which we missed in the fog, I try to turn my team around. The effort results in a huge tangle costing me half an hour.

While I’m straightening things out, three more teams materialize from the mist. Two manage to find the dry trail, but one plows through the overflow — which has deceptively grown a thin shell of camouflaging ice thanks to the now-subzero temperatures — before I can yell at him to stop. He immediately breaks through well over his knees and his dogs are in up to their necks, but he manages to get through the 30-yard-wide lake and moves on; I never find out who he is.

After I get my bunch of pound rejects lined out and around the overflow, we resume our stately pace up the river. The moon reflecting off the snow is so bright I can see every detail of the trees along the banks. There is absolutely no need for headlamps, and drivers aren’t even turning them on unless they are coming up on another team and want to pass. My dogs have accelerated to perhaps 10 miles an hour, but I’m starting to have too many interruptions when one or another dog gets tangled or tries to stop for whatever reason.

Getting the dogs fed and bedded down in the checkpoints is always the musher’s first priority. Once the dogs are resting, the musher will often stay away from the team for as long as possible to avoid disturbing them.

At this stage of the race I’m still sorting out who runs well with whom, and in what positions. I’m experimenting with different arrangements while I have the luxury of a good trail; however, the research costs me an extra hour or two because of the repeated stops. When we’re moving, we’re moving well; when we’re stopped, I’m working hard shuffling dogs to find the best all-around combination. As the race goes on I’ll be looking to eliminate disruptions; I can see now I’ll need a smooth-running team that can make up in steady progress what it will certainly lack in speed.

As we move upstream in the moonlight I link up with another driver; my team follows his and we make our way toward Skwentna. We pass all of the spots where my last year’s effort started to come unraveled.

Several are etched in my memory because of the sheer frustration I was experiencing in just trying to get the team to go. This year things are vastly different and we sail serenely on. Slowly but surely I’m starting to leave my ghosts behind.

We finally round the last river bend into Skwentna at six in the morning, just as first light tinges the eastern horizon. I’m only a couple of hours ahead of last year’s pace, but I’m not worried about the team now. My plan is to rest here for several hours and then start working up to Finger Lake. I briefly consider pushing on immediately but the team seems tired, which isn’t surprising considering we’ve been on the trail more than 18 hours with only a couple hours’ rest at Yentna.