Brian O'Donoghue - My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian - Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--The World's Most Grueling Race

Once again the Red Lantern belonged to Tom Daily, who followed me out of Kaltag. Crossing the creek, his team tangled. Daily got soaking wet straightening out the mess.

“Be careful,” one of the trappers told him. “The storm coming is the worst I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”

“Great, that’s just wonderful,” said Daily, who by now expected no less from the gods. Though his response was cavalier, Tom noticed that the trappers were geared to the teeth.

Daily generally traveled at night with his headlamp off. But he didn’t want to lose me, and his team kept falling behind. Meanwhile, I kept overtaking the teams bunched ahead. So we worked out a system. Rather than creep in step with the convoy. I took a lot of breaks. Each time I rested with my back on the handlebar, shining my headlamp back toward Kaltag, watching for telltale blinks in the darkness — confirming that Moon-shadow’s musher remained on the march.

We were hit climbing a steep sidehill. Herman’s team shrugged off the frigid breeze rushing up the bare slope, and he made it through the pass. But several of the teams directly behind Sepp balked. The delay caused the dogs to start digging for shelter, shutting the rest of us down like toppling dominoes.

We struggled for maybe 30 minutes — through steadily increasing wind — trying to get the convoy moving. Mushers in the front switched their leaders. They tried dragging dogs forward by hand. Finally, half a dozen of us got together and attempted to walk those teams that were willing past those that wouldn’t budge. It was slow difficult work. The trail’s slippery groove, cut sideways into the slope, was impossibly narrow. The hill, terrifically steep. Heavy sleds kept tipping over and slipping, dragging drivers and wheel dogs downward; while other mushers grappled to arrest the slides.

Our attempt at hand-guiding teams up the sidehill was abandoned when we heard Catherine Mormile cry out.

“Don, help me. Help, help me please,” she pleaded. “I’m cold.”

Wind piercing Mormile’s sweaty snowmachine suit had turned its clammy interior freezing cold. Shivering, she had fumbled for her sleeping bag, then panicked when she couldn’t get it open.

Cooley took charge. “Has anybody got hand warmers?”

We clustered around Catherine Mormile’s sled, blocking the wind with our backs. Kneeling within the ring of parkas, Cooley stripped off the stricken musher’s boots and wet socks. He slipped on dry socks, loaded with fresh warmers. Then we guided Mormile into her sleeping bag. Daily stripped off his own gloves and fitted them on her hands. Through it all, Don Mormile stood by looking rather helpless.

Feeling the warm glow of the chemical heaters, Catherine was stricken with another sort of fear. “Does this mean I’m disqualified because I can’t take care of myself anymore?” she asked, sobbing.

We laughed with relief. “Catherine,” someone said, mock-seriously, “We’re going to have to confiscate your promotional mail packet.”

The crisis derailed our efforts to escape the hill.

Daily crawled inside his sled bag in full gear, spreading his sleeping bag over the top as a blanket. He was warm, but spent a miserable night racked by cramps.

Determined to feed my dogs a decent meal, I carved a hole in the side of the hill and formed a windscreen over the cooker with my body and the sled. It was only marginally successful. Although I burned twice the normal amount of alcohol, it only produced a tepid pot of water. The dogs didn’t seem too impressed by my hillside cuisine.

Frustration set in as I sought refuge in my sled bag for the fifth time. Nibbling on a salmon belly cheered me a little, but gloom invaded the cocoon. What a screwed up run. Fifteen miles and we were shut down again. At this rate, Nome would be another 20 days away. The novelty of the convoy action had worn off, and Terhune’s grumbling was making a lot of sense. I might not have the fastest team, but the Coach and I had trained our dogs better than to quit midway up a hill.

Atop the pass, Sepp Herrman mushed through a churning white-out. The German woodsman had never seen anything like it: as fast as his leaders might break a path, the surging drifts filled it back in, pressing inward against the dogs and sleds following behind.

That didn’t stop his team. Sepp’s dogs were accustomed to breaking their own trails through untraveled back country. The team dogs kept moving, carving their own footholds, and his sled crashed through the amassing barriers.

The trail here served more than occasional racers. This was the Kaltag Portage, an ancient transit route linking Yukon River villagers with residents of the Bering Sea coast. The route was marked by a line of tall wooden tripods, closely spaced for blinding conditions such as these. They made all the difference here, freeing Sepp to marvel at the sheer savagery of the passage.

It was cold. The trapper possessed such pride in his own handmade, richly lined gear that it was rare that he would make such an admission, even to himself. But Sepp Herrman was also a realist, a man who understood the bloodthirsty nature of wolves and the dangers of harboring illusions about Alaska’s cruel environment. It was exceptionally cold tonight. That was the enormous thing.

Deviating from my usual routine, I left my bunny boots outside the sled overnight. It made my sled bag hotel a little more roomy.

It was calm in the morning, but the 30-below temperature carried a bite. My toes burned the instant I stepped into the stiff rubber boots. I launched into a series of frenzied jumping jacks, chanting “ouch, ouch, ouch” the whole time. From here on out, this traveler would be sleeping with his boots on.

When we were loaded and ready, the convoy resumed inching up the sidehill trail. The powder atop the pass proved too deep for Plettner’s team, and Cooley’s leaders were still soured. Word was relayed back: “Send up Daily.”

Tom strapped on his snowshoes and placed Diamond in the lead. The musher stomped a path through the biggest drifts. His old lead dog tackled the rest. It was hard work, but Daily felt good about Diamond’s performance. The old dog was cruising at speeds nearing two miles an hour. For Diamond, that was flying. Together they broke a new trail, following the weathered tripods across the windswept plateau.

As usual, my worst problem was getting Harley past old campsites. The big dog’s concentration was destroyed by even a speck of discarded food. Mushers were supposed to pull their teams off the trail before stopping for a snack or rest. Obviously, our forced camp on the hillside was an unusual situation. I had fed my dogs on the trail there, same as everybody else. But it was evidently standard procedure for several of the teams ahead. I’d been stumbling over fresh dining stains ever since leaving Eagle Island. I dragged Harley by the collar up the hill, making frequent, aggravating pauses to right my sled.

There were two shelter cabins on the 90-mile trail to Unalakleet. Before we left Kaltag, some members of the group were talking about stopping at the first cabin, a trip of about 30 miles. Herrman made the stop after pushing through the storm. That made sense for him. I took it for granted that last night’s hillside debacle had canceled such plans for the rest of us. My team certainly wasn’t ready for another break midmorning Monday. We’d only driven 15 miles!

Outside the cabin nine dog teams were parked, end to end, blocking the trail for several hundred yards. The trail ahead was wide open, if I could get to it. In an absolute rage, I stomped to the cabin, threw open the door, and began screaming. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Herrman had coffee brewing. Most of the drivers were making a short breakfast stop. Only Urtha, Catherine Mormile, and a few others planned longer breaks. I remained incensed, demanding the immediate removal of those trail-blocking teams. And, from here on, I swore I’d file official complaints against anyone I caught snacking dogs on the trail in front of Harley.