Here I am friends, back at my kennel with my 11th Iditarod Race behind me. It was, of course, the Greatest! This year the weather was really good for the mushers and the dogs. It did get to 25 below zero, but not for very long. It was, of course, the Greatest! The wind blew, but not too hard, and we had a little new snow that made you squint and freeze your eyelashes together. But all in all it was simply… Marvelous!

The Iditarod is very special to me. It is the race that allows people who love the outdoors and wilderness to have the experience of a lifetime. It will bring me and all who try it to a new level in their life. It is a place you know nothing about before you go - a once in a lifetime opportunity to get into the wilderness of Alaska and see the country up close and personal like you never imagined.

It is not accessible without the race route, and the land is unforgiving. It is man, nature and his dogs. You learn to deal with unexpected problems and handle them on your own. Out in this vast great land, you have countless hours of daydreaming, you hear the steady whisper of the sled runner, the clicking of the dog's snaps, the pitter-patter of their little feet and the sound of their steady breaths. The Iditarod is Alaska, up close and personal. It is the vacation you can only dream of, human and canine best friends, traveling 1,150 miles in perfect form and loving it.

"So off I went on a beautiful Sunday morning to Yentna station, a nice dogleg bend in the Yentna River where a family of two adults and five kids run a roadhouse."

Startline 2004 Iditarod

On the day of the ceremonial start in Anchorage, My Iditarider was Nancy Livingston; she had ridden with one of my teams before but never got to ride with me because she was out bid for the sled.

It was great that she finally got to ride with me. The fans along the trail gave us food and drinks. Nancy said she still has them as keepsakes. Her friends and fellow teachers all came to see us at the end of the ride. We took great pictures and hugged and than I was off. I needed to get my spare sled to the airport for delivery out onto the trail at Mc Grath. We are only allowed to have three sleds for the run, but I only had money enough to send out one extra sled.

I had 16 dogs at the ceremonial start, but Nutella's foot was bothering him because of a sticker between his toes. I had the veterinarian open it to try and get it out, but it really did not have time to heal properly. On the real start day, Sunday, I decided that Nutella could not go with the foot problem, so I had to begin the race with 15 dogs.

Everything else went great. My friends and new acquaintances helped in any way they could. I met three girls at the musher's meeting whom I had never seen before. They expressed a desire to help me, so I invited them to handle the dogs for me in either Anchorage or Willow, and they helped me at both.

We started in Willow rather than Wasilla due to less than good trail conditions in Wasilla. I got the best parking place in a mad house of teams parked everywhere. This was the biggest number of teams EVER to start the race, and the space to park is limited. Some teams missed their start times.

Off to Yentna and Skwenta

So off I went on a beautiful Sunday morning to Yentna station, a nice dogleg bend in the Yentna River where a family of two adults and five kids run a roadhouse. The planes land on the frozen river with people and supplies all the day long. There are always a lot of "looky loos" wanting to see an Iditarod musher and team up close. I love the people I love to share the dogs. I arrived in good shape. I had not been able to do the dog training the way I would have liked to, due to unforeseen problems, so I needed to give the dogs a lot of early breaks to keep them happy and fast. We took about 4 hours in Yentna and than headed off to Skwentna and mom's apple pie.

Skwentna has a great volunteer crew. The hot item is the freshly baked pie. They have a big stainless steel stove down on the ice where we stay with the dogs. When you go to get some hot water, which they supply for us, you get to order a piece of pie. Of course, I do not really like sweets, so apple pie is my choice. After searching for the apple pie, they decided they needed to bake one. "Come back a little later", they said. Okay, that would work for me. I went back in a 1/2 hour because I needed more water. I asked if I could have a piece of apple pie. They looked through all the boxes. No apple pie! "Come back a little later", they said again. But alas, no apple pie. I went up to the cabin on the hill where they had one of my least favorite foods, stew. But this time it was just like my mother's, and it was good! I took a nice nap next to 10 snoring dog mushers and then got on my sled and hit the trail. I wanted to get to Finger Lake to rest in the warm sun.

My Leader Objwan
"Now, all I thought about was the Happy River run. It is a series of unforgiving downhill runs where you cannot see your leaders."

To Finger Lake, Rainy Pass, and the Dalzell Gorge

I wanted to get to Finger Lake to rest in the warm sun. On the way to Finger Lake, I ran into the back of Peryll Kyzer's sled. She was parked in the trail facing down a steep hill. She said, "Hey Lynda, the guy's team in front of me is all messed up and we can't get by.” By then, my team was all tangled up with hers. It was a dangerous thing because if her team took off, my team would be dragged along with them. She and I finally got them separated by putting my team over to the left in the woods. As soon as I saw a clear opening, I pulled the hook and we were gone. It all worked out in the end. I passed a lot of teams on the way to Finger Lake. My team was fast, but it made me worry. I did not have the miles on them that I would have liked to have. My family problems kept cropping up during the race. The problems, in turn, created business problems and I kept thinking about them during the race. The dogs were running too fast and might wear themselves out if I did not make them take it easy. I have never scratched or withdrawn from a race, and I did not want to do it this year.

I took a nice break in Finger Lake and left when the warm part of the day was almost over. I like this because the dogs go out slowly and do not hurt themselves. Now, all I thought about was the Happy River run. It is a series of unforgiving downhill runs where you cannot see your leaders. We had good snow this year, so I figured it would be a great run, with little trouble. Well, almost! The last drop down to the river was twelve feet straight down. It was not possible to do anything else but fall. Somehow I missed hitting any of my dogs with the sled. Sometimes, you just get lucky and that's all I can say about that!

By the time I arrive at Rainy Pass I am exhausted. I care for the dogs, take a little nap, and I head into the one of the worst and my least favorite part of the trail. There will be no dozing off on this run! The trail through the mountains will demand your undivided attention for hours on end. In years past, we left and went into a valley that was so steep that a human being would have to be on all fours to go up it. One year there was so much water at the bottom that the snowmachiners did not want to go through it and all of a sudden a new and better trail was created off the end of the lake - with NO HILL and NO WATER. I commented at the mushers’ meeting in Nome, “This took you 30 years to find”? So now we can run the race with one less obstacle to deal with along the trail portion we all refer to as the ride from Hell. Anyway, I am off to the Dalzell Gorge. With out a doubt, this is the worst part of the Iditarod as far as handling the sled and keeping out of the water and not letting your sled fall through the large sled- eating holes in the ice. Shale rock, jagged rocks, branches sticking out - and that's the easy part. I was hoping because we have seen good snow conditions all the way so far that maybe… there would be good snow in the gorge. The first year I ran the Iditarod in 1990 I said at the bottom of the run, "What is all the fuss about?" But the next year, I got really beat up and crashed over and over again. This year the snow at the top of the pass was good. The beginning descent looked bearable. I could feel the jagged rock just under the snow. I could hear my steel break hitting it, my but control of the sled was Ok. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. Wrong! The further I went, the harder the snow was packed till it was just like a road. I got to a bad spot and I did not make the sloping 900 down hill turn. The sled stopped. The dogs were surprised, and next thing I knew they all hit the line. For the first time in my life the sled with me on it did a barrel roll. I was laughing so hard that the dogs just looked back at me as if to say, “What the heck are you doing?” I picked up the sled and we took off. They love this part of the run.

Next, the trail goes back and forth over a small stream that goes down the middle. OK this is my 11th time through here, but I know it can be bad no matter how good you are. I had a nice young dog in lead and she was doing great. However, the next thing I knew she had exited stage right and in the ice on top of a frozen icy stream. The trail that we needed was to the left. Her mother, who was one of my best all time leaders, did the same thing there years ago. It was a dead end, so I had to undo all the tug lines and pull the entire team out of there and line them back out. When this happens, I do not re-hook the tugs except for the wheel dogs - the ones next to the sled. It takes too long, and reduces the power of the team. The last half of the run is a winding streambed maybe 20 to 60 feet wide that is usually frozen ice that "kinda" dips to the center. The water runs over the top of the ice and refreezes. We call this water over flow. However, later the center of it breaks out and you can look down to the bottom of the stream and see the water. The water can be 10 to 15 ft down. You guessed it! We fall in sometimes. This time four of the dogs near the back fell in. I threw the sled to its side and the dogs stopped to look back. The wheel dogs, the ones just in front of the sled, pulled the sled and the four dogs that fell in, out.

Off Again: Rohn, Nikolai, and Takotna

The trail out of Rohn is always a rough ride. I do not put booties on the dogs because there is usually water on the trail. This year it was a little better than other years. I did pretty good crossing the gravel bar with all the frozen tree stumps sticking out of it. We went right up into the woods like good little boys and girls and I was happy. Next real bad thing would be the glacier. I landed at the bottom as always, not very gracefully. I saw the dogs go right by the turn to go over the glacier. I stopped and looked for markers on the glacier. I could see a piece of orange flag in the tree straight ahead, but Jack, the race manager for the trail, had said that the trail going over the glacier was the same as always - so where were my dogs going? I turned them around and called them to go up the glacier. They looked at me as if I was crazy. I parked them and took a walk toward the little piece of flag. Lo and behold, there in the woods was a brand new trail taking the teams around the glacier. Well, I went back and turned my team around for the second time. I looked down at one sled runner and it had come off. I dragged the team up to the trees and tied them off. I turned the sled upside down and was ready to pull the pin and change the runner, but it had a nut and bolt through it. More work on the side of the trail! My sled maker did not build the sled the way he had done the last sled. It took over one hour to get this all back together and get going.

It is about a 90 mile run to Nikolai, where I decided to send one of my big boys, Denali, home. He was just tired and the amount of time I was going to stay in Nikolai would not be long enough to rejuvenate him. He is a beautiful, but large dog and the warm weather was tiring him. He will be a star next year on a team that would be going just a little bit slower. We always take a nice long rest here. The school had food .You guessed it - stew, spaghetti, or chili.

This is a piece of trail that seems to go on forever and ever. I do it quite fast, but it still seems long. The run is mostly river and portage through the woods and than back on the river, with no real difficulty factor. In my first Iditarod I was so tired when I got this far, I thought I was going under bridges all the time. Mushers often hallucinate on the trail, due to lack of sleep.

It is almost always cold. It was fifty-five below zero my second year, and it stayed that cold for three days. The checkpoint has hot water now-a- days and hot food for the musher. I do not stay because Takotna is just 18 to 20 miles away and the food, people and sleeping arrangements for the dogs and the musher are the best in the entire race. Most mushers use this checkpoint for their 24-hour layover.
Early on in the Iditarod's history, all the checkpoints competed for the best checkpoint award, but Takotna won it so many times that the award was cancelled.


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