The Journey Continues – Rainy Pass to Rohn
March 27, 2007

I got up Wednesday morning and talked to the race officials for the latest trail information. I was told the winds had quit in Rohn and were expected to quit at Finger Lake soon. The winds at Finger Lake were much lighter than the day before and I hoped for an easy trip over the pass.

With the problems teams had following the trail yesterday, the lodge owner sent two people up on snowmachines to re-stake the trail for us. A bicyclist had been trying to go over Ptarmigan pass for several days and hadn’t been able to make it. He told us that on the way back he caught several mushers who had missed the turn to Rainy Pass and told them to go back and find the turn. Ptarmigan Pass is the route the Iron Dog uses from Puntilla Lake (Rainy Pass Lodge) to Rohn so it is the better defined trail with the Rainy Pass trail a right turn off the Ptarmigan Pass trail. I didn’t know GB Jones had gone all the way through Ptarmigan Pass, but I did hear stories that there were a couple of loose dogs up there in the storm. I had flown through Rainy Pass several times as a volunteer and thought I’d recognize it in the daylight and hoped for an easy passage. I put Bass in lead with Platinum and off we went.

I wasn’t two miles from the checkpoint when the winds hit with a vengeance, blowing straight in our face about 50 mph with higher gusts. This was much worse than I had faced last year, luckily it wasn’t snowing and all the loose snow had long since been blown away so visibility was good. I never saw where the trail turned from Ptarmigan Pass, but recognized the Rainy Pass entrance from a long way off. It was cold and the wind hard on the dogs, but we made it to the top of the pass and started down. Several of the markers had been either blown down or knocked down by previous teams, but with a little work we followed the trail.

We had just come off the top of the pass when the trail ran down Pass Creek for a little ways. There was a small hill or large rock to the right and an ice slope to the left. The creek was about 2 feet wide with running water three inches deep for about 6 feet. The dogs tried to go around the open water on the ice to the left. They made it fine, but I couldn’t stop the sled from sliding down the slope, rolling on its side and pitching me into the water. Ouch – the bottom was medium sized stones and that water was cold. I started to get up when the dogs decided I should play ice breaker and dragged me through the water on my face for about 10 feet. The bad news is that I’m thoroughly soaked and about 3 hours from Rohn. The good news is it isn’t nearly as bad as I had feared. The outer layer of clothes froze into a suit of armor that effectively blocked the wind and the inner layers kept me warm, if not dry.

We had a challenging run down the rest of the trail and into the Dalzell Gorge itself. I was doing well when we rolled out onto the frozen river. Picture a typical mountain stream dropping fast, moving around large boulders and turning. Now picture this all glare ice. There was no way I could keep the sled under me and we crashed hard on the right side again. I lay there for just a minute to catch my breath and the dogs took off and drug me 50 feet down the ice and back onto the snow trail. I couldn’t see anyway anyone could manage that without rolling the sled and wondered about the people that put that trail there. Later I watched video of Lance Mackey negotiating the Dalzell on insider (insider is much better this year) and saw him stop his team several times and bring them back as they missed a turn. This is a tight canyon and all trails lead down to the Tatina River, but each year they have to go around areas that pervious years were ok. That must be what happened. The dogs missed the small new trail and took the old trail (which would have been ok in good snow years) straight down the frozen river. My sled and I were getting pretty beat up by now.
About 30 minutes later we rolled out of the Dalzell onto the frozen Tatina only to find the whole river was glare ice occasionally studded with trail markers. The marked trail ran to the left bank, but the dogs wanted to go straight down the middle of the river. Fearing overflow (with very good reason – that was why they moved the trail) I worked hard to stop the team, finally finding a stretch of very thin snow over a couple of inches of layered ice that almost held the snowhook. I pulled the team over to the left, but they went right as soon as I walked back. I could barely stand on the ice myself and sympathized with them, but the marked trail went left and I had to drag them over again.

We were still dancing when a team came up behind us and had the same problem. They recovered first and I was able to convince my guys to follow them. After a couple of miles of glare ice interspersed with thin snow over ice we came to a new trail the Rohn crew had cut through the trees to the checkpoint. We got into Rohn at 12:47 PM (just after noon) after a very challenging 5 hour run. I took care of the dogs and hung my gear to start drying. As I watched the water drip from my frozen parka I realized it was going to be a long time to get things ready to face the farewell burn without snow. The dogs were doing great, but the musher seemed to be wading through molasses.


Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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