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KOYUK TO WHITE MOUNTAIN
A Rookie’s Journey
– Koyuk to White Mountain
July 23, 2006
Trail leaving
Elim. Notice how smooth and
wide the trail is and the large trees. |
Dukat had suspicious lung sounds when
the vets checked him as we arrived in Koyuk and I wasted no time dropping
him so the vet could take him in where it was warm and start and IV.
I promised him that I would bring his dinner in so he could eat. Dukat
is a shy dog and when I came in he was standing up looking around.
The IV was in place but was not working as well with him standing
(it’s a gravity driven system and is set up for a dog laying
down). After Dukat ate I lay down beside him and shortly he lay down
with me. That made the IV work much better. I stayed there calming
Dukat and sleeping until the floor proved too much for both of us.
We moved Dukat to the Dodge Lodge (a vinyl Quonset hut like shelter
for dropped dogs provided by Dodge years ago) and I moved to the mushers
sleeping area.
I spent almost 21 hours in Koyuk trying to put weight on the dogs
and make up for the short rest we had in Shaktoolik. I put four good
meals down the dogs in that period and the vets were happy with the
way the dogs looked when I left. Staying that long put me behind the
group I had been traveling with, and after Ben Valks was withdrawn,
only Katrina Pawlaczyk was still behind me. She was catching up fast.
I wasn’t doing nearly as well as the dogs. My appetite was gone
and my stomach was distressed. I forced myself to eat a breakfast
burrito before I left. Normally I really like those, but this one
tasted terrible. I had some pizza in the drop bag, but even that didn’t
appeal. I’m popping Imodium like popcorn, but still hanging
in there.
Trail climbing
Little McKinley. It was a beautiful day,
but the wind was howling from our right read quater.
Notice how some of the dogs coats are blown
up over their backs. |
I have no memory of the trip from Koyuk
to Elim, except as we came the last few miles into town. Bonnie Foster
tells me that it was cold, white, and windy and that is probably all
I need to know ;-). The last couple of miles we were running down
a hill parallel to a plowed road. I remember the town being well lit.
It almost looked like a military installation. The trail turned right
onto a road at the bottom of the hill and ran through town. The trail
had been well marked to that point. I couldn’t find any markers
after the turn and almost went back to the last marker I saw before
I got to the checkpoint. Jasper Bond, my friend from Rohn, runs the
Elim checkpoint and takes good care of his guests. There was a plastic
trash can full of water for the dogs and a microwave for the mushers.
For breakfast the next morning Jasper fixed hotcakes and ham –
a real treat!
Normally the trail leaving Elim
goes along the coast before climbing Little McKinley. This year, due
to poor ice conditions, we followed the old mail route through the
hills behind town. We were warned about several miles of rough trail,
but this was some of the prettiest country in the entire race. The
trail was as wide as a single lane road and wound through large trees
as it climbed and dropped over the hills.
Trail near the
top of Little McKinley. The Bering Sea
is in the background. It is starkly beautiful country. |
After a while we seemed to be climbing
more seriously. This had to be Little McKinley. It isn’t that
the climb is fierce as it is that the climb is late in the race and
everyone is tired. The top of Little McKinley is very exposed and
the wind was blowing. Karen Ramstead and Lachlan Clarke took almost
24 hours to make this run getting caught in extreme winds on the summit
and missing the trail off the mountain. At the time I knew they were
late getting to White Mountain, but didn’t know why. However
I had heard horror stories about storms on the summit from previous
races.
Trial down off
Little McKinley. Notice the wind
erroded sculptures on the trail and how off to
the side much of the ground is blown clean. |
We were down to 8 dogs at this point
and even with my better feeding routine they were tired. The wind
was blowing about 30 mph from our right rear. It wasn’t particularly
cold, but cold enough that I had coats on the dogs and I was wearing
my parka. The wind kept blowing the back of the dog’s coats
up off their backs and I would stop and try to keep them down, but
it didn’t help much. This is a real concern because a wind quartering
from the rear will separate the hairs of the dog’s coat and
blow snow up against the skin leading to hypothermia. Luckily the
wind had been blowing long enough and hard enough there was little
loose snow left to move.
This was absolutely beautiful country and I was torn between being
tired and worried about the dogs and being awestruck by the beauty
around me. Even the constant wind couldn’t destroy my appreciation
of the scenery.
As we hit the crest of Little
McKinley we lost the trail. The markers had been unintentionally knocked
down by previous mushers and all signs of the trail itself had been
blown away. Bass started down to the right and I immediately stopped
him. Joe Runyan in his book “Winning Strategies for Long Distance
Mushers” talks about Lavon Barve missing the trail in the 1996
race, coming down off Little McKinley incorrectly and winding up charging
down a steep hill through deep loose snow only to find himself wrapped
around the willows at the bottom. He left looking for a way back to
the trail by going around the mountain rather than back up it. After
he found the trail he could not find his team on the return. I was
sure that was where Bass was heading and wanted no part of it. After
a couple of minutes I saw one remaining stake off to the left about
45 degrees from the trail we had come in on (about 90 degrees from
where Bass was facing). It took a little bit to convince Bass to go
left across the tundra where there was no trail, but we made it and
averted a disaster. The hill was steep enough and the dogs tired enough
I’m not sure what it would have taken for them to climb back
up to the trail had we gone down the wrong side. I definitely owe
Joe a beer when I see him next.
The trail down Little McKinley was wind carved parallel to the trail
itself. Sometimes one runner would be up almost a foot higher than
the other. Then the snow ridge would die and the low runner would
become the high runner. You could see where most of the teams had
gone beside the trail in the bare ground, but Bass knew the trail
was where the snow was and I didn’t try to dissuade him.
I was wearing mid-weight gloves that were warm, but had no wind resistance.
So far they had worked fine, but as we started down the angle of the
wind changed and it whipped right through my gloves. Normally I would
stop and put windproof gloves or my beaver mitts on, but I couldn’t
stop on this wild downhill run. My hands got so cold I was starting
to worry about frostbite when the trail leveled out just enough to
regain control and change gloves. Whew!
After a long run we got to Golovin and I thought there was a security
checkpoint there. There had been in previous years because the trail
runs right through the village. We came in through someone’s
back yard, swung left around a boat and onto the main street in the
village. It was just like Elim, there were no markers. I ran to the
end of the village (maybe half a mile) and still saw no markers. I
saw a young man walk into his house, so I parked my dog team in his
front yard, walked up and knocked on his door. I have no idea what
he thought of a lost white man with a dog team in his front yard,
but he was very polite. He gave me blank look when I asked about the
checkpoint. When I asked about the trail to White Mountain he pointed
me back the way I had come and said to turn left after the school.
It turned out that I should have gone across the main street, rather
than turn down it. Note to self – remember this for next year.
?
After a long, windy run across Golovin Bay we arrived in White Mountain
and I found out the reason I couldn’t find the Golovin checkpoint
was they didn’t have one this year! I parked the dogs, fed them
a hot meal and walked into the city office building where the checkpoint
was. Most of the people were gathered around the radio listening to
KNOM telecast the banquet in Nome. I had hoped to be there, but White
Mountain was only 77 miles away.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
© 2006 All rights reserved
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