KASILOF, Alaska — Rohn Buser seemed to be heading for a win all season, and he got it – decisively – in the 2007 Junior Iditarod, a roughly
120-mile blitz of a race that pits some of the best young distance mushers in Alaska against fast trails and temperatures dropping well below zero.
Rohn, the 17-year-old son of four-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser from Big Lake, finished a strong fourth in the tough Kuskokwim 300 in January. He followed that with a close second in the Goose Bay 120 in early February.
He capped that trend by completing the Junior Iditarod at 8:27 a.m. Sunday, more than half an hour ahead of second place, Megan Hedgecoke of Two Rivers. Hedgecoke surged ahead in a hard-fought battle for second place, nipping Jessica Klejka of Bethel by five minutes. Melissa Owens, the 2005 Junior Iditarod winner, was just a minute behind Klejka, claiming fourth. Ellen King, daughter of the standing Iditarod champion, Jeff King of Denali Park, closed out the top five.
Rohn had about an hour lead on the rest of the field as his dogs loped along the Susitna River, opening up to their natural gait in response to a hard-packed trail, frigid temperatures and the breaking dawn. He then made a mistake, calling his dogs up off the river onto another trail, this one used by the Iron Dog snowmachine race, according to his mother, Kathy Chapoton. He went 10 minutes before realizing the error. He lost more time doubling back. Any time you turn a dog team around on a trail, there’s a risk of a big tangle as the dogs, no longer lined straight and focused, mill back as a big group in the other direction. The sled can get caught up in the snowhook as it spins around. It’s never an easy task. And it wasn’t for Rohn. He had a big tangle as he got the team sorted out, then one of the dogs ran off as he unhooked them to untie the furry, living knot.
Rather than take off on foot after the loose dog, he relied on his knowledge of his own dogs. He pulled the hook and set off back to the race trail, figuring the dog would give chase. It did, and Rohn quickly hooked it back in with its teammates.
By the time he reached the finish line, he was still unsure if anybody had passed him, and his family said he was “relieved” to find out he’d won.
Like any race, Rohn’s experience was just one of 26 adventures on the trail this year. Twenty-six teams – a huge field for the Junior Iditarod – started the race, and most of them completed it. Several took wrong turns, just like Rohn, and a few learned the hard lessons that all mushers learn. Sometimes a leader would quit, and the young musher had to find some dog to step up and take charge.
Finishing second to Buser was a relative unknown, Megan Hedgecoke of Two Rivers. A neighbor to Iditarod musher Judy Currier, Megan ran some of Currier’s dogs, including a leader named Imac that Currier raced recently in the Tustumena 200. Megan took off from the halfway point riding her drag to ease the team back a little. Her team picked up steam and she wound up running with, and eventually passing, Melissa Owens and Jessica Klejka. Megan also cleaned up at the awards ceremony, earning the humanitarian, rookie of the year and top female finisher awards. Her leader, Imac, also won the blue harness award for most outstanding lead dog.
“It was awesome,” Klejka said. “The whole way back, we were running – me, Meghan and Melissa – running down the river.” Literally running? “Yeah, running.”
Her father, Joe, reported it was minus 30 on the river, but a balmy 5 below up on the bank where they camped at Yentna Roadhouse.
The race is open only to mushers who are 14 to 17 years old. The trail set off at the Knik Lake, following the historic Iditarod trail through rolling, birch-pocked hills to the Susitna River, where teams turned north for a short spell before carving a lefthand turn up the Yentna River to Yentna Station and the halfway point. There, they camped for a mandatory 10-hour layover, where they weren’t allowed inside the lodge. That’s standard procedure for this race, intended as a way to teach about caring for dogs and coping in the Alaska outdoors.
Of course, there’s a huge bonfire; and, unlike other races, the mushers competed in a marshmallow-eating contest.
And, since Rohn was the only male among the front six teams, there was some ribbing at the finish banquet. According to Chapoton, the five female drivers got together, hunted down a tiara and crowned Rohn as an honorary member of their sisterhood. (I wasn’t able to track down Ellen King, but that kind of prank sounds like something she would dream up.)
With a 300-miler and two 120-milers completed at age 17, Chapoton said Rohn is considering running the Iditarod in 2008, before heading off to college. “He’s a senior next year, and he’ll see if he can work it out with class schedule. It’s not a 100 percent thing. But he likes racing.”
And, yes, there are jokes already circulating around the Buser home about having two champions in the house. Martin apparently has said, “The pressure’s on. A lot of people are saying in modern times, a father needs to follow in the footsteps of the son.”