NOME, Alaska — It didn’t matter that Robert Sørlie was the 12th musher under the burled arch this year, the children of Nome still flocked around him begging for autographs.
The two-time champion, face flocked with dead tissue from frostbite after 10 days of the toughest racing he has ever done, gently signed sheets of paper and shirts.
“It’s good to be in Nome,” was one of the first things he said.
Sørlie, of Hurdal, Norway, had been one of the favorites to win this year, given his reputation and track record of two wins in three attempts. But the cards didn’t fall his way in an event where so much is out of mushers’ control. The race started slowly for him; four of his biggest males developed sour stomachs and had to be dropped early.
For whatever reason, his team never got in step in the barren, wind-swept race dominated by a near constant head wind and temperatures hovering around zero to 10 below.
Not too far behind Sørlie, at least in the standings, was fellow Norwegian and the first woman across the finish line in Nome, Sigrid Ekran. Ekran was also the first rookie to complete this year’s grueling race, earning her Rookie of the Year honors, which includes a $1,000 award and a trophy presented by Iditarod pioneer Jerry Austin.
Ekran said the most challenging part of the race was the trip down the Dalzell Gorge into Rohn, where she broke her nose after being catapulted off her sled, and “the last part,” she said. Mushers coming into Nome have been riding sleds with tattered plastic runners from miles and miles of exposed gravel. Then, as they descend Cape Nome, the trail crosses a frozen lake, which is wind-swept and polished glare ice. With gusting winds, some teams have been getting blown sideways. Zack Steer said he didn’t even try to cross the lake, but instead walked his leaders over to the Bering Sea beach and simply bypassed the ice entirely.
Ekran, 27, finished 21st, at 4:21 a.m. Thursday, about eight hours behind Sørlie, who is one of her mentors. Ekran has a tiny kennel, buying dogs from Sørlie and a few others in Kotzebue where she trained this winter with Louis Nelson Sr.
Ray and Ryan Redington
It appeared for a while that Ekran would finish within the top 20, a vaunted goal that many rookies aspire toward. (The field is so competitive that there are 30 teams that could easily be in the top 20.) But in the waning hours of the race, Ekran was passed by three veteran drivers who know how to bring their dogs home.
They were the Redington brothers, Ray and Ryan, and Hugh Neff of Whitehorse, Canada.
The Redingtons had traveled vast amounts of the trail together this year, and Ryan, 24, said he learned a lot from his older brother. As for Ray, 31, his eyes sparkled and he seemed unnaturally fresh, especially considering it was 3:43 a.m. The older Redington brother said he was amazed he was able to finish 18th. “I wasn’t expecting to do as well as we did, with the baby and the move (from Fairbanks to Wasilla),” he said. Ray Redington and his wife, Julia, had a girl, Ellen, just after the Iditarod finish last year. With all the new things going on, he said his dogs had just 1,200 to 1,400 training miles before the race started; compare that with 2,500 to 3,500 miles on many of the top racing teams.
Ray Redington, grandson of Iditarod founder Joe Redington, proved his grandfather’s long-held opinion that an under-miled dog team can be conditioned during the early days of the race if a musher is careful and conservative.
Swenson wins by two seconds
In a scene reminiscent of an Iditarod finish nearly 20 years ago, Rick Swenson had to hustle up Front Street, chased hard by Sylvia Willis. The pair raced side by side for several city blocks as a crowd of spectators cheered them on on a bright, cold, sunny morning. Swenson held on to the finish, his dogs crossing under the burled arch ahead of Willis’ dogs.
Swenson finished 26th, and Willis 27th.
In 1978, Swenson had a similar footrace, that time for first place against Dick Mackey. Mackey’s dog team crossed the line first but Swenson pushed his sled over the line first. And, after a huddle by race officials, it was determined that the race would be determined by the nose of the dog and not by the sled.
This year a breathless Willis told Swenson, “I had to try, I’m sorry,” as she leaned over her handlebar and looked to her left at the race’s only five-time champion. She’d come up behind Swenson down on the sea ice outside Nome, when, he said, he’d stopped to snack the dogs and relieve himself before getting in to Nome. That activity had to be cut short and he pulled the hook. Swenson was in good spirits over the finish and joked that “at least Dick Mackey waited till we got on the street.”
Swenson, 55, who has raced the Iditarod since the late 70s, said the stretch from Don’s Cabin to Iditarod was some of the roughest he has ever seen. He’d also never seen it so dangerous around Rainy Pass that he could remember. Then he praised the race leaders in general, and Lance Mackey in particular. “They’re some kind of jack-rabbits,” Swenson said, noting that Mackey made it through the Alaska Range all the way to McGrath with a broken sled runner. “He wasn’t going to let a busted sled slow him down.”
Willis looked fresh and said she would have lots of memories from what she described as a “once-in-a-lifetime trip,” indicating she doesn’t plan on running the Iditarod again.