Mackey’s double grand caps of one of the toughest Iditarods ever.
KASILOF, Alaska — It was a year of tears, groans, grimaces, frowns and big laughs. Just pick a musher.
No matter who it was among a field of 82, strung out over hundreds of miles, emotions swung from high to low and back again for two weeks on a cold, blustery March in interior Alaska. The Iditarod is always like that – it’s more than a simple sled dog race – but the intense emotional wringer seemed ratcheted up higher than ever this year. And springing out of that stirring cauldron of pain, sweat and nerves was a gangly, unlikely anti-hero by the name of Lance Mackey.
The plain facts of Mackey’s achievement are staggering. The odds against him were astronomical, yet he alone believed in himself. But more importantly, he believed in his dogs. Mackey spent six years building a racing kennel on a shoestring, and has ridden a winning streak that would make Tiger Woods jealous. He capped it off this year with an unprecedented double thousand – two victories, in the Yukon Quest and Iditarod, running a team of essentially the same dogs in both 1,000-mile races.
He’s also the third of the Mackey family to win the Iditarod. Each won it on their sixth attempt, and each wore bib No. 13.
And it wasn’t just luck. Mackey camped out for a week at Iditarod headquarters to ensure he’d get that bib number, and he confidently predicted a victory like Babe Ruth, pointing his bat and calling a home run.
Anyone who saw Mackey along the trail, whether at Nikolai, McGrath, Anvik, Eagle Island or Unalakleet, couldn’t help but be impressed with his positive attitude and loose, almost casual, behavior around his trail buddies, his dogs. There was a boisterous energy about him that few of his closest rivals exhibited.
Mackey had a magic ride, overcoming the setback of a broken sled runner as if it made no difference at all. For just about everyone else, though, the 35th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was a test of resolve, resistance to pain and toughness.
Mushers who’ve never run this race chronically underestimate it. Race Marshal Mark Nordman mentioned that at one point, noting that the uninitiated describe the Iditarod as the equivalent of three Kuskokwim 300s or two Kobuk 440s. They tally up the miles, but they don’t get it until they run it – this is an event that sends dog teams over trail they would never, ever, deliberately train on. The route is difficult in the best of years; in 2007, it was a bone-breaker.
A list of broken bones includes DeeDee Jonrowe’s finger, Doug Swingley’s ribs, Sigrid Ekran’s nose and Bryan Mills’ leg. (Mills staggered on and finished the race with a cracked fibula.) All of those injuries occurred within the treacherous passage up and over the Alaska Range. Too many others to count suffered frostbite to their toes, feet, cheeks, chins, noses and eyebrows.
“The trail was quite a challenge,” said Bruce Linton, a rookie who qualified by running the Can-Am Crown in Maine and Don Bowers 300 in Willow, Alaska. Linton finished 55th, and in the process, had his eyes opened to the stark realities of this race. “I just thought it would be a little, I don’t know … safer,” he said afterward. “I never expected to see all this carnage, all these big names getting hurt, people getting frostbite, getting lost. It sort of made me scared. In some ways, it was like, ‘this race isn’t worth my life.’”
The culprit in most of those injuries was snow, or the lack of it. Snow levels were far below normal starting at Puntilla Lake, where the normally deep layer covering rocks, stumps and the undulating tundra grasses was just 14 inches thick. The Iditarod trail is ephemeral – it’s a ribbon of snow that allows dog teams to “float” above obstacles on a winter’s worth of frozen ice crystals. Come summer, there is often no indication any trail exists, save for gouge marks high on a tree. With little snow cover, mushers got a hint of what ground conditions are like in the summer.
But first they had to endure high winds with gusts reaching hurricane levels in the heart of the Alaska Range before dropping down the Dalzell Gorge and all its usual chicanes and ice bridges to the welcome log cabin at Rohn. High winds up at Rainy Pass single-handedly delayed about a third of the race pack, creating one of the most strung-out Iditarods in memory.
In addition to the wind, confusion at a critical turn leading up to the 3,400-foot Rainy Pass delayed some competitors and sent two on the journey of their mushing lives. Most mushers realized they’d overshot the critical turn, wasting two or more hours, but G.B. Jones, 58, and Deborah Bicknell, 62, never turned back. They continued on through blistering headwinds down Ptarmigan Pass, following a trail broken out a few weeks earlier by the Iron Dog snowmachine race. Once they reached the Kuskokwim River, they turned right and followed it past open holes in the ice and sometimes slipping into the cold water, until they finally reached Rohn. It was an exhausting 40-mile detour, and it cost them the race. Each scratched at Rohn.
The situation beyond the Alaska Range, past the checkpoint of Rohn, was as difficult as anyone could remember it since the days of the Farewell Lakes wildfire. Dogs made it through OK; it was mushers and sleds that took it on the chin. Dog teams got a brief reprise on the south fork of the Kuskokwim River and over to Ophir, but they got pounded again by no snow on the way to Iditarod.
Meanwhile, the temperatures stayed between zero and 40 below and a persistent 15-mph headwind slowed teams down, especially once they reached the Yukon River.
Within this framework, some excellent and gritty dog drivers maintained their focus not on simply surviving, but being the first to the finish line.
The Iditarod is, after all, a race.
Mackey was always in the mix, among a front-running crew of five that for 1,000 miles included Martin Buser, 2006 champion Jeff King, Paul Gebhardt and Zack Steer.
Buser and Mackey took turns leading the first third of the race. King made a move to seize the lead through the middle stages up the Yukon River, chased by Buser. Then Mackey and Gebhardt surged back into contention as the race hit the Bering Sea coast. Always in the mix, running his own schedule, was Steer, who alone seemed to enjoy an almost blemish-free run.
It became obvious by Unalakleet that Mackey’s team of veteran dogs was energetic – perhaps feeding of their master’s zeal – and that this was the team to beat. Mackey knew it, too, and put the pedal down for the final 200-mile dash to Nome, building a lead of seven hours over his nearest competitors, save Gebhardt, whose team also showed tremendous energy and discipline. But while Mackey was laughing and cracking jokes at checkpoints, Gebhardt was popping antibiotics and stifling coughs from a brutal, feverish head cold. Gebhardt wound up just two hours off Mackey’s pace.
Steer was third, first passing King, who characteristically eased off the hunt when it was apparent he couldn’t win, and then nipping Buser in the final miles into Nome. Buser rolled in fourth, and King fifth.
“Score one for the dirty jackets this year,” Steer said at the finish line, an allusion to his success and certainly to Mackey’s win. Steer, 34, and Mackey, 37, represent a younger generation but they’re also proof that lower budgets don’t rule out success in the Iditarod. The top 10 in 2007 was still dominated by some familiar faces: King, Buser, Gebhardt, Ed Iten, John Baker and Mitch Seavey. Ken Anderson, 34, of Fox, Alaska, made a return to the top 10, finishing seventh. He was 5th in 2003. And Tollef Monson, 28, rounded out the top 10, running younger, second-string dogs for John Baker.
Of that bunch, Iten had perhaps the rowdiest dogs, short of Mackey. The Kotzebue, Alaska, musher kept scaring the competition but wound up too far off the lead pace to make a significant move. The veterinarians recognized his dog care, awarding Iten the 2007 Humanitarian Award.
Rounding out the top 20, Cim Smyth lived up to the boast of his brother, Ramey, a couple of years ago that Cim was developing a very good dog team. He finished 11th. Robert Sørlie, one of the obvious favorites to win since he has a habit of winning every race, had to be disappointed with his 12th-place finish.
Aaron Burmeister, who continually shows up in the front of long distance races, polished off a strong season. Like Mackey, he ran the Quest and Iditarod back to back. Jason Barron of Lincoln, Montana, realized early on that his vision of winning wasn’t going to come true. Still, his racing skills kept him firmly in the top 15. Hans Gatt was the stealth musher this year, quietly piloting his gifted dogs to 15th place. Ramey Smyth, 16th this year, was juggling duties as a new dad but still put together a solid run.
Ray Redington returned to the top 20, surprising himself since he hadn’t had as much time conditioning the dogs because he, like Ramey Smyth, was raising a new baby this winter. He helped guide his half brother, Ryan, into the top 20 for the first time. The two ran together most of the race. Hugh Neff, 19th, had his highest finish ever. And rounding out the top 20 was Sigrid Ekran, the fastest rookie and the highest-finishing woman in 2007. Ekran, who helped Team Norway get its drop bags packed for years before training her own dog team last winter, smiled her way down the trail this year, despite breaking her nose in the Dalzell Gorge.
Trail notes
* Covering the uncoverable. I had a reader e-mail me with a question about how I cover the race, since it departs from Willow and immediately leaves the road system.
I fly in a chartered Cessna 185 piloted by Chuck Wirschem, who arranges places to stay for me as well. I rely on his 30 years of flying experience to determine where it is safe to land. Puntilla Lake, site of the Rainy Pass checkpoint, was gusty this year and we skipped landing on skis there, missing some of the critical stories of bad trail up from Finger Lake. But the chief risk of landing there is not being able to take off again without crashing into trees if the wind is howling. And howl it did. We would have missed the heart of the race as it reached Nikolai and Takotna if we’d put down there.
We spent three nights at McGrath, shuttling back and forth from Nikolai to Ophir to hook up with as many teams as possible while still having enough time on the ground to talk and write. From there, we dropped in on the ghost town of Iditarod to get a look at the front runners, then flew up the trail and spent the night at a rented log cabin in Grayling, where I was able to shuttle back to Anvik and see the front 30 teams move on to the Yukon River. Then we flew over the Nulato Hills and landed in sunny Unalakleet to capture the excitement as the front four arrived virtually at once. Wirschem dropped me off at White Mountain, where I was hosted by the warm volunteers there, allowing me to witness the arrival of Mackey and Gebhardt, then Buser and Steer.
From there, it was a quick flight over to Nome, where I prepared for the climax of the race: the euphoria of Mackey’s finish and a long night welcoming the front five teams under the burled arch. Once in Nome, I was stationed at the finish, catching mushers as they streamed in, catching up on missed stories and events from the past several days.
* Zorro is fine. Dozens of people e-mailed me after the race asking about the status of Zorro, one Lance Mackey’s key dogs and a seminal player in his racing team. Zorro had canine pneumonia at White Mountain, and got some TLC inside the checkpoint while Mackey made the final 77-mile push to Nome. I mentioned Zorro was fine in an earlier article but must not have gotten the point across. Zorro bounced back quickly. He was fat, happy and cocky at Nome.
* Seven out of ten. One observant reader congratulated me on successfully picking seven of the top ten finishers this year. Well, I did, but I mixed up the order. Some of my top 5 picks were 6th through 10th and vice versa. For instance, I should have listened to Gebhardt, who said repeatedly that this was one of the finest teams he’s had the privilege to coach. He knows what he’s talking about and he doesn’t mince words.
My top five picks were Sorlie, King, Buser, Swingley and Baker. My next five were Seavey, Gebhardt, DeeDee Jonrowe, Mackey and Iten. You never know who’s going to flame out with injuries and who’s going to shoot up in the standings, like Steer. So seven out of 10 isn’t bad.
I also wrote, “If a front-running team reaches, say, Nikolai by mid-morning Tuesday with at least 15 dogs running strong, keep an eye on that musher. That individual is a good candidate to win.” Sounds like Mackey.
* Ode to Iditarod. Finally, as a way of signing off for the season, I want to quote an e-mail from a race ran who was plainly swept away by the events that unfolded in early March. The person, an avid football fan, wrote, “Yes, the snow may blow in New England, and you can sometimes freeze watching Brett Favre. Peyton can be the hard-driven student of the game, studying every play between plays.”
“But let’s get real. When you talk about really putting your heart and soul into a sport, when you live and breathe and believe in the players on your team, when it is you alone with your dogs, at 30 below or more, and you must trust what your teammates can do, there is no other sport that can come close to this race.”