By Joe Runyan
The prospect of wind and storm is now old news - although it does not diminish the reality of it if you are the musher stuck in a big blow. Most mushers sense the finish and will push on regardless of the prospect of having to bivouac through a night. Iditarod history is replete with anecdotes of mushers unable to move forward or backward through a storm.
Assuming the weather has been only an inconvenience, most mushers will shorten their rest in Elim and keep moving to White Mountain, where a mandatory eight-hour rest is required. Any musher who languishes in Elim for more than a couple of hours is liable to be displaced by a more determined musher who decides to miss a few hours’ sleep. Many mushers may even decide to just breeze through Elim and only stop for some dog food for the trail. The hardened teams will travel from Koyuk to White Mountain and, with just a couple of hours’ rest on the trail, make it in 11 or 12 hours.
Check the map and note a portage from Elim to Golovin Bay, and then a long, straight trail on the ice to Golovin. For most mushers, the most memorable part of the trail is the excruciatingly straight stretch that goes from Golovin across the ice to White Mountain. At night, one can see the lights of Golovin upon arrival and on departure. It seems to take forever to perceive any kind of progress.
The trail is mindlessly straight and boring, and the musher begins to check his watch compulsively to make sure time has not frozen. It is extremely difficult to stay awake. Optical illusions are a common inconvenience. Suddenly the musher ducks to avoid a low-hanging branch across the trail, only to realize a moment later that it was the thin, dark horizon highlighted by the moon. Visions of sleeping for just a few hours in White Mountain are vivid.
Finally, with relief, the musher and team reach the other side of the ice, and follow the trail upriver to White Mountain. Here the checker shows the musher where to sleep, and as a superb courtesy, delivers buckets of hot water to the resting team. The dogs eat a 2000- or 3000-calorie meal and quickly go to sleep. The eight-hour mandatory seems like a day, given the compressed fatigue of the last 200 miles.
Mushers take the time to cover all their dogs with scraps of old army blankets or polypropylene cloth. Only 77 miles to the finish, and no one wants to stumble on the last, short leg, so times of competitors into White Mountain are carefully checked and considered. If everything goes right, most mushers can hold their place and think about catching the next musher ahead.