THE FULFILLMENT OF A LIFELONG DREAM
MY JOURNEY TO NOME WITH MY SLED DOGS IN THE
2007 IDITAROD DOG SLED RACE

Summary:
I am writing this diary as my own personal journal so that when I am old and gray I can look back more vividly on the experiences that I just endured. I share it will all of the people that showed interest in my journey. I was occasionally able to check my emails at checkpoints and I can’t tell you how much your emails of support meant to me (all 473 of them!). For most, this writing will be way too long and for a select few maybe not long enough. This years Iditarod I have been told by many was the hardest ever. I am so proud of my dogs that we were able to finish even though I was anticipating finishing days before I did. I learned more then I could ever have imagined and my bond with my beloved dogs and for this incredible sport has never been stronger. I am truly blessed to be one of the lucky ones to live their dreams. I want to thank my wife Melissa and my good friend and dog handler Nate Van Gulden. I could have never done this race without their commitment and support.

Here is my story:
I grew up in Philadelphia. As a child in the late 1970’s I saw on TV a news story about the Iditarod. I naively said to myself I would like to do it someday. Through the years growing up many things happened that eventually made this childhood dream a reality.

As most of you know, I started a dog sled touring company when I lived in Vermont and after a large expansion and not enough snow last winter, my wife Melissa and I decided to make the big move to Alaska and go for my dream. It was more then a full time job making the move – driving twice to Alaska from Vermont with my sled dogs, building a kennel and a cabin, training my sled dogs, Melissa starting a new job as a principal of a school, but we managed to stay focused on my dream and after training my dogs 2,500 miles in the fall, we found ourselves driving to Anchorage on February 28th to begin the race.

We stayed at the hotel that was the race headquarters and I was immediately struck how this event was so different then your ordinary dog sled race. Reporters, mushers, and fans from all over the world were there and it took days to finally get on the trail. The pre-race meetings and banquets, etc., were exhausting and I was more then a little relieved to “pull the hook” on Sunday at 2:46 pm in Willow Alaska. It was a beautiful sunny and cold day – perfect for running dogs. I spent the first few hours waving to the 10,000 or so fans packed along the first 25 miles of the trail. It felt a little like participating in the Boston Marathon which I have done several times – the positive energy and enthusiasm was extraordinary.

After getting onto the trail and away from the crowds, my first task was to try and slow down a very strong and well rested dog sled team. I stood on the brake for hours and tried to control them. I realized almost immediately that one of my dogs was not pulling and at the first checkpoint 43 miles from the start I had to “drop” my first dog. I couldn’t figure out why Jake wasn’t pulling, but I knew he would be transported home quickly and taken care of.

I traveled about 60 miles on that first leg and pulled over from the trail as my dogs were still flying. It is difficult to stop and rest a fired up dog team, but I knew that slow and steady would have to be my goal for the first few days. I grabbed a bale of straw about two hours before at Yentna (the first checkpoint) so I quickly spread the straw out so the dogs had a warm bed to sleep on. It was getting dark and about zero degrees when the bright orange full moon started to rise before me. The dogs were resting and quiet as I started to cook them their first meal – the only sound was an occasional whoosh of the runners when a dog team, focused in their task, would silently trot by. I turned off my headlamp and marveled at the orange moonbeams reflecting off the snow and frozen river before me and finally came to grips to the fact that I really completed one of my biggest goals in life – I made it to the starting line of the Iditarod dog sled race. It was an emotional moment, one of many that I would have over the course of the next two weeks that I shared with some of my best friends, my loving and always faithful sled dogs.

After a full dinner for the dogs and myself, I jumped into my sleeping bag and in my sled for a few hours sleep. I wasn’t going to stay long, only a few hours so I decided to leave the dog booties on which was my first big “rookie mistake”. My alarm clock didn’t work and I slept longer then I anticipated. I woke to two dogs growling which is unusual and before I was able to get out of my sleeping bag and to the dogs they snapped at each other and one had a puncture wound on its leg. The dog Payden was paired with a dog named Possum who wasn’t part of my kennel, but was given to me by a neighbor Dean Osmar who actually won the race in 1983. It wasn’t the dog’s fault that they had a disagreement, they just were not used to each other and it was an unfortunate incident that would cost me other dog early in the race (I had to drop Payden at the Finger Lake checkpoint). After dealing with this dog “disagreement”, I took off some booties and noticed in horror that my dog’s feet had swollen so I had to wait a few hours before putting more booties on. 9 ½ hours later I left my camping spot and headed off to Skwentna the next checkpoint. Before the race barely started, I was already in the back of the pack because of rookie mistakes and some bad luck.

It took my about ½ hour to get my supplies at Swentna and I had to wait for a Vet for awhile to check my dogs. I finally left and headed to Finger Lake. The leg was known to be tough (mostly all uphill) and it was made even harder this year since the snow had turned into like sugar and I was traveling during the heat of the day. With dogs that are still energized I tried my hardest to go slow and be careful. I finally got into Finger Lake only to find that my hardest driving male wheel dog had hurt his shoulder in the corn snow and I was really saddened to have to drop him from the race. If I had more time to rest there, I would have tried to massage his shoulder and rest him, but I really wanted to get on the next leg before dark since the notorious “Happy River Steps” needed to be crossed. I rested there about five hours and was about to leave when I noticed a stool that was black and tarry next to one of my lead dogs Possum. I showed the vet and she strongly encouraged me to drop the dog as it may be a sign of an ulcer. I reluctantly drop the dog knowing it was in the best interest for my dog, but I was very upset that now I was down to 12 dogs with still 1,000 miles to go. Plus, I was losing my big strong males – the power of my team that I would need when climbing over the mountainous Alaska Range. I quickly shortened my gangline to accommodate only 12 dogs. I was in a rush because I wanted to make it to the Happy River Steps before dark and in my rush my two lead dogs became unclipped from the team. Kiwi, my best leader, started going down the trail without the team! I yelled to the volunteers and quickly jumped on a snow machine to follow her. All of my dogs in my kennel are trained to go off lead and are used to it so I really wasn’t that worried. She really didn’t go far and I sat down on the snow away for the noise of the snow machine and called her. When she heard me she came running up to me and gave me a big lick on my face.

Back on the trailed with my smaller dog team, we didn’t make it to the Happy River Steps before dark. It was alright because the steps, even though they were scary and very steep in places, were manageable and my dogs went down them flawlessly. I congratulated myself and my team when we successful negotiated the last one. I thought the rest of my run in the next checkpoint (Rainy Pass) would be easy. Little did I know the worse was yet to come. The trail became like sugar again and traversed mountainsides. It was hard to keep the sled upright since we were not following the fall line and it was very dark even with my headlamp – no full moon this time to light the way. I was exhausted and dripping of sweat when I went flying around a sharp right hand turn and nearly missed a tree that was lying in the trail. Immediately after the tree, I hit an ice cliff and slid about 100 feet down it slamming my sled in some trees at the bottom. I couldn’t believe that this was part of the trail, but continue to the next checkpoint. The trail finally leveled out and I noticed it had become more windy and cold.

Arriving at Rainy Pass around 10:00 pm exhausted and with low bloody sugar, I quickly ate something and got the dogs bedded down. It was cold and the wind was howling. Quickly, I felt, the control of my race was unraveling as I kept hearing stories of other musher’s mishaps and injuries. 82 mushers started this race and all of the best and most experienced ones in the world were in the field. The news was disheartening to say the least to an inexperienced and scared rookie: Doug Swingley, a four time champ, broke his ribs on that ice fall and scratched, Dee Jowroe, a 25 time veteran broke her fingers there and scratched. A lot of mushers were stuck at the checkpoint and I shared a very small cabin with about 30 other participants. After about a half an hour I was able to find a place to sleep underneath a bed as bodies, most of them snoring were everywhere.

Upon waking, more bad news was told to me. The temperature was minus 22 and winds were constant at 30 to 40 mph resulting in “life threatening conditions”. To make matters worse, Rainy Pass which we had to go over had winds clocked at 80 mph. Four mushers left in the late morning. I was beginning to prepare my dog team and hoping that the winds would subside, when the mushers returned. It was “white on white” up there and teams of dogs were being blown off the trail. Speaking of the trail, it was nonexistent by now and the trail markers had been blown away. I learned of more causalities and in all 11 mushers ended up scratching at the Rainy Pass checkpoint. I spoke with Dee Dee, the veteran of 25 Iditarods as she was preparing to get herself and team flown out, and she said she had never seen it this bad in Rainy Pass in all of her years.

I waited another long night there and just wasn’t prepared mentally to be put in a situation that was so life threatening. The apprehension was compounded by witnessing all the people scratching and all the suffering that was going on. I had completed many 100, 250 and 300 mile races in preparation for the big one, but there always seemed to be some sense of control and it was very rare that anyone got seriously hurt. Here, it seemed almost like a war zone and I told my wife on my first phone call back home that with exception of being in a war, I couldn’t think of being in a situation that was more scary or out of control. I witnessed lots of frostbite and broken bones. Several people got lost up on the pass (one musher for 36 hours). I was told that 14 bones were broken on that on one hair pin turn.


I left the checkpoint after being stuck there for 32 hours and managed to make it over Rainy Pass in below zero temps with winds of 50 to 60 mph. It was one of my biggest challenges and I mentally completed the task well and was in absolute awe of my dogs. My dogs never faltered in their challenge and fought through the blizzard for hours while I spent the entire time trying to keep my sled from being blown off the treeless tundra ridge.


Leaving the winds, I now have to endure the challenge of the infamous Dalzell Gorge. Right before the start of the gorge, I came across a musher named Kelly Williams. She is the girlfriend of Rick Swenson, the only five time winner of the race. Her dogs did not want to go and she said she was going to scratch at the next checkpoint if she can even get there. It took about half an hour for my team and two other teams to get around her.

The gorge, with little snow cover was one of the scariest sections of the trail. I managed to get down it, crashing into several trees and ripping my sled bag. The gorge was similar to Huntington Gorge in Vermont, but a little wider and was glare ice for most of the way. Upon leaving the gorge, I had my first broken runner plastic which I was able to fix by adding extra screws to the bottom of my sled.

Getting into Rohn, which was just a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, Jasper the caretaker cheerfully exclaimed “I have been managing this checkpoint for 13 years. It has never been this cold and windy. The thermometer has been stuck at minus 20 for days and that doesn’t count the wind.” I planned to stay there for around six hours and run with my friend Sasha. He was running a yearling team for Iditarod champion Doug Swingley. He was from Serbia and became a great friend on the trail. He took off about 20 minutes before me. I was about to leave and I was getting anxious because it was getting dark and I knew I had a large river crossing immediately upon leaving the checkpoint when one of the checkers came up to me and explained that there was “new overflow” on the Rohn River and they needed to reroute the trail. I waited for another hour or so and anxiously left in the dark. It was now snowing, and I couldn’t see the new trail markers on the river. My dogs got confused in the overflow and turned around so I returned to the checkpoint dejected. I knew I should have helped my leaders find the markers by guiding them, but the blizzard and winds were so intense that I could only see a few feet in front of me. It was definitely another low point in my race compounded by the fact that I knew that I had one of the hardest 90 mile legs in the whole race immediately beyond the Rohn River and I had to do most of it in the dark. Back at the checkpoint, I met up with a cheerful musher named Jeremy Keller who explained that it is experiences like these where you really bond with your dogs and learn with them. He sensed my depressed and anxious mood and said that he planned to leave in about half an hour and that I should follow him out and he would lead the way. Three of us did that and we went over that overflow in a blizzard. It took about a half an hour since it was almost a mile long crossing, but my dogs and I grew immensely from that experience. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was critical that my dogs learned how to handle and traverse over ice and overflow, because miles more of it lay ahead down the trails when we hit the Bering Sea coast.

Once over the river, I had to stop almost immediately to fix my plastic runners again. Note to rookies; always examine your sled at every checkpoint to see if your sled needs repairing before you get back onto the trail. I ran the remainder of the night alone over the famous “Farewell Burn”. We were told that there was 56 miles of boulders with little or no snow and I struggled all night to keep my sled upright. I hit several trees and my sled bag ripped open completely on one side. I ended up losing my dog scooper and my axe. Completing the first half, I camped at a place called the Buffalo Camp (which was not a checkpoint) finally getting to lie down at 4:00 am. I left the next morning and my runner plastic almost immediately started to come apart from the runners again. I couldn’t fix them anymore because the screws kept coming out as I bounced from one boulder to the next and I didn’t have many more screws left. I prayed that I could make it to the next checkpoint Nikolai. Sore and bruised, I reached Nikolai.

I was elated as I knew the boulders were over and the next leg was flat. At the next checkpoint (McGrath) I had another sled that I shipped in before the race. I used the last screws that I had to fix the runners and had a beautiful run to McGrath. The dogs loved the flat rivers and were moving at a fast clip.

I rested in McGrath and changed my sled. I decided to borrow the sled that Paul Gebhardth used during the first section of the race. He had lent me one that was there that was identical to his, but I like his better since the foot pads were not as loose. I left for Takotna with my new sled which was only 18 miles away. However, about half way there I went around a turn and the entire metal runner snapped in two. I couldn’t believe it. The sled must have been damaged by Paul during the first part of his race. Once in Takotna, I called the race marshal and he suggested I hire a local to go back to McGrath by snow machine overnight and pick up my last remaining sled which I did.

The next morning I took off with my friend Sasha and we went to Ophir and rested a few hours. We knew we had another very challenging section of the trail coming up. A sign from Rick Swenson in McGrath said. “Three foot holes, lost trail markers and 90 miles of frozen tussocks from Ophir to Iditarod.” I wondered how I would ever be able to withstand the trail and stay on my new lighter sled.

I left Ophir in route to the ghost town of Iditarod around 4:30 pm. In a few hours the sun would be setting and the trail in the beginning was pretty good. I was all alone following the setting sun with out anyone around me for 20 miles or so traveling to Iditarod. It was an amazing feeling and I was feeling really good just moving along singing to my dogs when the trail changed dramatically – the trees disappeared and frozen tussocks began to appear. They are just like boulders, but are made of frozen dirt. I bounced off these tussocks for hours and followed matted grass which was the trail for hours. Just as it was getting dark, I lost the trail. 20 or 30 miles from another human being with temps near zero and a clear sky, it was going to be a long cold night if I didn’t find the trail soon. With the help of my trusted leader Kiwi we finally found the trail again after about a half an hour of searching. I was so relieved.

I continued onward to “Don’s Cabin” which was just a structure without a door or any heating. It was a long cold night as I slept in my sleeping bag and woke to temperatures of 25 below. I spent that entire day traveling to Iditarod and going over more tussocks. It was the hardest day on the trail and I got flipped and rolled continuously. Ever mountain pass or rolling hill that I went over was followed by another and you could see for miles and miles not a tree in sight. It was one of the longest days of my life. I finally made it to Iditarod in the late afternoon relived that I survived that section of the trail- both kneecaps bruised, my entire body aching. I had to drop a dog there named Venus and she was immediately flow out to McGrath since planes were flying in. The planes carried sleds since many mushers completely destroyed their sleds in the tussock fields in route to Iditarod. I was emotional when I said goodbye to Venus. A small young 2 year old female she pulled hard all the way and made it so far, but she just wasn’t eating enough and she was getting thin. She didn’t want to leave the team, but I knew it was the right thing to do. My eyes were filled with tears in admiration as she was loaded on the plane and took off right in from of me to go home.

The night in Iditarod was peaceful and restful. I had camped my dog team on the frozen river and like many of the nights before it was a very clear, cold, and star filled night. Around midnight, I woke and was treated to the most beautiful display of northern lights. It was a special moment as I witnessed one of mother’s nature’s greatest visual gifts and I reflected on the fact that we were about halfway to Nome. We were getting there!

Early the next morning I pulled the hook and prepared myself for the long journey to Shageluk. The leg consisted of seemingly endless rolling hills and the trail was soft in places. I had a hard time keeping my sled upright on many occasions. We finally reached the other side of the mountain range and knew that the large mountains were behind us for now.

I was prepared to leave Shageluk around midnight for an all night run. I bootied my dogs and it was very cold. I decided at the last moment to wait for morning. I don’t know why I had that feeling, but felt something was just not right. The next morning, I left at dawn and ended up getting lost for three hours. I was very emotional in my sleep deprived state and finally found the trail again. I came into the next checkpoint after almost 7 hours on the trail only to find out that I was actually lost the entire time and I missed a checkpoint (I went from Shageluk to Grayling and missed Anvik). I learned that the musher before me (also named Bruce) went from Shageluk to Grayling and missed Anvik as well. It was obvious then that my lead dogs had smelled his trail and that is why I got lost.

The race judge said I did not have to go back to Anvik since I spent more time on the trail while I was lost getting to Grayling then I would have if I just went from Shageluk to Anvik to Grayling. I spent the night in Grayling and woke up in a miserable state. I spoke with one of the mushers named Kelly Williams - the one I met right before the Dalzell Gorge days before where she told me she was going to scratch because her dogs had stopped moving. She told me that after I passed her that her dogs were a different dog team and she was so excited to still be in this race. I told her I was going to scratch. I had learned that the other Bruce after getting lost the night before was hypothermic when he arrived into Grayling. I was thankful that I listened to my gut instinct and didn’t make the run from Shageluk to Anvik to Grayling overnight. If I did and I got lost like him who knows what might have happened. However, it was small comfort to me. I was done. I keep witnessing hurt and injured mushers. Everyday came more horror stories and more mushers scratching and I wanted out. I couldn’t imagine, in my sleep deprived state, still having to go another 450 to 500 miles. Kelly told me just go to the next checkpoint and decide then.

I took off on the Yukon River. It was very cold, 25 below in those predawn hours, and the wind was blowing in my face. That was normal though. It seemed that no matter where we were going the wind had always been in my face over the last week. I was reflecting on the fact that I had 200 miles on the Yukon River and it would take days of mind numbing travel to get to the end in Kaltag (if I made it that far) when I noticed that my dogs were really putting it into another gear. Hour after hour these dogs continued on that flat and wind swept plane (the river is four miles wide in places). They were cruising along and when I stopped every two hours to snack them they would bark because they wanted so badly to get going. I thought then, that if they were so eager to accomplish this journey, then I should stop being the weak link and give them all of my strength. We were going to finish what we came to do as long as they were so strong and committed.


After 60 miles on the windy river, we pulled into Eagle Island and the checker proclaimed “Wow, you got here fast. We were not expecting you for hours. You are way ahead of schedule. It took Martin Buser like 10 hours to get here”. I said thanks and commented that my dogs were well rested. I knew they did great. They amazed me. Looking at the time sheets now, I realize that he was not joking. What took Martin Buser, one of the best musher on the planet to do in 9 hrs and 24 minutes took my dogs 6 hrs and 3 minutes. Yea, maybe he encountered more wind then I, put I didn’t care. All I knew was that my dogs were one tough solid unit, getting stronger by the day, and they were eating, dedicated, and happy!

I left Eagle Island after another long rest. By now, I had no desire to race the race, but just finish with happy, healthy dogs. We had another long day on the river ahead of us – it was 70 miles until we got off the river at Kaltag. Four hours into our journey, I see in the distance what I thought was another dog team. Sure enough, it was. It was the other Bruce (Bruce Milne) who I had been traveling with off and on for days and the one who got hypothermic back in Grayling. His dogs had stopped on the river and he had been stuck there all night. 14 hours of wind, dark and cold. He said he had tried everything he possible could, but his lead dogs were done. He said that he almost “lost his toes” the night before from the cold and that he couldn’t spend another night on the windy river. My dogs went right around his team and were lunging at the gangline when I grabbed his lead dogs and tried to pull them to get them started. I almost pulled my arm out of my shoulder socket as my dogs took off, but his dogs would not go. I told him I would make sure that I told the checkers in Kaltag that he was stranded. As I told my team “let’s go” and as they darted away from him, I reflected on the fact that could have been me, but instead my dogs were loping against the wind more determined then ever to get down the trail. It was another emotional moment for me.

After another fast 70 mile run to Kaltag, I immediately told the checkers that Bruce had been out there all night. They were a little embarrassed that he was out there that long without any assistance, but they told me that he had a pattern of camping out on the trail a lot and not using the checkpoints (which was true – I passed him many times when he was camping on the side of the trail) so they thought he was just camping. They sprung into action and with in hours the whole dog team and Bruce were at Kaltag. This was no small feat considering he was stranded with 14 dogs about 45 miles away from the checkpoint. He ended up being the last person to scratch from the race.


As I was arriving into Kaltag, I noticed that one of my dogs was starting to slow down. It was a small female named Click, a dog I purchased a few years ago from Jeff King. She had been such a trooper and had worked so hard. Her story started back before Shageluk when I was going up a steep embankment right before the checkpoint. For whatever reason, the back leg of hers got very close to another female in the team named Cobb who took a quick snap at her. Unfortunately, Cobb managed to cause a tear in her leg. It didn’t affect her gait and she was still pulling as strong as ever so I made the decision to keep her on the team. It was obvious in Shageluk, she was feeling no pain at all and the vet (who had traveled all the way from Australia on his own dime to volunteer for the race) did a marvelous job in stitching her up. The problem was the stitches became undone because hind area moved so fast when she trotted down the trail that the wound was open again. The vet in Kaltag immediately put stitches in her again and she was on the next plane to Anchorage where my handler picked her up the next day.

After being on the trail for over a week and waking in a warm room, it was hard to get motivated when the checker told me in the predawn hours that it was 35 below outside. Oh joy, another cold day. I got on the trail early because I had a long 90 mile run to Unalakleet. The trail immediately left the Yukon River and thankfully we were traveling mostly uphill and along flat sections of the trail in the woods which really helped keep me warm since I had to work to help the dogs get over the hills. Little did I know that these would be the last trees I would see for the rest of my journey. We traveled for about 6 hours to “Old Women’s Cabin” where I bed the dogs down in the afternoon sun and rested for 4 hours. Back on the trail, we went directly west right into the setting sun. The trail became very fast and flat and the dogs loped for hours as I struggled to see where we were going with the sun right in my eyes.


We arrived into Unalakleet about 11:00 pm. I discovered that I had my first problem with my insulin pump. My blood sugar was extremely high (over 500) so I assumed that my insulin had frozen. I had planned for this and had 5 sets of insulin and supplies forwarded along the trail. Unfortunately, for some reason, they were not distributed and all of the supplies were in Nome. Luckily, Unalakleet has the largest population of any checkpoint (about 900 people) so they had their own health center. A nurse there was kind enough to open the health center at 6:00 am and supply me with some insulin. The Iditarod Race Committee then flew my supplies from Nome on a private plan to the next checkpoint so I would be able to restock my supplies.


I left Unalakleet and immediately hit some of the worse section of trail in the entire race. It was gravel and rocks for miles. We then started over these large mountain passes that went on for hours. It was very difficult since a lot of the time I had to push my dog team over gravel up these hills. After several hours I finally came to the last climb. One of the most memorable moments met me on the other side. I stopped at the top of this climb, looking down 2,500 feet to the frozen Bering Sea. You could see the dog sled trail in the distance 10 miles away. The view was incredible and it seemed that I could see for a 100 miles. My dogs had pulled me across the state of Alaska. We have made it to the Bering Sea. This realization was overwhelming to me.

After a steep decent to sea level and about 10 miles of flat travel, we pulled in to Shaktoolik. I don’t know why anyone would choose to start a community there. The community of 300 or so was living on an outcropping of rocks which was located between two water bodies. No trees or shelter from the howling winds. The winds were intense and I had to next traverse 58 miles in this wind swept environment over Norton Sound. I was told before the race that this leg can sometimes be the hardest on the dogs. I decided, after resting the dogs, I would leave about 1:00 am. At 1:00 am the winds were blowing so hard that I decided to wait it out a few hours for the safety of myself and my dog team. I left about 5:00 am and was able to witness another beautiful sunrise as my dog team traversed the ice boulders on the Norton Sound. It was another long monotonous run into the wind all the way, but again the dogs performed their task with incredible drive.

I arrived at Koyuk around noon and rested the team during the heat of the day. We left for the next checkpoint Elim which was 48 miles away at about 7:30 pm and it was a nice mostly flat uneventful run. The next morning, I realized we were getting close to Nome and we ran through the heat of the day to White Mountain. We had to run through Golivan Bay which was 7 miles of glare ice. I never thought I would be able to run a dog team over ice of that length, but my dog team had learned, like myself, from our journey and made the trek look easy. Once we got off the glare ice, my dogs increased the pace and we loped into the setting sun for about an hour up the river to the White Mountain checkpoint. I just stood there smiling. I marveled at their speed, their strength, their confidence, and mostly for their outright joy that they showed me as they loped into that setting sun. A lifelong dream fulfilled, I knew my team and I were going to make it to Nome.


My last feeding, as the sun set behind me and yet another clear, cold, starry night began to appear over the river, was one that had me filled with mixed emotions. All the pups were contently sound asleep basking in the sun on their straw after another long run through the wilderness of Alaska. By now, they knew how to do everything that I ask of them and they knew that even if the run was long, or mountainous, or filled with wind in their faces for hours on end, that I would snack them every two hours like clockwork, that I would take care of them, and that I would never let them get too tired. They knew that the run would eventually end and at its conclusion, a massage, a warm bed of straw, and a warm meal awaited them before they got to take a long deserved nap. They had this Iditarod Race conquered. We as a team did it. They depended on me and I depended on them. Mother Nature gave its all to defeat us, but we in the end, we as a team, prevailed. My dogs and certainty me would be changed forever from this experience. Unexpectedly, sadness also prevailed in my heart. The race was so challenging this year, the weather so brutal. I had been witness to so many mushers getting hurt and scratching that I just wanted to survive and finish. Now, knowing that I was almost there made me sad that it was over. This emotion surprised me. I had experienced something that was so special, that so few in today’s soft society of cell phones and movie rentals would ever experience. Most could never even imagine it let alone experience it. Most people are content to watch a story on TV while lying on their couch in their comfortable home. I didn’t watch one, I made one. A story that no one will ever be able to take away from me. A story that was devoid of cell phones, of paying bills, of car repairs, etc., a story that took 15 days to complete with no safety net to catch me if I fell, a story that was all about one thing: traveling across 1,150 miles of some of the toughest terrain on earth in some of the worse weather on earth with having only one goal in mind - taking care of your best friends, the ones you depend on for your survival. Nothing else mattered for over 15 days of my life.


I pulled the hook from White Mountain in the still of the night at around 4:00 am and made the last 77 mile run into Nome. It was going to be another beautifully cold sunny day. We went over some mountains in the dark and saw some more amazing views as the sun made its appearance. The last incredible sunrise. We had to sidetrack a pond of glare ice for almost an hour where my dogs were really tested. We were pushing through ice, rocks and stumps. My trusted leaders (Kiwi and Maya) were hypersensitive to my commands as they darted right and left as I called out “gee” and “haw” when I was trying to find the trail. I reflected on this when we were in the middle of this situation. Never in my mind did I expect to be able to do what I could do with this dog team, but that last experience of getting lost we resolved pretty easily. The danger was there, but more important was the trust and bonding that we had as a single unit. I felt like we could do anything as a team. We found the trail eventually again and went over a few miles of gravel for good measure before checking into the Safety checkpoint – the last checkpoint on the Iditarod trail.


Twenty two miles of good and mostly flat trail lay between my team and the burled arch in Nome and the last few hours was one of complete celebration as the town of Nome got closer and closer. We sang and played and my team knew it was all coming to an end. We heard the siren sound, used to alert residents that a dog team was arriving, and I stopped to give my fearless dogs one more snack, kiss and long hug. I cried with joy for about the last hour of our journey thinking about how many years I waited for this moment and the commitment it took to get here. I wiped my face, said “ready” “let’s go” one last time, and trotted quickly up front street in Nome to the waiting crowd to fulfill the dream...