March 5-10
Hi All,
Hike!! Hike!! Hike!!…meaning GO!! GO!! GO!!! in musher speak…and away they went….go Kale, go Splash….the lead dogs, go all 14 dogs…..Kale, Splash, Dougal, Indie, Nares, Taurus, Floyd, Chia, Hazel, Finn, Gaia, Scandic, Dragon and Mustang…..and finally GO MICHELLE GO!!!
WOW, WOW, WOW….what a trip, what an experience….we are still a bit giddy having been part of this “Last Great Race” in America. A huge bucket-list check:))) These dogs are wonderful, very energetic, AND, so full of love. We immediately bonded with them and spent lots of time just petting, getting massive amounts of dog kisses/love and tail wags!!!! But boy, don’t get in the way when they are sledding….such powerful animals!!!
If you recall, we met Michelle Phillips in April 2019 while on a tour of Skagway and the Yukon. We fell in love with the sled dogs then, kept in touch with Michelle and signed up for her personal Iditarod tour.
http://www.tagishlakekennel.com/tlk-iditarod-tour-2020/
Our tour guide that day was Sherry Corrington out of Skagway, whose dad ran in the 1975 Iditarod. Sherry is good friends with Michelle, and decided to surprise us with a visit….wow, so good to see her and catchup!!
We left on Wednesday, March 4th at o-dark-thirty catching an Uber to Oakland airport for a 6am flight. I used to do that quite a bit for Dreyer’s…I hated those early morning flights then and double hate them now…ugh!!! But, Alaska Airlines did just fine, connecting through Seattle then into Anchorage about 20 minutes early around 2pm. FYI…the flight out of Oakland was about 50% full, the Anchorage flight 100% full. It was a clear day and we could see the mountains clearly….Denali (20,308′) is one huge mountain for sure!! Doug, our host/tour guide for the next 6 days met us and we were off to our hotel….a bit disappointed we were not staying at the official Iditarod hotel, the Millennium, as they were overbooked with volunteers, so we stayed in a Hilton Homewood Suites…..which was just fine as we were not in the hotel very much except to sleep and eat breakfast.
We did have drinks at the Millennium and checked into the Iditarod and then went to dinner with Michelle, Doug and Madeline, one of her dog handlers for the winter at their Tagish Lake Kennel in the Yukon. Michelle was in good spirits, confidence high coming off her 2nd place finish at the 1000 mile Yukon Quest, just 3 weeks prior. We were regaled for several hours with Yukon Quest stories of the race, strategy and insights to the other mushers.
The next day we saw some of Anchorage….a local art market (lots of great paintings, furs, beads, carvings et al) and the Anchorage Museum. Michelle had a 4 hour “musher only” meeting and then we all met up for a quick lunch at “Humpy’s”, a local pub favorite!! The big news, of course, was all the deep snow on the trail this year and many, many moose sightings as the deep snow has covered up all the feed, which did not please Michelle at all. The big event on Thursday was the Musher’s Meet and Greet and then the Musher Ball where the mushers pull their “bib” # or race start position.
The “meet & greet” is a bit tiring for the mushers…..they each stand at individual tables and people come up for a greet and the mushers sign their official Iditarod poster. Well, Kathy and I got into the spirit….3 posters to sign, one for just Michelle, one with just women mushers in honor of the girl-power in the YB family now(~15 women in this year’s race) and then one for all mushers. We did ok on the women poster and maybe got 40% on all the mushers. We had about 500 of our best friends in competition as well and only an hour or so to get it done. Along the way we bought Michelle a beer to keep her spirits up:))) The “Ball” was fun….Kathy called it the Musher
“Oscar’s”….lots of speeches and then watch each musher pull their bib # and of course, give a speech thanking all their sponsors….Michele pulled 33 out of 57 mushers….it had been going on for many hours so we left a bit after her pull!!!!
The next day we started by seeing the “snow sculpture contest”….whoa….some amazing sculptures carved with snow….I really liked the one with a mama grizzly bear and cub with a large walrus!! Next, was a ride of a lifetime….an actual sled dog ride on snow. Last April we were in a 4 wheel ATV on a forest trail. Michelle took me and Madeline took Kathy, 8 dogs each…..went about 45 minutes for 6 miles….a good training run for the dogs 1-day before the ceremonial start. It was about 10 deg F with a little wind….yep, we both got a bit cold just sitting in the sled….but wow, such wonderful athletes and well behaved to Michelle’s/Madelene’s commands.
Afterwards, we met up with Ed Hopkins, Michelle’s husband, who had just driven in from their ranch in Tagish Lake in the Yukon. Ed is a long time musher, finished in the top five in the Yukon Quest 4 times, and last year, he ran the Iditarod as a rookie, finishing an amazing 20th. Later that afternoon we went to the “blanket” toss which is in honor of the Inupiaq hunter. “The blanket toss is now conducted as entertainment, but it didn’t originate that way. The Iñupiaq hunter would be tossed in the air, enabling them to see across the horizon to hunt game.” In this showing it was “tourists” doing the tossing with just 2 “natives” giving direction….kind of lame, but the kids were having a blast!!
Next up was an “art gallery” tour as part of a “wine and art” crawl. We made it to two galleries, one very special….the Georgia Blue Gallery where we met up with Sherry and were introduced to the famous artist, Jon Van Zyle. “Jon Van Zyle, Official Artist of the Iditarod since 1979. Jon ran the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race twice and he has illustrated many children’s books. In 2019 he received the prestigious Individual Artist Award from the Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts.” It turns out Sherry’s dad and Jon Van Zyle are best friends and ran the Iditarod together in 1975. Oh, the stories he told that night!! What a delightful man. The next day Sherry surprised us with the “official” Van Zyle poster….impressive and beautiful!!
https://www.jonvanzyle.com/IditarodPosters.html
Saturday: The ceremonial Iditarod start in Anchorage!!! The “start” begins at 10am, with 2 minute intervals for each musher, meaning with bib #33, Michelle started at 11:06am. But, we had to be there by 8am as they block off all the streets in downtown. The night before they brought in tons of snow and covered all the streets with 6-8″ of snow….what a sight!!! And, of course, it was 15-20* F, wind chill about 5-10* F, and snowing….oh, did we not lack for an Alaskan experience. We helped a little with Michelle setting up, loved on the dogs for a bit, then we went walk-about seeing all the other mushers and dogs.
And soon it was our turn. In order to help control the dogs I helped as a line handler with about 8 other people. You’re supposed to help control the dogs and keep them to a fast walk as you walk up to the start line. Well, John-boy basically held on for dear life. If I slowed down Scandic, the wheel dog, (closest to the sled) would nudge me and bark….come on old man, don’t slow me down now:)))) It took us about 10 minutes to make it to the start, stopping about 3-4 times. There is TV all around and a gazillion reporters all trying to interview Michelle and get pictures of the dogs. At 11:06am, the race officially started for Michelle. She would go 11 miles where we would meet her again. Put the dogs back in the dog truck, and she would spend the night where she had been staying in Eagle River, about 20 miles from Anchorage. The ceremonial start in Anchorage is just that….for ceremony, fun and a chance for the 10-15k fans to get a chance to see the race.
We met Michelle after her 11 miles and all went out to a rather boisterous lunch. We could tell Michelle had her game face on, gearing up for the grueling 9-10 day race, but she seemed to have a good time relaxing a bit before the re-start the next day. After that, we went to the “Running of the Reindeer”….”Alaska’s wackiest race….Racers have their choice of four different “herds” in a mad dash down the streets of Anchorage in an effort to outrun reindeer”. We go there just in time to see the last “herd”….sort of a tamer version of “running with the bulls”….and no one gets hurt….lots of laughing and jocularity!!!!
Sunday: The “official” restart of the Iditarod moves to Willow, about 70 miles north by car. Michelle’s start time was 3:06pm but again we had to get there early due to traffic. We arrived around 11am in a blizzard. As the day before, we helped a little with Michelle and the dogs and then went walk about. And again, it was 10-20*F, wind chill 0-10*F and it was snowing a blizzard. Maybe 10″ overnight and probably 6-8″ while we were in Willow….yikes!!!! A whole lot of dog barking and howling….lots of excitement in the air….but Michelle’s dogs are well trained….some excitement but a lot of saving energy calm, game faces….but still had lots of love/kisses for us!!! I did help walk the dogs up to the start line as in Anchorage with about 8 other people but this was in about 10-14″ of snow!! Lots of cheering/hoopla from the fans/crowd and then the countdown to ZERO and HIKE! HIKE! HIKE! yells Michelle and there they go….whoa!!!! We stayed to watch a few other mushers leave but after 5 hours in the blizzard we were pretty cold so we started the 1/2 mile trek to the car and a long ride back to dinner and a warm bed:))))
Monday: The day before Doug showed me how to get the Iditarod GPS Tacker on my phone. In real time you can watch the mushers with up to date stats as they all carry GPS trackers…whoa….I’m now addicted!!! We woke up to Michelle in 20th place having moved up from her 33rd start position….but her interval times were fast….GO MICHELLE GO!!! Given the winter storm we had the past few days we were unsure if the small planes would be able to fly. We were headed to Rainy Pass, the 8th checkpoint, about an hour plane ride. Doug called around 9:30am and said the planes were on hold but wanted us to come to the office. We waited about 2 hours with Ed who was joining us and around noon we all started to load up….yippee. The weather was still iffy in Anchorage, low clouds and still snowing, but it was clear in the mountains and at Rainy Pass (~2000′). We did leave around 12:30pm…..a very cold flight as no heat in these small Beaver planes. About 30 mins into the flight, we saw bright blue sky and then a most gorgeous snow covered landscape revealed itself….awesome!!! We saw several moose, one stuck in a snow bank, and near Fingers Lake checkpoint and close to Rainy Pass we saw several mushers on the trail. We landed and braced the cold….around 5*F with wind chill close to -10*F. We had a quick hot lunch at the Lodge and then spent the next 4 hours with the dogs and mushers….there were 7 teams already there and about 4pm Michelle arrived.
There are rules about engaging with the mushers and certainly no help is allowed. We did witness Lance Mackey’s (previous 4-time winner) team go a bit crazy while Lance was sleeping in the musher cabin. Several race officials were able to calm them down while Lance was woken up. Michelle did give us a quick “hello” when she came in and then it was all business taking care of the dogs. It had been 24+ hours since we last saw Michelle and since then she had traveled 153 miles, stopping 3 times to rest the dogs….she probably got about 2-3 hours of total sleep. First Michelle gives each dog a snack of her own concoction of various frozen meats. She has previously flown into each checkpoint her food and other supplies. Then she lays out straw for the dogs to rest on. While they are resting she takes off their booties, gives them a quick examination, some various vitamins and medicines, then the race veterinarians come and give the dogs a very through examination and make various notes in the dog log book which all sign. In the meantime, Michelle has started about 3-gal of water to boil and then adds again her own concoction of dry food (like Kibble). Each dog then gets a bowl full and then a much earned rest. Since it was very cold, Michelle put on a warm vest over each dog. After that, Michele gets a quick bite to eat and then 1-1.5 hours of sleep. She did all this in about 3.5 hours before she took off again.
We took off around 6pm after a good bye hug from Michele for another gorgeous but cold plane ride back. We had a farewell steak dinner with Doug and Ed and finally collapsed at the hotel around 9pm. We were out in the cold for about 7 hours and it took me a good 1-2 hours to get warm again….whoa….how do the mushers do it?????
Tuesday: We left Anchorage on a 10am flight, almost full, traveled through Seattle to Oakland (about 1/3 full). We arrived home about 6pm and felt fine….no virus symptoms yet!!!
Final Thoughts….I’m writing this on Friday-Saturday 3/13-14:
– so far we are COVID-19 symptom free…yea!!!!
– Michelle is currently running in the 10-15 position. She has briefly led the Iditarod when many of the lead rushers stopped for their 24-hr mandatory rest. Michelle pushed on for another 125 miles before taking her 24-hour rest at Cripple. We are very much hoping for a top ten finish, which would be her best yet. But, a big winter storm is about to hit for several days so it will slow everything down and make for some very difficult racing…ugh!!!
– both our cameras froze up at various times….really…never has happened before but we’ve never been out in that kind of cold for that long!!
– we have been asked would we do this again….u betcha….we are thinking maybe to go to Nome for the finish next year….want to join us!!!!!
– you can follow the race and all the stories at: https://iditarod.com/
– a quote from Kristy Berrington….she and hew twin sister have been racing since 2010….from Wisconsin…and a very popular team: “It would be inaccurate for me to say the goal is to win this race,” Kristy said. “That would be a dream come true, but it’s not my goal to win it. I think it takes an incredible human being, and dog team, to win this race, and I don’t think I have what it takes to do it.”
– it costs $15-20k for a musher to train and run in the Iditarod….Michelle could use more sponsors!!! The 2019 winner received ~$50k!!!
And finally a quote from Michelle: “I really don’t care what people think of me, but I do care that my dogs are happy”!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
PS: Lots of pictures (270) and videos (6) on the website…pour drink and enjoy!!
http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/photo-gallery/nggallery/main-album/iditarod-2020
PSS: Back to Mystic Moon next week if we are allowed to travel!!!
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Michele giving Skandic some medicine
Pictures courtesy of Iditarod
Wow! What a GREAT experience! I am envious!