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Iditarod Trail
Notes by Checkpoint On the first Saturday of March every year, teams start the Iditarod in Anchorage. The Anchorage start is actually just for show. Teams run 25 miles from Anchorage to Eagle River, carrying riders who have paid up to 7,000 dollars for the chance to be a part of the action. This ceremonial start is a way to involve many excited race fans and increase the media exposure that both the mushers and race receive. Teams run from 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage, through the streets and parks of the city, and then along highways and trails to Eagle River, just north of Anchorage along the Glenn Highway. Checkpoint #1 at Eagle River is the finish of the ceremonial leg. The checkpoint is the Eagle River VFW post, and it is a busy scene as teams come in just seconds apart from each other. The staff of the checkpoint are excellent at traffic management and parking dog trucks and teams in limited space. Once mushers have cared for their dogs, they can enjoy a bowl of chili and a piece of cornbread served by members of the VFW. From Eagle River, teams travel in their dog trucks to Wasilla for the restart on the following day. The trail between Eagle River and Wasilla is too dangerous to be a practical part of the race trail. Mile 0 Wasilla is the official Iditarod start. While the Anchorage start was just for show the clock starts here. You can feel the tension in the air as the teams are harnessed and the sleds are loaded, although most of the competitive teams have appeared relaxed up until this point, it’s crunch time now. All of the teams are required to carry a handler from Wasilla to Knik, so for most the teams that means hauling a second sled which is cut loose as they pass through Knik. Mile 14 Knik is ‘the last farewell’ as the mushers leave the road system and head out into the bush. For most of the mushers this is the last time they will see their friends and family until the cross the finish line in Nome. But the meeting is brief, as most the racers spend less than five minutes in this checkpoint. Mile 66 Yentna Station, a small lodge on the Yentna River, is the first remote checkpoint, which means it can only be acsessed by snowmobile or air. The musher’s strategy starts here. How far they push on the first run will affect their entire race. Mile 100 Skwentna, during the race, has so much air traffic that most of the mushers travel through the checkpoint and camp a few mile north just to escape the noise and confusion. The trail to Skwentna is mostly flat and runs down lakes and rivers, but once the teams leave Skwentna they head into mountain country. Mile 145 The Finger Lake checkpoint is operated out of Winter Lake Lodge. Many of the teams camp here before they begin their climb up into Rainy Pass. Again, because of air traffic, many teams will camp just a few miles out of the checkpoint.Mile 175 Rainy Pass is one of Alaska’s most spectacular places. While the checkpoint is at Puntilla Lake, a few miles from the actual pass, the view is breathtaking. As soon as you leave Puntilla Lake you climb a few hundred feet and the pass opens up in front of you. It really brings you down to size.Mile 223 The Rohn checkpoint is a solitary cabin on the bank of the Kuskokwim River. Often there is so little snow here that the wind whips sand from the exposed gravel bars and covers up what little snow there is, leaving the trails extremely rough. Mile 303 Nikolai is the light at the end of the tunnel! After nearly one hundred miles of poor snow and rough trails they emerge battered. You can start to pick the winning teams here. Many teams that once dreamed of winning are now forced just to hang on. Nikolai has a population of 104, so this is the first ‘big city’ the mushers have seen since Knik. Nikolai is a favorite for the mandatory 24hour rest. Often a large percentage of the mushers will take advantage of the legendary Nikolai hospitality. Mile 351 McGrath is the largest village on the southern part of the trail and is another 24hour rest favorite, so they have a real nice facility set up for the mushers so they can dry their gear and get a little sleep. McGrath has a fairly large airfield and daily commercial flights so many mushers choose to send a spare sled here. Mile 369 Takotna was a booming mining town for many years and the hills are laced with four-wheeler trails going to all the abandoned mines. The fifty residents of Takotna go out of their way every year to make the mushers feel welcome in this remote village on the Takotna River. Mile 394 Ophir is another single log cabin checkpoint. Like many settlements in this part of Alaska, Ophir was once a gold mining encampment. Much of the gold in this area has been mined, and Ophir's heydays are past. But every in March of every year, Ophir turns into a busy checkpoint on the Iditarod Trail. Just north of Ophir the trail splits; on even numbered years the mushers continue north to the checkpoint at Cripple, while on the odd numbered years they take a more southerly trail to the checkpoint at Iditarod. The trails reconnect at the village of Kaltag on the Yukon River. (Southern Route--odd numbered years only)--Mile 484 The trail from Ophir to Iditarod passes over a range of hills known as the Beaver Mountains. This part of Alaska is very isolated, and it is not uncommon for mushers to pass through this area without seeing ANY sign of another human being. When teams crest the hill that marks the edge of the shallow Iditarod River Valley, mushers and dogs are greeting with the eerie sight of the massive ghost town of Iditarod. The town of Iditarod was a major boom town during the last major Alaskan gold strike in the early part of the 20th century. Eager miners flocked to the area, and merchants quickly followed. At one point, estimates have the population of Iditarod marked around 10,000. Iditarod had bakeries, slaughterhouses, a soda pop bottling factory, and even a crude telephone system by 1919. Because of this, the need for transportation in and out of the Iditarod mining district was very great. In the summer months, riverboats could navigate the river system from the Bering Sea all the way up to Iditarod. But in the winter, with the river system frozen, dog teams became the link between Iditarod and the rest of the world. Trails running southeast from Nome and northwest from Seward converged on the Iditarod mining district to create what is known today as the Iditarod National Historic Trail. This trail was one of the only routes connecting the ice-free ports in southern Alaska to the isolated gold camps and villages of the frontier. People, supplies, the U.S. Mail, and even gold traveled this trail, and the mushers and dogs of the Iditarod Race follow much of its route on their 1,150-mile trip from Anchorage to Nome. By the mid-1920s, much of the gold in the Iditarod mining district was gone, and the population of the town quickly dropped to zero. However, the remains of a city that would be considered large in Alaska by today's standards remains along the banks of the Iditarod River. The checkpoint itself is located at the edge of the townsite. A small cabin provides shelter for mushers and race officials. It is one of the only inhabitable structures that remains in this once bustling town. (Southern Route--odd numbered years only)--Mile 546 Shageluk literally translated means "village of the dog people," a reference to the importance of sled dogs throughout Alaska prior to the arrival of the airplane and snowmobile. Shageluk is a small village with very generous residents. In 2001, the trail from Iditarod to Shageluk was extremely rough, and many mushers broke their sleds. Musher Cindy Gallea was working to repair her sled when a young high school student from the village walked by. He saw that she was trying to repair a bracket and quickly went to the metal shop at the school and made a replacement. The replacement bracket remained on the sled for the rest of the race. (Southern Route--odd numbered years only)--Mile 571 The small village of Anvik lies adjacent to a slough on the west bank of the mighty Yukon River. The first musher to reach Anvik is awarded the "First Musher to the Yukon Award." The Award is sponsored by the Millennium Alaskan Hotel in Anchorage, and the lucky musher to receive the Award is treated to a seven-course meal prepared on a camp stove by the hotels executive chef, who flies out just for the occasion! The "after dinner mint" is a cool stack of $3,000 cash. (Southern Route--odd numbered years only)--Mile 589 Grayling is another small village on the Yukon River just 18 miles upstream from Anvik. Because Anvik and Grayling are so close together, most mushers don't stop at both checkpoints. Some mushers will run from Shageluk straight to Grayling (not stopping at Anvik). These mushers will then continue on up river to Eagle Island after resting at Grayling. Remember, mushers must take an 8-hour rest at either Shageluk, Anvik, Grayling, Eagle Island, or Kaltag. This is one of the three required rest stops along the trail. Of course, mushers take many other rest stops, but those rest stops are typically in the 6-hour range at this point in the race. (Southern Route--odd numbered years only)--Mile 659 Eagle Island is the Hawaii of the North! In 1995, temperatures at Eagle Island were 55 degrees BELOW zero! The checkpoint is essentially a couple of wall tents put up by hearty volunteers who spend a week living on the frozen ice of the Yukon River to staff the checkpoint. A cabin used to stand on the bank of the river and marked the only permanent structure at the checkpoint, but it burned after the 1997 Iditarod and has not been rebuilt. No villages exist in the 130 miles between Grayling and Kaltag. Eagle island is the only "civilization" on this part of the Yukon for the mushers and their teams. Next checkpoint: Kaltag. Cripple (the next checkpoint after Ophir on the northern route) (Northern Route--even numbered years only)--Mile 454 Cripple was once a booming gold town and in a 17-year period Cripple once saw $35 million dollars worth of gold taken from her soil. Now there is no Cripple town, just a group of tents flown in by the Iditarod Trail Committee. Cripple is the official halfway point in the race and the first team into Cripple receives a $3,000 prize awarded by Iditarod sponsor GCI. (Northern Route--even numbered years only)--Mile 566 Ruby is the first village on the Yukon River, and after a 112-mile stretch with a wilderness camp most the mushers are cold and wet and so they usually choose to spend at least six hours in Ruby. No musher has ever taken their 24hour rest past Ruby and gone on to win the race. (Northern Route--even numbered years only)--Mile 618 Galena is a U.S. Air Force Base on the Yukon River. Many mushers, if they hope to be competitive in the race, will choose to skip through this checkpoint and take advantage of the flat, easy trail on the river to make a long push.(Northern Route--even numbered years only)--Mile 670 Nulato is a favorite for the mandatory eight hour rest that must be taken somewhere in one of the Yukon River checkpoints. This is especially true for the mushers who have been running straight from Ruby. The mushers can take advantage of the community hall to dry gear or to get a bite to eat. Mile 712 -- (northern and southern routes reconnect here) Reaching Kaltag can signify one of two things. A relief from gale force winds as you leave the Yukon River in a bad year, or the end of a beautiful flat trail and the start of another hilly stretch in a good year. The northern and southern routes reconnect here so the rest of the trail is the same every year. Once you leave Kaltag you are in caribou country. It’s not uncommon to see herds of several hundred caribou crossing the trail or foraging on the hillsides. Mile 802 Unalakleet is the first checkpoint on the Norton Sound and is famous for it’s wind. Local volunteers, in an effort to reduce the wind, pile up huge snow-banks to offer the dogs shelter. Unalakleet happens to have, in my opinion, the best restaurant this side of New York! An interesting note: for at least ten years the first team to leave Unalakleet has gone on to win the Iditarod. Mile 844 Shaktoolik is on the end of a 20-foot wide, 15-mile long, never ending spit. Last year, even on a snowmobile, it seem that after two eternities we were no closer to Shaktoolik. About the time you resign yourself to the fact that you’re just never going to get there you start to see buildings, thus encouraged you decide that maybe you are still alive and not really being punished for all those time you missed church. But, those building are ‘Old’ Shaktoolik, five more miles to go!Mile 892 Once you reach the Koyuk checkpoint you are mostly done with the sea ice, which can be very hazardous. The Koyuk River is famous for it’s excellent ice fishing, but I think most the mushers aren’t very concerned about that at this point. Mile 940 Elim checkpoint can be one of the most important places on the race. If you have the ‘gas’ in the tank you can push through Elim and gain a huge time advantage on your competitors. If the musher decides he doesn’t have the ‘gas’ he has to rest in the checkpoint for a couple of hours until the team is ready to continue. The absolute worst possible thing the musher can do is to leave Elim if the dogs are too tired. It is a long way to the next food drop checkpoint. Mile 968 Golovin Bay is a pass-through checkpoint, which means there is no dog-drop or food-drop. All the mushers must sign in at this checkpoint to prove they followed the trail and didn’t take the extremely dangerous short cut across the Norton Sound. Mile 986 White Mountain is the last rest stop for most of the mushers. There is a mandatory eight-hour stop that the mushers take before traveling the last 77 miles to Nome. In a normal year you can get a pretty good feel for who is going to win the race at this point. In 1978 Dick Mackey and Rick Swenson left the White Mountain checkpoint just minutes apart. They raced neck-and-neck the entire last run and as the crossed under the Burled Arches (the finish line) Dick Mackey pulled ahead for a one-second win. The closest finish in Iditarod history. Mile 1041 Safety checkpoint is just 22 miles from the finish line. In fact on a clear year the mushers can see the lights on Nome from just a few miles north of Safety. Mile 1063 NOME! The finish line. With a population of 3,500 (that swells to over twice that number during race time) they provide quite the welcome to the mushers who have championed the Iditarod Trail. Note that the actual mileage of the trail, about 1,060 miles, is somewhere between the originally estimated mileage (1,150 miles) and the symbolic mileage of the race (1,049 miles because the race was at least 1,000 miles long, and Alaska is the 49th state). Seward is the historic beginning of the Iditarod Trail. The reason that Seward was the starting site was the fact that Seward sits at the head of Resurrection Bay, one of the best ice-free ports in Alaska. Ships could come into Seward year round to deliver mail and supplies and dog teams would head into the interior of Alaska from there. |
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