Rock n' Roll
An Ultimate Iditarod Special Report
October 16, 2002

In light of current events here at the Seavey’s Iditarod Racing Team kennel we decided to run a ‘special edition’ report.  This purpose of this report is not to highlight the universal lack of intelligence that mushers share, but rather to give you an idea of why a musher’s monthly chiropractor bill ranks right up there with his house payment.  This is the Crash’n’Dash report.  As a side note… I was reading in the Arctic Cat ATV manual the other night (no this is not normal behavior for me, but I just couldn’t get that last part the dogs ripped off back in the right place) and realized that towing their four-wheelers in low gear with 20 dogs doesn’t directly void the warranty, of course, the whole “use common sense when operating this vehicle” thing might be getting bent a little.  —Tyrell Seavey

Crash Story #1 by Tyrell Seavey

Yonkers

I finally got the team stopped about two team-lengths past the corner, which left me only one option, and that was to turn the team around and lead them into the correct trail.  Turning a wild pup team around on top of itself is much easier said than done.  Realizing that the longer I sat there, the greater the chance that the dogs would slide the machine even further in the wrong direction, I quickly got after the task at hand. 

Collisions with trees are nothing new to mushers.  Ultimate Iditarod's Cindy Gallea woke herself up by hitting her head into a tree in the 2001 Iditarod.  The black eyes were just a side effect.

I grabbed the front of the team and swung them around as fast as I could to prevent the now slack-lined team dogs from running me over.  For one sickening second, the entire 90-foot team was in a 15-foot pile; but amazingly Yonkers was able to fight has way to the surface and start lining the dogs back out.  When the dogs hit the end of the towline, it snapped tight so forcefully that it actually picked the four-wheeler up, spun it around, and deposited it into a stand of spruce trees, which is why I was reading the manual the other night.  As the dogs took off, I made a dive for the four-wheeler, which was now accelerating at a rapid pace even with the brakes locked. 

Once I got control of the machine, I looked up only to realize the dogs had again missed the corner and were headed back towards home.  I was able to stop the now extremely riled team only by skillfully hooking the front left wheel behind a sizable tree, which was quite effective.  When I woke up, I was on my back about 5 feet in front of the four-wheeler.  When I got my senses back, I repeated the turn around process and actually got them into the right trail that time!  I thought for sure I had just finished the worst part of the worst run of my life, but I still had more excitement in store for me. 

Less than a mile down the trail I met my dad and his 20-dog team head-on, on a hairpin corner that was no more than 6 feet wide.  I managed to clear the trail of my four-wheeler by running it up and over a good sized log and wedging it sideways into a patch of alders.  By the time Dad's team passed mine, my dogs had pulled my machine up and over the first of the trees, and they were working on the second!  With a smooth sideways turn and quick shot of throttle I manage to roll the four-wheeler back into the trail, only narrowly avoiding overturning it.  But I didn't have much time to think about what just happened.  The dogs took off like a shot, and they didn't stop until they had dragged the four-wheeler back to the dog yard.  Upon arriving I heaved a great sigh of relief, glad to have that fiasco done and over with and knowing that runs like that can't happen too often.

Crash Story #2 by Jim Gallea

Picture a 20-dog team pulling a 600-pound four-wheeler, a 240-pound musher, and 200 pounds of rocks.  The brakes on the four-wheeler are locked, the engine is off, and the transmission is still in low gear.  However, the four-wheeler, with its payload of rocks and a wide-eyed dog musher, is still moving down the trail and headed toward an unprotected road crossing. 

Despite the fact that you are picturing something that could be a classic Charlie Chaplain film, this is the situation in which I found myself just a few days ago (minus the hat and the cane).  You see, for some reason that only dog mushers can understand, Tyrell and I have decided to run 19 and 20 dog teams during this part of training.  Now don't get me wrong, a 20-dog team can be perfectly safe and a lot of fun when the proper amount of horse tranquilizers are used on the dogs and the four-wheeler is replaced by an Army surplus Sherman tank.  The problem is that we used the last of the horse tranquilizers on Conway, Tyrell's five-year-old brother, and the Sherman tank is still stuck in Seattle thanks to that dock workers' strike.

To make myself a little less vague, it's not the running a 20-dog team that is the problem; it's the stopping that can be a bit tricky, as my esteemed colleague pointed out in the first crash story.  And despite the fact that I weigh 90 pounds more than Tyrell, I seem to have just as much trouble keeping those dogs stopped.

"My precious rope."  Note the creative use of a screw driver to lock the knot into place.  Also note the hand grabbing for the rope.

The 20 crazed two-year olds and I were about half way into a 7-mile run when I decided to stop and untangle the knots that some of the dogs had managed to tie into the towline.  (I don't know how dogs can come up with such good knots when my opposable thumbs can't even seem to keep my shoes double-knotted.)  Being the experienced Iditarod musher that I am, I felt confident in my ability to keep the team stopped.  Not that experience had anything to do with it--I had a secret weapon:  a 3/4-inch thick piece of rope.  The plan was that I could stop the team right next to a large telephone pole and tie the four-wheeler to the pole before the dogs had time to catch their breath and start pulling again.

At first everything went to plan.  The telephone pole was in its proper place and the dogs actually stopped when I screamed "WHOA" at the top of my lungs and threw the engine into reverse.  I even managed to stop the four-wheeler a few feet before the pole so that I would have an extra second or two if the dogs started to pull the four-wheeler while I was tying it off.  

Be careful, four-wheeler tires can run over your feet without notice.

Unfortunately, nothing ever really goes to plan in dog mushing.  Now, I still contend that the theory was sound, but in point of fact, the dogs didn't need any time to catch their breath, so they started to pull the four-wheeler the moment I jumped off.  Fortunately, one end of my precious rope was firmly gripped in my hands and the other end was tied to the four-wheeler.  Once the four-wheeler finished running over my foot, the rope gave me something to hold onto while I chased after the four-wheeler!

Once I got back on the four-wheeler, I decided that the dogs liked running with the towline in knots, and forgot all further attempts to stop.  The only problem was that we were nearing the turnaround loop, and my confidence in Ol' Blue (my lead dog) was somewhere between zero and nothing.  Missing the turnaround loop wasn't a huge problem because I knew that the trail led over half a dozen creeks and a small piece of the Pacific Ocean to Anchorage.  The real problem was that a busy road was just beyond the turnaround, and we don't like to cross it without someone to watch for cars.  If Blue didn't take the "Haw" command to go around the loop, we'd be in the middle of traffic faster than a hungry sled dog can eat a piece of seal blubber.

Predictably, Blue did exactly the opposite of what I told him to do, and I found myself trying to stop 20 Alaskan huskies by locking up the four-wheeler's brakes, dropping the transmission into low gear, and shutting the engine off.  Thankfully, these "routine" emergency stop measures actually worked, and Blue remembered that "Haw" meant to turn left.  But my adventures were not quite over.

Once Blue got the idea we were heading home, he turned on his after-burners and really started to pull.  But because I shut the engine off, I couldn't give the four-wheeler any throttle to help it around the sharp bend in the turnaround loop.  Consequently, the only thing Blue's efforts accomplished was to pull the team into the trees and bushes on the inside of the sharp bend.  As I watched, over two dozen willow bushes and small spruce trees became firewood, and the four-wheeler (engine still off) became a 20-dog power log skidder.  The once-narrow turnaround trail became 20 feet wide in a matter of seconds, and the only thing I could do was commend Blue on his well-intentioned burst of speed.  

I shoved the larger pieces of trees off the handlebars and held on as tight as I could for the rest of the run.  Luckily, we didn't encounter any angry moose or hungry bears.

Crash Story #3 by Pete Ripmaster

It all started simply enough.  Last winter, I was taking a training run around the farm loop up in Trapper Creek.  The dogs were anxious to run since it had been a few days and bolted out of the dog lot.  Only a quarter mile or so into the run I noticed that one of the dogs had bit through another’s neckline.  I set the snow hook and went to do a little trailside repair.  After fixing the lines, I turned to head back to the sled when I noticed it starting to move towards me.  This was nothing new as we had kind of a bad snow year and the snow was not thick enough to hold the snow hook sometimes.  As the sled was coming towards me, I noticed the snow hook bouncing around behind the sled.  What happened next will always remind me of the dangers of running dogs. 

As I jumped into the air to land on the back of the sled and ride away, I felt a quick slash towards the bottom of my leg.  When I looked down I couldn’t believe my own eyes.  The snow hook had found it’s way into and out of my calf.  My first reaction as the blood was pouring out of my leg was that I lost the bottom half of my leg.  From first glance it looked as if my leg was hanging by some muscle, which was highly visible, along with some fat!  I let out a scream that people probably heard in clear over in Talkeetna, and the dogs screeched to a halt.  Luckily the guy I was working for was out on his snowmobile and saw me waving my hands for help.  He came and saw the trail of blood and knew something was terribly, terribly wrong!  He kept a level head, though, and took the team while I drove the snowmobile back to the cabin.

When we met back up at the cabin, he quickly bandaged up the wound and called 911. An hour later the ambulance showed up and the paramedics took a look at the “cut.” The look on their faces confirmed to me what I already knew. It was really bad! Needless to say the, 100-mile ambulance ride was one of many emotions. Questions were just flying through my head—most of which had to do with questioning whether I would ever be able to mush again, or for that matter do any of the sports I enjoy.

Finally, we arrived at the hospital in Palmer, and the doctors came right in to see me. They cleaned the wound and talked about what they could do. What the doctor said next was just what I wanted to hear, "well, were going to be able to sew this thing back up and you will be just fine! There was no permanent damage.” Thank God. I was lucky this time.

© 2002 Ultimate Iditarod, Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs, Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team
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