Rutted and wind-scoured, bumpy and rough, the 30-mile stretch of trail for the 27th annual race across the state that begins Saturday in Anchorage is going to jar mushers' backs and might produce minor dog injuries if drivers aren't careful, according to race officials.

Niggemyer is scheduled to deliver the bad news to mushers at their prerace meeting this morning, and his talk is likely to be straighter than the trail, which he described as "a lot harder than normal."

The intense cold spell of a few weeks ago, coupled with high winds in the Alaska Range, made for a nasty combination, and the recent Iron Dog Gold Rush Classic snowmachine race also made an impact, he said.

Mushers will likely encounter everything from open water to deep holes with their teams, said Niggemyer. Iditarod executive director Stan Hooley said the message to mushers is: Watch for it.

Hooley said the Iditarod now actually has a half-dozen volunteers with shovels on that section of trail trying to fill in holes with snow, but there's only so much that can be done.

"It's not like you can transform that trail without some heavy duty equipment you can't get up there," said Hooley.

Ironically, he said, the trail earlier in the race coming out of Big Lake, which is often trashed, is in better condition.

"It's in great shape," said Hooley, "where it's traditionally been a bad stretch of trail."

Mushers "absolutely" should be worried about dog injuries, such as sprains, over the Finger Lake to Rainy Pass trail, said Hooley.

"There are things that will wreak havoc on a dog team," he said.

No Iditarod official was sugarcoating description of that stretch of ground. Race marshal Mark Nordman echoed the others.

"It's very disconcerting to a dog musher," he said of the bounces expected to be felt on the sled runners. "Boom, boom, boom."

Mushers might expect broken sleds in the area, said Nordman. "The caution note is: Get across the Alaska Range safely."

Nordman said current winds are actually helping smooth things over a bit, just because the breezes are pushing snow into the holes, aiding those snow shovelers.

As ominous as the warnings sound, mushers don't seem terribly intimidated.

"Every year it seems there's just something terrible out there," said veteran musher Linwood Fiedler of Willow, who placed eighth last year. "When you get there, it's either twice as bad as they say, or not half as bad. But somehow, we get to Nome."

Similarly, DeeDee Jonrowe, another Willow musher who was the runner-up in 1998, said the official word jibes with the reports she heard from snowmachine racers.

"I got a feeling it wasn't too good," she said.

But Jonrowe said she remembers one Iditarod when sleds were soaring over holes four feet deep.

"It was hideous, but we did it," said Jonrowe. "We'll just have to take what comes."

Published: 3/4/99