Coming to life after a three-hour nap, he pulled on his thick trail garb. It was warm late Wednesday night in the two-story wooden building that is the McGrath checkpoint 415 miles into the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Outside, thick flakes of snow fell, driven by a quirky wind that sometimes blew them sideways.

Caldwell was on his way to the dog lot on the shore of the Kuskokwim River. This was one of four times he intended to feed his animals during his stay. He was one of several mushers who declared their 24-hour layover here.

Refueling and recharging is what it's all about when mushers declare their mandatory 24-hour break along the trail. Both for the racers and the dogs.

Some mushers choose a checkpoint to hole up based on race strategy. Some decide before they leave Anchorage. Others select a place based on its reputation and their experience. It might be Nikolai, Takotna, or even Iditarod. For many, it is McGrath.

McGrath is a checkpoint with a history. It has always been part of the race, but its reputation has fluctuated. There were times mushers loved it here and other times they disliked it. These days, many like it again.

"The hospitality and the food is very good," said Caldwell, a respiratory therapist at Providence Alaska Medical Center, who's in his seventh Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Dogs burn 7,000 to 10,000 calories a day during the race, and Caldwell's run into this community of 550 people Wednesday afternoon was a frigid one.

"It was 42 below," Caldwell said. "It just sucks it right out of them."

The musher, too.

"I'm probably on a 500-calorie plan," said Caldwell, who ingested a hamburger and two bowls of soup before dozing off.

That was a departure from his usual trail fare - candy bars. Caldwell devours Butterfingers, Reese's Cups and Twix bars by the bushel.

"Along the trail, they don't freeze," he said.

But when mushers take their longest break of the race, they want more. The dogs chow down on the finest freeze-dried mixtures and bed down on cushiony straw. The musher hopes for hot meals and more inviting sleeping quarters than the back of the sled runners.

"They have a beautiful padded carpet," said Charlie Boulding of Manley, who declared his 24-hour early Wednesday morning and slept 12 hours before departing about 1 a.m. Thursday.

The front room of the checkpoint is a command post with race standings hung on a bulletin board, telephones, tables and fax machine. Mushers sleep in the back rooms.

In the race's early days, when the pace was slower and planning had yet to be refined to a science, mushers enjoyed McGrath because they congregated at the bar.

"We fed the dogs and then we went over to McGuire's and stayed there," said Sonny Lindner of Delta Junction.

Back in the race for the first time since 1993, Lindner, 49, said mushers have changed.

"It's not the same crowd," Lindner said.

McGuire's Tavern - with walls decorated in Iditarod memorabilia, a nude painting, and a borderline-obscene, framed award presented to the bartender by the "Horny Bastards of the Upper Kuskokwim" still operates. But it was not a gathering point for mushers this week.

In a more-casual racing era, there was another good reason for mushers to pick McGrath for their layovers, said Lindner, a three-time top-three placer. Mushers bought replacement goods at the Alaska Commercial Co. store. Lindner bought new gloves, batteries and socks here over the years.

But a speeded-up Iditarod brings fresh strategies. Race leader Doug Swingley was among the many front-runners who zipped through McGrath. Other mushers, however, stopped here for their 24-layovers, including Lindner, Caldwell, Boulding, Mitch Seavey, Linwood Fiedler, Dave Sawatzky, Jon Little, Steve Carrick, Raymie Redington, Jeremy Gebauer, Matt Hayashida..

"People look at McGrath as having a few more amenities," said race manager Jack Niggemyer. "You can buy a burger. Families can get here. It has the only store along the whole way of any substance."

Nonetheless, after 1992, when the Iditarod Trail Committee introduced the corraling rule, relations between the race and the community deteriorated somewhat. Before 1992, mushers stayed in individual homes. Now they must stay in a common area. That first year, mushers were forced to camp in tents on the Kuskokwim River at 50 below.

"I had bad memories of it," said Boulding about why he breezed through McGrath until now.

"It was miserable," Niggemyer added. "Miserable on the dogs and the people."

Older mushers told newer mushers not to stop. Caldwell, whose career postdates the rule change, said it was felt McGrath "just had an attitude."

But now the checkpoint is quiet and sophisticated.

"They like us because we have hot water," said checker Laura Reid. "We have a hot-water heater going. That's a big perk. This is a fun checkpoint."

Indeed, McGrath's reputation is restored. Robin Boulding, Charlie's wife, chose to volunteer here working with dropped dogs, partially because she heard McGrath was a good checkpoint.

So Charlie Boulding's reason to choose McGrath for his layover differed from other mushers'.

"My old lady was here," he said.