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Nervous officials with the $100,000 Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race were looking west Thursday night and wondering what Mother Nature might throw at them this year. A large low-pressure system moving out of the North Pacific Ocean toward the Kuskokwim River Delta had the Bethel-based middle-distance competition contemplating one "hellacious weather report," race spokeswoman Bev Hoffman said. Most of Alaska's top distance mushers - along with Montanan and former Iditarod champ Doug Swingley - were due to leave the race's starting line beginning at noon today. Forty to 50 mph winds and freezing rain were forecast to begin lashing the area shortly before then - almost as if the race were returning to its roots. Begun 20 years ago by Bethel musher Myron Angstman, the Kusko has a history of nasty weather. It has been postponed by life-threatening blizzard conditions and all sorts of nefarious conditions as mushers battled their way along the frozen Kuskokwim River. The inaugural race featured blowing snow and wind-chill temperatures down to nearly 100 below. Heavily dressed mushers left Bethel anyway, only to have the weather turn topsy-turvy. Within 36 hours, the thermometer had climbed above freezing, the trail had turned to slush and freezing rain had started falling. All of which sounds a lot like what the Kusko 300 could face this morning. Hoffman said race officials plan to meet early to consider a postponement until the bad weather eases. "You'd never guess right now what they're predicting," Hoffman said Thursday afternoon. "It's really nice right now." But the weatherman was confident the weather will go from nice to naughty within 12 hours, then start a swing back toward normal. The wind "is expected to end by late afternoon Friday," Hoffman said. As of Thursday afternoon, she said, race officials were thinking they might postpone today's planned midday start until evening to avoid the worst of the storm, then let the 29 teams follow the weather up the frozen river. Racers go about 150 miles to Aniak, then turn around and race back to Bethel. The first one to make it back collects $20,000. Greg Swingley, Doug's brother, edged out Iditarod defending champ Jeff King of Denali Park to claim the top prize last year. Greg Swingley is the only one of last year's top-10 finishers who's not back for 1999. "Doug has the A team this year," Hoffman said. Doug Swingley took the brothers' second-string dog team to a 10th-place finish last year. Everyone is expecting an improvement this time, but the competition is tough. Along with Doug Swingley, the race features four other former Iditarod champs - five-time winner Rick Swenson from Two Rivers, three-time champs King and Martin Buser of Big Lake, and Jerry Riley of Nenana. There is also a former winner of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, Charlie Boulding of Manley; an up-and-coming Iditarod contender, John Baker from Kotzebue; a former Iditarod contender on the comeback trail, Joe Garnie from Teller; and a couple home-course favorites, Nathan Underwood from Aniak and Tomas Israelsson from Bethel. King is considered the favorite. He lost to Greg Swingley by only 17 minutes last year after being temporarily stalled by a headlamp that went out on the last stretch of trail. But Buser, winner of the Copper Basin 300 earlier this month and the course record holder for the Kusko, is back in Bethel after a four-year absence. And Swenson, the winningest musher in Iditarod history, won his first Kusko 300 two decades ago. He will today be the only musher returning from that inaugural field.
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