Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage, Alaska

Thursday
March 4, 1999

Swingley survives and wins
Grueling Kusko 300 tests Alaska's best

By CRAIG MEDRED
Daily News reporter

Thoroughly tested by violent Southwest Alaska weather, a frosty Doug Swingley pulled into Bethel early Tuesday morning behind a happy dog team to win the 20th anniversary Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race.

"They started off wanting to be the toughest race," the Montanan and former Iditarod champ said by phone as he thawed out later, "and they ended up being it."

An estimated 50 people, hardy souls all, turned out to watch the 2:34 a.m. finish in Bethel, where wind-chill temperatures reached 65 degrees below zero.

Undeterred by the cold - or the wind, wet and more wind that came before it - Swingley's team followed in the 1998 paw prints of brother Greg, last year's champ, to defend the family honor and collect the $20,000 top prize.

Behind Swingley came former Iditarod champ Gerald Riley from Nenana, middle-distance specialist Ed Iten from Kotzebue, former Iditarod runner-up Joe Garnie from Teller and three-time Iditarod champ Martin Buser from Big Lake.

Twice delayed by wind, blowing snow, warm weather and rain, the K-300 finally started up the flooded ice of the Kuskokwim River on Sunday.

"We were up above our knees in overflow for hours," Swingley said.

The dogs didn't seem to mind. With temperatures in the upper 30s at the time, the water was probably a relief to the cold-adapted huskies. But the mushers didn't have such a great time.

"Everybody got really wet," Swingley said.

They'd barely dried out at Aniak, the upper Kuskowim turnaround for the 300-mile race, when the warm, southwest winds shifted to the northeast and temperatures plummeted.

By Monday night, the water that flooded the Kuskokwim only a day before was frozen over. So was everything else.

"It was like running on frozen rain all the way back," Swingley said.

And then came the freezing, 30-to-40-mph wind.

As the river snaked its way back toward Bethel, Swingley and the other mushers had that wind alternately at their backs, to their sides and in their faces.

On the back was the best, Swingley said. When the wind was behind him, it blew hard enough the dogs didn't have to pull. They just trotted along in front of the wind-driven sled as it banged down the icy trail.

When the wind came from the side, however, the riding was tough, Swingley said. He fought to keep the sled from sliding off the trail, and the sled ended up swinging around behind the dogs instead.

Worse yet was turning into the wind, he said. Wind-chill temperatures of 65 to 75 degrees below zero left him feeling like his face was getting torn off. He pulled his hood tighter to prevent frostbite and kept going.

It reminded him a lot of the lousy training weather he has endured in Montana so far this year, Swingley said. Preparing the dogs for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in March has meant lots of time running on ice and in rotten weather.

"It was pretty good preparation for this, I guess," he said.

The bad weather, he said, added to the adventure.

"I really had a blast," Swingley said. "It was the funnest dog race I've ever been in."

Mostly, he said, he enjoyed his time on the trail with Garnie. A former Iditarod runner-up who fell on tough times, the easy-going Garnie now appears clearly on the comeback trail.

He and Swingley pulled away from an unusually strong K-300 field about two-thirds of the way through the race, and it was largely a two-team competition from then until Garnie got lost on the trail near Akiak - just 32 miles short of the finish line.

Race officials had warned mushers at Tuluksak on the way down the frozen Kuskokwim that they were heading into something of a Never-Never Land. Race founder Myron Angstman said winds had played havoc with trail markers, turning a well-marked trail into a lightly marked trail.

Mushers were told to make their own decision about what to do. Race officials said they wouldn't send out a snowmachine escort because so many machines had ended up in trouble in open water the previous day. One spectator following the race by snowmobile died as a result, and race organizers put out a plea urging other spectators to stay home.

Despite the dangers, the dog drivers elected to proceed and, except for Garnie, all the top finishers found the trail. Eventually, the lost Teller musher relocated it, too, but by that time he'd blown a lead of a couple hours over Riley and Iten.

Swingley said he felt sorry about Garnie's fourth-place finish, which cost the Teller musher $7,500 in prize money, but "really happy for Joe. He's really got a nice outfit, a wonderful outfit."

The team, Swingley added, should serve Garnie well in the Iditarod come March. Swingley isn't, however, discounting his own chances in Alaska's biggest and most prestigious athletic competition.

"This is going to be a phenomenal dog team," he said.

He expects most of the K-300 dogs to be in his Iditarod team, though there might be a couple switches. The bench looks strong. While Swingley was winning the K-300, one of his handlers was taking a team of younger Swingley dogs to a third-place finish behind Alaska veterans Mitch Seavey of Seward and Bill Cotter of Nenana in the inaugural 300-mile Grand Portage Passage Sled Dog Race in Minnesota.

Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race

Finishing times

1. Doug Swingley, 2:34 a.m.; 2. Gerald Riley, 4:52 a.m.; 3. Ed Iten, 4:54 a.m.; 4. Joe Garnie, 4:59 a.m.; 5. Martin Buser, 6:54 a.m.; 6. Willie Ekamerak, 11:41 a.m.;7. Paul Gebhardt, 12:03 p.m.; 8. Nathan Underwood, 12:08 p.m.; 9. Rick Swenson, 12:18 p.m.; 10. Louie Nelson, 12:58 p.m.; 11. Jamie Nelson, 1:19 p.m.; 12. Roy Wade, 1:57 p.m.; 13. Charlie Boulding, 2:36 p.m.