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See Related File
See related pages:
http://www.adn.com/pf/mushing
http://www.iditarod.com/
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/
IDITAROD - With a stiff breeze blowing in his face and frosty snowflakes pattering down on his sled, John Baker pulled his dog team into this once-thriving mining town tired and late on Thursday morning. The Kotzebue musher had gambled on pushing to the halfway checkpoint, and the gamble went sour. On the 90-mile run along the Innoko River and through the Beaver Mountains from Ophir, he got caught in a snow squall that turned a hard, fast trail into a slow, punchy one. His dogs went from a fast trot to a crawl. Instead of sticking close to Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race front-runners Martin Buser and Doug Swingley, Baker fell 10 hours behind. "I think I'm going to go to take a nap now," he said, swaying slightly from side to side as he stood by his sled, a sleeping bag in one hand. His team of 14 dogs was already curling up on the piles of straw he laid out for them. Nearby, the teams of Swingley and Buser were already asleep, nested on straw and tucked under blankets to fend off the cold. The two leaders had taken a risk as well, pushing on to this checkpoint far from anywhere. Swingley led the way, coming in just before midnight Wednesday to collect the halfway prize - $3,000 in gold nuggets. Buser followed 40 minutes later. They beat the storm that dumped on Baker, but they had to contend with problems of their own. The Montanan Swingley is nursing cracked or bruised ribs - he isn't sure which - that stem from a crash a mile out of Wasilla on the first day of the race. That is bad enough, but his sled riding got more difficult early Thursday morning when he broke a sled runner in a crash on his way into Iditarod. He had to limp his sled into the checkpoint, get permission from race officials to ship in the used and damaged sled he thought he'd left behind in Takotna, and then worry about its getting to the checkpoint. Snow and low clouds had many planes grounded. Meanwhile, Buser was worrying about the size of his team. He is down to 10 dogs. He has been forced to drop six of the 16 with which he started, including long-time leader Blondie. He said he had pushed on to Iditarod behind Swingley because of his small team. He needed to get them further into the race before taking the Iditarod's one, mandatory 24-hour rest, he said. "It hurts physically, but maybe more psychologically," the Big Lake musher said of having to drop so many dogs early in the race. "I might have trained them too hard." As the two race leaders and Baker enjoyed a quiet afternoon on the snow-covered ice of a slough next to the remnant buildings of this ghost town, a pack of more than a half-dozen mushers - including five-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson from Two Rivers and defending champ Jeff King from Denali Park - were closing in. The first teams were expected to arrive hours before Swingley and Buser would be cleared to leave. After the 90-mile run from Ophir, however, those teams would need to rest. The big question in the air centered on who would be in better shape leaving Iditarod. Swingley and Buser who had a hard, fast trail into Iditarod? Or those in the pack on the way? The chasers had to battle softer trail, but they could alternate the chore of trail-breaking, and had stopped and rested their teams earlier. With more than 500 miles left to go before Nome, even those who know the race are hard-pressed to answer who has the advantage now. "All at once the weather has become a player," said former Yukon Quest winner and Iditarod veteran Bruce Lee, a race judge at this checkpoint. "But it may or may not be an advantage." Four-time Iditarod champ Susan Butcher, a commentator for the USA Network, thought the soft trail would work in favor of Buser and Swingley. "It benefited these guys 100 percent," she said, "and those guys running behind can't be too happy about it." Even more troubling to them than the trail conditions, however, might be the speed of Swingley's team. On the 25-mile run from McGrath to Takotna, which mushers make without a stop, he posted the second fastest time of the race. The only team faster was that of Mitch Seavey of Seward, but his dogs had just come off a 24-hour rest in McGrath. Swingley's dogs had yet to take their long break. On the run from Takotna to Ophir, another stretch mushers do without a stop, Swingley's team posted the fastest time of the race. The second fastest team belonged to Bill Cotter of Nenana; his team was also fresh off a 24-hour rest. Over the 40 miles going into Ophir, Swingley's team - still to get that rejuvenating, 24-hour rest - posted a time five to more than 30 minutes faster than the freshly rested teams that followed later. That was bad news for the chasers even before the snow started to soften the trail. The best they can hope for, Butcher said, is to work together and hope the freshness of their dogs helps. What's it all mean in the long run? "It's really hard to say," she said. A lot of racing remains to be played out. The leaders understood that. Soon be joined by a mass of other teams, the trio in Iditarod tried to relax. Buser and Baker slept the afternoon away on a straw-covered floor in a heated tent like a couple of contented puppies. But Swingley sat next to a wood stove in a small, plywood, trapper's cabin - the only habitable building here - talking to Butcher and Lee. The conversation swung from dogs to the latest Jon Krakauer book, "Into Thin Air," and back to dogs. Everyone raved about Nenana musher Cotter's team. "It is so gorgeous," Butcher said. "He is going to gobble some teams up." They also joked about an Iditarod award being given out by Iridium, a manufacturer of satellite cellular telephones and a race sponsor. The award goes to the musher who best communicates with the press. "They're going to have make it $50,000 for some mushers to want to talk to the media," Swingley said. A man intolerant of silly or stupid questions, Swingley is considered somewhat aloof by some members of the press. On Thursday, he was largely just preoccupied, fretting about whether his replacement sled would arrive. "Go to sleep," Butcher advised. "You're just being nervous." About 2:30 p.m., a small plane finally landed with the sled. Buser, who by that time was awake, came over to see why Swingley was so pleased. "Look at him," Buser said. "He's all smiling like a little baby. It's like he got a new toy." Swingley for the most part ignored the teasing, turning his attention instead to to one of his dogs. But as he rubbed the dog's head he said: "Yeah, we're going to make it now." * Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com
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