Latest gear lightens the load
Equipment gets lighter, smaller, tougher and more expensive

By Craig Medred
Daily News Outdoors Editor
February 23, 1997

Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News Jerry Austin of St. Michael wears a headlamp while starting his stove in the fast,efficient campsite of the modern Iditarod racer.

Out in the cold and dark of the first Iditarod, mushers on crude wooden sleds sought their way with weak flashlights, Coleman lanterns, evencandles. The year was 1973, but the technology of sled dog racing was still in its Dark Ages. Legendary, turn-of-the-century mushers Leonhard Seppala,John ''Iron Man'' Johnson or Hudson Stuck would have felt right at home lurching into the arctic night. Competition changed that. As the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race became more contest and less camping trip, mushers demanded equipment thatwas tough, lightweight and easy to use. The first Iditarod headlamp, for example, was none of those: Batteries were weak; bulbs threw a faint, yellow light; plastic reflectors broke; andcords stiffened and tangled in the cold.

As late as 1987, then-four-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson complained that there was only one way to get a decent headlamp:

". . . You have to do the fabrication yourself,'' Swenson wrote in his book, "The Secrets of Long Distance Training and Racing." He offeredbuild-it-yourself instructions.

The battery boxes of alkaline D-cells or expensive, cold-resistant lithium cells are fitted with the handy, heavy-duty bumper switch Swenson firstsuggested, though Cummings says he can do even better.

"Gold-contact switches, that's the ultimate,'' he said. ''But they're about $26 a switch. Everything helps (performance), but it's a question of howmuch do you want to spend.''

Lead Dog's headlamp is $165, more than six times the cost of a mass-produced version.

Most serious competitors consider the expense worthwhile. Much the same logic applies for new and better dog collars, harnesses, ganglines,tuglines, sled bags, sled brakes, snowmobile-track drags, snowhooks, dog food cookers, clothing, sleds and sleeping bags.

Top mushers spend $500 to $700 for sleeping bags that will keep them warm in 40-below-zero weather. By paying top dollar, they buy personalsafety without increasing the weight of the load the dogs must pull. The lighter the load, the faster the team. Technology has also improved upon sled materials and design. Twenty-five years ago, dogs strained to pull steel sled runners over frozen ground. "Steel pulls harder as it gets colder,'' noted Joe Redington, who has used it more than any other Iditarod musher. "You can hear it scream at 30 to40 degrees below zero and feel a heavy drag.'' To make better-sliding sleds, mushers stole ski technology. Shortly after plastic bases appeared on skis, mushers bolted plastic to the bottoms oftheir sled runners. Then Minnesota musher and sled designer Tim White, a veteran of the 1974 Iditarod, came up with an even better idea: the QCR System, as inQuick Change Runners. He embedded an aluminum rail in the wooden runner of a dog sled and had plastic runner material molded to fit the rail. The plastic slid onto therail and was secured with a single bolt.

Anchorage Daily News Fred Jackson works on sled runners in Rainy Pass in 1985.

Suddenly, it was quick and easy for mushers to replace a damaged runner surface, or change the plastic to match temperatures. Mushers today canbuy SuperHard's white UHMW (ultra-high molecular weight) plastic for general, all-around use or select from black, green, blue or orange plasticsthat slide better at various temperatures.

Plastic wasn't the only innovation White brought to the Iditarod. He was the first musher to use the modern-day toboggan sled with its low runnersand plastic bottom.

That sled was simple and light weight, with two-inch-thick, plastic-capped runners bolted to either side of a sheet of plastic. A plastic brushbowbolted to the front helped the sled bounce off trees, and an upright wooden drive bow secured to the back of the runners with stanchions providedsteering. The sled was easily repaired in the field.

Erik Hill / Anchorage Daily News Martin Buser tried a sail in 1993 to take advantage of a tailwind.

Better yet, the new sled rode over snow instead of dragging through it. Swenson was quick to see the advantages. A 10th-place rookie in 1976, herode a toboggan to his first victory in 1977. After that, almost every Iditarod musher had to have a toboggan, though lightweight versions oftraditional, raised-basket sleds remained favored for hard-packed surfaces. Weights for both kinds of sleds keep going down. Bob Bright of Chicago showed up for last year's Iditarod with a titanium-and-plastic tobogganthat weighed little more than 20 pounds. DeeDee Jonrowe has been riding a 25-pound French-made sled called The Extraboggan Generation 4. The Extraboggan boasts Kevlar runners, apolyethylene chassis, a molded plastic brush bow mounted on shock-absorbing joints and dual brakes with tungsten tips.

The first Iditarod racers carried their gear in canvas tarps lashed in sled baskets. Today everyone uses lightweight sled bags modified with zippersand Velcro to allow speedy access to equipment.

A barebones sled and sled bag can be found for less than $1,000. The Extraboggan costs more than twice that.

Technology costs, but competitive mushers have shown a willingness to pay. They were quick to adopt the pricey windproof, waterproof andbreathable Gore-Tex laminate fabrics developed for mountaineers. Some are even reported to have invested in Gore-Tex dog coats.

Many mushers don't hesitate to spend money on warm, durable polypropylene and polyester pile fabrics for themselves or their dogs' harnessesand booties. They pay for expensive stainless steel aircraft cable to insert into hollow, braided polyethlene gang lines to prevent dogs from chewingthrough rope and turning part of the team loose.

Anything to make the equipment more durable or the load lighter without sacrificing dependability. It all started in earnest when Butcher beatSwenson in a head-to-head duel in 1987. His dogs quit at Safety just outside of Nome. Hers marched on into town with a four-hour margin ofvictory and a new race record.

"It was a combination of a good team, extremely lightweight driver and well planned out loads,'' Swenson later wrote. "I would guess Susan wascarrying a combined load of at least 50 pounds less than any of us were at any time during the race. That allowed her dogs to maintain their quickpace farther than ours.''

After that, the rush was on to cut weight. Between light loads, better sleds and slick new runners, two-time Iditarod winner and defending champJeff King now believes he has the race down to where his dogs do almost no pulling on good, level trail. There is, collectively, so little energyneeded to keep the sled moving, he said, the effort expended by any one dog is negligible.

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