Danger rides along the trail
Amazingly, no musher has ever died during the Iditarod despite severe weather and physical exhaustion

By Doug O'Harra
Daily News Reporter
February 23, 1997

Facing into a frigid torrent of wind, mushers Gary Whittemore and Terry Adkins struggled to cross frozen Norton Bay during the 1991 IditarodTrail Sled Dog Race. The worst blizzard in years had pinned them on the ice overnight.

''We knew we could survive,'' Whittemore said. ''But we knew it would be really marginal to try to make it another night. We knew we had to findKoyuk.''

Like many other mushers over a quarter century of races, the two men were crowding the boundary that divides safety from injury or death. ForWhittemore, it would take only a nudge to cross the line.

Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News Linwood Fiedler shows the marks of a rugged ride through the Farewell Burn in 1992.

On shore, a minus-28 degree temperature and 50-knot wind created a chill factor of at least 100 degrees below zero -- cold enough to freezeexposed skin within seconds. Koyuk villagers judged the storm too violent to mount a rescue. With daylight, Whittemore and Adkins began the drive toward Koyuk, only a few hours and a dozen miles away. The wind scoured them head-onwith a gale of ice bits and snow, but they kept moving. Whittemore's goggles began to frost over. He tried to scrub them out. It didn't work. He took them off. As he drove directly into the wind, watching the trail from inside his parka hood, ice began to clog the lashes of his left eye. Whittemore rubbed itwith his mitten. Later, he rubbed the eye again. Then again. ''And then it reached a point where I couldn't see out of my left eye,'' Whittemore said. ''Well,' I thought, 'I've got my right eye.' But then I startedhaving trouble seeing out of my right eye.'' By the time Whittemore reached Koyuk, just before noon, much of his upper face had frozen -- eyelids and cheeks stiff and white, left eye swollenshut, right eye beginning to close. ''It was ugly,'' he recalled. With such severe frostbite, Whittemore had to scratch from the race, losing his best chance of a top-20 finish (Adkins went on to place 19th). Yetfrom another perspective, Whittemore was extraordinarily lucky. Had the musher from Cantwell been alone or farther out, he might not have emerged from the storm at all. Another hour, and frostbite would haveshut both eyes. A blinded musher alone on the sea ice in a blizzard could easily die.

As Whittemore discovered, tiny problems can combine with trail conditions and physical exhaustion to push Iditarod mushers to the brink of fataldanger. Every year, storms slam into teams. Moose attack with flailing hooves. Sleep-starved mushers get lost, crash into trees, break bones, driveinto overflow, slice themselves open with axes or snow hooks. They suffer ailments ranging from viral infections to poisoning. They make mistakes.

For all that, the Iditarod has one amazing statistic. After 1,400 entries in 24 races -- the equivalent of one person spending 50 years traversing 1.3million miles of Alaska's wintertime wilderness, often under the worst possible conditions -- no one has died.

To be sure, the race doesn't usually directly threaten anyone's life. The two most obvious fatal obstacles, extreme arctic blizzards or deep openwater, are relatively rare.

''The only two mushers I know who have died both drowned -- and that wasn't on the Iditarod,'' says two-time champion Jeff King. ''The Iditarodhas evolved to have so much trail support and emphasis on safety. I think the thing that could still catch somebody would be the rare blizzard.''

As a result, King says, it's a mistake to exaggerate the peril.

''It is not more dangerous than a whole bunch of other things we have become accustomed to,'' he said. ''I mean, 11 people died on MountMcKinley (in one year) -- now that's dangerous.''

Aiding those in trouble has a long tradition in the race, often with a contender abandoning her position to help a rival.

Several mushers who stopped to help an ailing Mike Madden in 1989 all lost the chance to compete for "Rookie of the Year" honors. SusanButcher halted to help Rick Swenson fix a burned out headlamp during a potentially deadly blizzard on the final run to Nome in 1991, a raceSwenson ultimately won.

Race officials try hard to monitor the progress of racers between checkpoints. Race manager Jack Niggemyer travels with a barrel of emergencysupplies he can drop from an airplane. He also keeps a list of about 200 people in villages he can count on to mount a rescue, if needed.

''What a lot of people never see behind the scenes is how much time we spend tracking people,'' Niggemyer said. ''Every year, I've had to institutethree or four searches for mushers. But even then, it usually turns out that they're hunkered down in a storm and they're fine.''

And yet, despite the diligence of race officials, villagers and fellow racers, almost every year someone nearly dies.

A ground blizzard on the Solomon River drainage outside Nome nearly killed Anchorage musher Bob Ernisse in 1992. Wet gloves and a dampsuit set in motion a series of mishaps that left Ernisse hypothermic as he went to bed. When fellow musher Bob Hickel found Ernisse in the morning, he had spent half the night lying in his open sled, hands and feet ruined by frostbite, snow packed around his body, perhaps an hour ortwo from death.

Ernisse, who ran in 1994 without problems and has entered the race this year, says his experience proved that something as insignificant as dampgloves can have dangerous consequences for those pushing the margin of safety.

''We've been very lucky,'' he said. ''Real lucky.''

Two-time champ Martin Buser of Big Lake, who seized his first win the same year as Ernisse's close call, agreed.

''Think of the people who live in the villages,'' Buser said in 1992, about a month after the accident. ''It's not unheard of that those people perish,and those are not rookies. They know the blowholes, they know the overflow. Those are local people, and yet still they die. ''It's just a matter of time before one of the Iditarod mushers has the same fate.'' Cataloguing the dangers of the race supports the point. The trail runs a gantlet of spruce, rocks and ravines as it climbs into and crosses the AlaskaRange. Mushers have broken bones by cracking into trees. They have tumbled down Happy River gorge. Bruises, sprains and gouges prevail. ''I think the potential for non-life-threatening injuries is pretty high,'' said King, ''and that would, first and foremost, be impact with an immovableobject.''

Jim Lavrakas / Anchorage Daily News Alan Garth wrestles his sled out of Dalzell Creek in 1991. Getting wet and hypothermic is a constant threat for Iditarod mushers, but not one of the hundreds of mushers who've run the Iditarod over the past 24 years has perished.

Moose present a more dramatic danger. More than once, the cantankerous animals have attacked teams, killing dogs or kicking mushers. In themost notorious example, a moose stomped through Susan Butcher's 1985 team, killing several dogs and forcing the future champion to drop fromthe race. Every year, moose severely injure at least one recreational dog musher in Southcentral Alaska.

Other fatal dangers arise from the logistics of wilderness operation. In 1994, five mushers suffered carbon monoxide poisoning while napping in anairtight tent warmed by a propane heater at the Finger Lake checkpoint. When one of them realized something was wrong and began yelling, twomushers already were unconscious, in imminent danger of asphyxiation. All five eventually recovered and resumed racing.

Sometimes, mushers don't take enough personal gear to endure the worst weather, opting instead to carry dog-care equipment or lighten theirsleds. Most mushers don't carry shovels, for instance -- standard equipment for skiers or winter mountaineers. The survival gear required by racerules is usually packed in the sled, unavailable to mushers who lose their teams and end up afoot. Some less experienced racers even wear townclothing under their parkas.

''To tell you the honest-to-God truth, I think they're woefully unprepared,'' said Niggemyer, himself a wilderness guide. ''I watch these guys go outthere with such tunnel vision, focusing on the care of their dog team, and then they go and take off across the heart of Alaska in blue jeans.''

Sheer exhaustion puts mushers at risk for hypothermia, which can hit veterans and rookies alike. Former Iditarod champ Rick Mackey was foundracing back toward Anchorage during a 1980s race, chilled and disoriented. More recently, rookie Bill Peele nearly died while crossing thedesolate territory between McGrath and the Yukon River in 1991. His ordeal began when he starting slipping snow down his suit to stay awake.

Later he took off his gloves, hoping the pain would keep him awake.

As his temperature dropped and his judgment evaporated, Peele's hands froze, ruined by frostbite. He was unable to open his sled bag or retrievehis sleeping bag. By the time a villager found him on the trail outside Shageluk, Peele was lying asleep on the snow beside his sled. After hisrescue, Peele told reporters he had recorded a ''good-bye'' to his wife and children in North Carolina.

Sometimes the danger arises from internal causes. Mike Madden became severely ill with fever in the 1989 race, and was saved by five musherswho nursed him until a helicopter could fly him to Anchorage. Veteran musher Sonny Lindner became ill with pneumonia during the 1985 race,prompting several mushers to cook him warm food and help him recover. Lindner went on to finish 9th.

The most extreme hazards of all haunt the 229 miles of trail along the Bering Sea coast, where subzero temperatures can unite with region-widestorms to brew blizzards with deadly windchill.

''I think if we ever lose a musher, it would be between Shaktoolik and Nome,'' predicts Iditarod founder Joe Redington.

While such blizzards may be dangerous in themselves, Iditarod mushers have always made matters worse by pushing into the storms rather thanholing up, as any gold-rush era musher or villager would have done. Making a dash into such weather has evolved into the premier race trick, partof Iditarod lore, what one veteran musher likened to ''passing on the outside lane in a race car.''

Paul Souders / Anchorage Daily News Ground blizzards along the last 200 miles of the Bering Sea coast have imperiled many a racer. "If we ever lose a musher," Iditarod founder Joe Redington said, "it would be between Shaktoolik and Nome."

''Shishmaref Cannonball'' Herbie Nayokpuk left Shaktoolik into a blizzard in 1982, seizing the temporary lead of the race. But the wind was severeenough to pin him down on the ice, overnight, and force him to retreat to Shaktoolik the next morning. Yet Libby Riddles parlayed similar weather into a spectacular win in 1985 when she left Shaktoolik as night fell, spent the night in her sled, andachieved a lead she never lost. In 1991, the same blizzard that trapped Whittemore and Adkins on the ice forced four-time winner Susan Butcher and others to turn back on thefinal drive to Nome. That allowed Rick Swenson to seize an unprecedented fifth win by tying himself to his dogs and stomping forward into theblizzard on snowshoes. Buser kept going, too, and took second place.

Mushers say they will continue to push those margins.

''I'm experienced enough, and I dare take the challenge,'' Buser said later. ''And quite frankly, I think a lot of the mystique of the race is to seewhether any individual can make it through a test like that.''

And maybe some Iditarod mushers are too ornery to let blizzards or injuries stop them.

Joe Garnie broke his arm outside Skwentna in 1992. Instead of quitting, he splinted his arm with a tree branch and duct tape. Then he proceededto finish the race, arriving in Nome in 20th place. A half dozen years earlier, in the 1985 race, Jerry Austin broke his hand. He tried to splint it, butwhen it began to freeze on the Yukon River, he removed the splint and kept going anyway, holding on to his sled while his bones throbbed.''I've got a lot of respect for all mushers, but some of these guys are just phenomenally tough,'' Ernisse said.

The toughness is mental as well as physical. Struggling to drive his team toward Nome during the 1991 blizzard, Lavon Barve and his dogsskittered down an embankment on the trail between Elim and Golovin. When Barve tried to lead his team back to the trail, the dogs got away fromhim and disappeared into the whiteout.

Afoot in a raging blizzard with no water, no food and no shelter, the Wasilla musher began to trudge down the trail toward Golovin.

''I decided I didn't want to just sit there,'' Barve recalled. ''The biggest thing when you get into a situation is you've got to have common sense.''

So Barve kept walking. He walked for 18 hours, moving just fast enough to keep from freezing. Finally, when the blizzard let up, rescuers onsnowmobiles found him stumbling along, one mile from a shelter cabin.

People on foot in Arctic blizzards often lie down and die. Not Barve.

''I'm bullheaded,'' he explained.

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