DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow catches a few winks with two of her fellow mushers at the Koyuk checkpoint during the 1995 Iditarod. Exhaustion can be a factor in the second half of the Iditarod, where racers go with less than three hours sleep for more than a week. (BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News)

'How many dogs did you milk?'

After 9 days on trail, mushers sometimes just want to survive

By S.J. KOMARNITSKY
Anchorage Daily News reporter

Editor’s note: The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is a 10-day, 1,100-mile war of attrition. Dogs tire out and get dropped. Most dog drivers press on – no matter how tired, sore or beat up they might be. What follows is a snapshot of their state at the last mandatory rest stop in 1999.

WHITE MOUNTAIN – John Baker started snoring almost as soon as his body hit the floor. These were not small, occasional snorts. The Kotzebue musher sent off long, ripping snores that echoed through the room like the throbbing of a sick tuba.

After a thousand miles of trail and nine days with little rest, Baker was exhausted – as were a half dozen other front-runners gathered at this riverside village 75 miles from Nome.

Almost all had started the 27th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race hoping to be first under the burled arch in Nome. But after battling two storms, slogging through deep snow and getting soaked in overflow, they wanted only the end of the race.

They were tired, dirty and sore, and – worst of all – everyone in the checkpoint knew Montanan Doug Swingley had the ’99 Iditarod victory sewn up.

‘‘I should have been here a day ago,’’ said Willow musher Vern Halter, who arrived just before midnight looking fatigued and half frozen.

In the minus-25 degree temperature, frost covered his face. He was glad to come inside and join the mushers already here.

‘‘I’m looking forward to being on a plane,’’ said Kotzebue musher Ed Iten, resting on a chair inside the city offices that serve as the checkpoint.

Most of the mushers had pushed their teams to reach this village, knowing they would have a mandatory eight-hour rest before they could head on to the finish line in Nome.

They stumbled into the city offices just after midnight, bleary-eyed and looking for a place to grab some sleep. Some napped a few hours before getting up for a breakfast of pancakes and sausage.

The sleep was welcome, but the few hours were not enough to clear all of the fog in their heads. Their minds remained muddled, and sometimes their tongues twisted on them.

‘‘How many dogs did you milk?’’ Ramey Smyth asked defending champ Jeff King.

He had meant to ask how many dogs Swingley had taken out of White Mountain on the trail to Nome.

‘‘He had 12 coming into White Mountain and he dropped one ... so one,’’ a race volunteer offered. A slight pause followed.

Then King picked up on the response.

‘‘Wow, that must be one hell of a dog,’’ he said.

That sort of humor is sometimes all mushers have to keep them going by this stage of the race. They are, by now, in a constant struggle to stay awake.

Many end up falling asleep and tumbling off their sleds repeatedly on the run up the Bering Sea coast. The barren, snow-covered and windswept land offers little exciting to look at, and mushers tire on a series of long, rolling hills.

Smyth, who celebrated his 24th birthday on the trail, felt himself tipping off his sled eight times after leaving Unalakleet.

Most times he caught himself before falling completely off, but twice he woke up in the snow on the ground.

‘‘It’s kind of funny when you do it,’’ he said.

Bill Cotter of Nenana said he got a face full of snow after launching off his sled.

‘‘That kept me up for a while,’’ he said.

Kasilof musher Paul Gebhardt said he dozed off going down a hill known as Little McKinley just past the Elim checkpoint.

‘‘I was standing on the (sled) brake, and the vibrations just put to me sleep,’’ he said.

Later, he ran into Baker, who had a similar story. The difference was that when Baker woke up, his dogs were on the sea ice, looking back and wondering why Baker was still standing on the brake.

Mushers weren’t the only ones who were tired. Most dogs curled up immediately after pulling into the checkpoint and were reluctant to get moving when the time to leave arrived. Mushers had to walk their stiff teams out onto the trail to get everyone moving.

Injuries – mostly muscle sprains and strains – and fatigue had reduced most teams to nearly half their original size.

Smyth had only seven of his original 16 dogs, and he was worried about having the minimum five he needed to cross the finish line in Nome.

‘‘We’ll be lucky just to get in there,’’ he said.

And while the mushers and their dogs were looking forward to a good long rest, their battle wasn’t over. Several teams were close enough to make it a tight race for the top money spots. Gebhardt, for example, was less than an hour behind Charlie Boulding, who was fifth.

‘‘You’re not going to chase me, are you, Paul?’’ Boulding asked. ‘‘I don’t want to race.’’

Gebhardt didn’t answer immediately, but later he grabbed a list that showed the prize money for each finishing position. The difference between fifth and sixth place was less than $2,000.

‘‘It’s not worth it for that,’’ he said.

Still, Gebhardt couldn’t relax too much even if he wanted. Two teams – Baker and King – were close behind.

‘‘It’s Jeff chasing John chasing me and I’m chasing Charlie,’’ he said.

Boulding knew the race wasn’t over.

‘‘There’s no relaxing until you get under the burled arch, get the check and get it in the bank,’’ he said.

As it turned out, Boulding hung on for fifth and Gebhardt got sixth, but King – racing to the very end – caught Baker to finish seventh.

Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com.

At the halfway checkpoint of Iditarod 1999, lack of sleep and the effects of tough weather begin to show on Martin Buser as he chases 1999 front-runner Doug Swingley. (BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News)