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| 28th
year of Alaska's great race
|
| 01/24/00 BOULDING WINS KUSKOKWIM 300 VETERAN MUSHER BRAVES BLIZZARD By S.J. Komarnitsky Daily News Reporter UPPER KALSKAG--With a blizzard raging outside and nearly everyone indoors -- including his wife -- questioning his sanity, Charlie Boulding set out alone into a blinding snowstorm Saturday night, making the move that would bring victory Sunday afternoon in the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race. Boulding's tracks disappeared almost instantly while savage wind gusts turned his white windbreaker into more of a sail than a coat. At the time, the decision seemed ludicrous. But the two-time Yukon Quest champion made the move pay off, pulling into Bethel at 12:10 p.m. to win $20,000 and his second Kusko 300 title. ''In 21 years of involvement in the Kuskokwim 300,'' race manager Bev Hoffman said later, ''I thought I saw everything.'' Not so. Boulding has carved out a subsistence living at a remote Interior cabin about 30 miles from Manley for years. He's known for his toughness and ingenuity. But by driving into the blizzard, which saw winds exceed 70 mph, he risked getting lost, plunging into overflow or, just as dangerous, asking too much of his team. Some dogs, challenged once too often, lose their trust in the musher guiding them. Only one musher, Linwood Fiedler of Willow, followed Boulding into the storm, leaving a little over an hour later. ''I'll just sleep out there'' if it gets too bad, Fiedler told a checker before disappearing into the darkness. Most mushers figured the howling wind and blowing snow would force Boulding to return within minutes. For a while, it looked that way as Boulding's team zigged and zagged across the frozen Kuskokwim River searching for the trail that lay beneath a wind-blown carpet of snow. Two hours later, officials at the Upper Kalskag checkpoint got word from a snowmachiner that Boulding had progressed only 10 miles, a frighteningly slow place for a team that usually averages 10 to 15 mph. Even if Boulding made it to the next checkpoint, many racers figured, his dogs would be tired. Denali Park musher Jeff King started talking about pulling harnesses off his dogs and staying the night here. A weary-looking Ramy Brooks also was considering camping out at this riverside village. He'd already pushed his team over more than 40 miles of punchy snow just to get to this checkpoint, often breaking through trail blown in by drifting snow. He saw no sense in putting his dogs through more of that. ''If it clears, I'll go,'' he said. Around 9 p.m. Saturday, more than three hours after Boulding's departure, the weather did exactly that. The snow stopped. Clouds lifted. Mushers who had been sleeping or resting began packing up gear and putting on parkas. Others heard the movements and started to get ready too. An exodus had begun. In the next hour, half a dozen teams left this riverside checkpoint, hoping the clear trail would make them the speedy rabbits to catch a slowing Boulding and Fiedler. ''The calm before the storm,'' Kotzebue musher Ed Iten joked as he headed out the trail and onto the river. But the chasers were too late. The trail markers had done an exceptional job, and Fielder stayed about an hour behind Boulding. In fact, the only time Boulding saw his rival was in Tuluksak, 50 miles downriver from Kalskag, where both mushers took a mandatory four-hour rest. But Boulding did see plenty of water. About 15 miles from the Bethel finish line, Boulding went into waist-deep Kuskokwim River overflow. Warm weather and a morning high tide combined for ideal overflow conditions. ''He was pretty wet,'' said Boulding's wife, Robin, who followed the race on snowmachine. With his second Kuskokwim 300 victory, Boulding, 58, broke a record he set four years ago as the oldest musher to win the race. In 1996, he beat runner-up Jeff King here, but two months later King captured his second Iditarod championship, with Boulding seventh. The Manley musher hopes he can avoid a similar reversal this year. For one thing, Boulding left his main lead dog, Incredible Hulk, home nursing a tendon injury. A healed and rested lead dog could boost a team that is getting used to winning. A week ago, Boulding won the Klondike 300 Sled Dog Race in Big Lake. ''But,'' Robin Boulding allowed, ''it's dog racing, so you never know what can happen. So many things can go wrong.'' Especially, it seems, on the Kuskokwim 300. Boulding's time was the slowest in years, well off Martin Buser's Kusko record of just over 37 hours. And some mushers remained on the trail Sunday night. When news of Boulding's victory reached Kalskag on Sunday afternoon, musher David Fitka was just loading up the last of his gear in preparation for leaving. The last musher in the race -- two others behind him had scratched -- Fitka wasn't expected to reach Bethel until this morning. ''Boulding won. That's great,'' Fitka said slowly as if it were news from some event unrelated to the race he was running. With 150 miles of soft trail ahead and only a few hours of sleep, all he wanted to concentrate on was making it to the finish. ''OK, boys,'' he called to his team. ''We're going home.'' Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com CUTLINE: At age 58, Charlie Boulding won his second Kuskokwim 300 on Sunday and broke his own record for being the oldest winner of the race. Charlie Boulding heads for the finish line Sunday in Bethel. EOF |
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Anchorage Daily News