Alaskan takes title in Quest

Zirkle is first woman to win 1,000-mile race

By CRAIG MEDRED
Daily News outdoors editor

Fifteen years after Libby Riddles brought an international spotlight to Alaska by battling through a raging Bering Sea storm to become the first woman to win a major, long-distance sled dog race, 30-year-old Aliy Zirkle has mimicked the feat in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.

All she and her team had to do to grab victory was best four mountains, bitter weather, and 28 other mushers.

By the time Zirkle reached the finish line in Takhini Hot Springs, Yukon Territory, at 9:59 a.m. AST Wednesday, fully a quarter of the Quest field had given up, judging the trail too tough for their dogs or themselves.

Billed as the toughest sled-dog race in the world, the Quest roller-coasters its way most years over cold, windswept mountains between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

When the trail isn't climbing or descending, it is often crossing jumbled ice on the Yukon River or treading dangerously close to open water on that big river.

This year the finish line had to be moved north of Whitehorse to Takhini because race officials decided the open water and thin ice along the last 25 miles of Yukon River trail was simply too dangerous for mushers and teams.

Racers who have done both the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which Riddles won, and the Quest say it is hard to compare the two, but the consensus is that the Quest trail is more challenging, the Iditarod competition stiffer.

Denali Park musher Jeff King, who has won both, says a superior dog team is required to win the $525,000 Iditarod, while wilderness savvy is necessary just to survive the $125,000 Quest.

Distances between Quest checkpoints are longer. Temperatures have been known to drop to 80 degrees below zero. And traffic is minimal; mushers who get in trouble have to help themselves or hope their competitors save them.

Zirkle, who grew up in New Hampshire and Puerto Rico, developed the background necessary for this challenge after earning a biology degree at the University of Pennsylvania and moving to Alaska in 1992 in search of adventure.

She found that in the isolated village of Bettles on the south slope of the Brooks Range above the Arctic Circle. There she worked as a biologist and trapper and began mushing.

Over the years, she collected an assortment of village dogs and learned the subtleties of dog handling. She entered her first Quest in 1998 and finished 17th. She surprised a lot of mushers by moving up to fourth last year.

Author Brian O'Donoghue of Fairbanks, a veteran of the Quest and the Iditarod, called that a breakthrough performance and predicted that this year would determine if Zirkle was the real thing or a fluke.

She proved herself to be the real thing, crossing the finish line first to claim the $30,000 top prize. Her time was 10 days, 22 hours and 7 minutes.

A strong-closing Thomas Tetz of Tagish, Yukon Territory, was about a half hour back. He collected $24,000 for the effort. The transplanted German marathon runner had managed to cut into the two-hour lead Zirkle had built three-quarters of the way through the race, but his team didn't have enough to catch her.

Only three other mushers - Frank Turner of Whitehorse, Peter Butteri of Tok and Jack Berry of Homer - were close to finishing Wednesday. They left the Braeburn Lodge checkpoint about 6 a.m. to vie for shares of the purse. The race pays the first 15 finishers.

Zirkle dominated the second half of the Quest as the race crossed into some of the most sparsely populated land in North America. She told reporters at the finish line that she felt confident she would win when she reached the Dawson checkpoint, where mushers are required to take an extended break about halfway through the event.

"I didn't really want to be too big-headed," said the exhausted musher. "I had a plan going into the whole thing. We stuck to that plan and that put me an hour or so ahead of everyone else."

She left the final checkpoint at Braeburn shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday. Knowing Tetz was close on her heels, she ran the final 80-mile leg of the race through the night as the temperature dipped to about 10 degrees below zero.

Zirkle runs a kennel and plots race strategy in Two Rivers with Jerry Loudon, another Quest veteran. Two Rivers is a conclave for mushers in the Fairbanks area. It is full of dog teams and laced with mushing trails.

Zirkle now joins a distinguished list of mushers - including five-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson - who have brought major titles home to the community.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

Thomas Tetz of Tagish, Yukon Territory, glides along the Yukon River as he makes his way to the finish in Whitehorse. (ERIK SIMANIS / Whitehorse Star)