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ROHN - Fear of the unknown haunted the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race rookies on the verge of their first passage through the Alaska Range into the wild Interior. After more than a dozen years on sled runners, having built a business hauling people around on sled-dog tours, Mike Murphy figured he was largely immune to nerves. The long-haired, roly-poly, good-natured Michigan rookie was a tough guy - a former semi-pro football player who'd dabbled in other rough-and-ready sports, from lacrosse to rugby. Since falling victim to sled-dog fever, he'd racked up thousands of miles behind dog teams and run a slew of mid-distance races. Then came his introduction to wilderness Alaska on the rugged trail from Finger Lake up to Rainy Pass. That trail beat some of the memories and most of the confidence out of Murphy. On that one 30-mile run, Murphy tipped his sled more times than he has all year training in Michigan. "At every checkpoint, I keep asking everyone what the trail is like," he said. "Everywhere they tell me, 'It's great.' "I guess it's all relative. The conditions are real good. It's the trail that's pretty wild. This ain't like nothin' I've ever driven." This is a trail with dips and moguls the size of what qualify for hills back in Michigan. The terrain pounds any cockiness out of rookies. By the Rainy Pass Lodge at Puntilla Lake, more than 160 miles from the race start, Murphy was half looking for excuses not to continue. Just beyond the windswept pass awaited the dreaded Dalzell Gorge. Fellow rookie Bill McKee of Fairbanks was suffering much the same experience. Once the next-door neighbor of 1991 Iditarod red-lantern winner Brian O'Donoghue, McKee had heard more than his share of horror stories. Talking to Murphy at the Rainy Pass checkpoint didn't help. Their anxieties much fed on each other. "We were debating and debating leaving," he said. "The bottom line was we were just scared." As darkness settled over the mountains, the two mushers looked at their well-rested teams and realized that sooner or later they had to go. They couldn't sit in Rainy Pass forever, Murphy said, and after promising so much to friends, family and sponsors they couldn't quit. "Terry (Hinesly, a race official) told me it was better to go through at night," Murphy said. "There were only a couple places that would have freaked me during the day." So off into the darkness the two mushers headed. Safely in the cabin here Wednesday, Murphy confessed there were a couple of places that scared him in the dark, including the descent from the 3,160-foot crest of the pass. "It seemed like it went straight downhill," Murphy said. He hung tight to the handlebar of the sled and steered as best he could as the dogs, happy to be running downhill, accelerated into the headwaters of Pass Fork Creek and through the S-turns that run almost lugelike to the Dalzell. Then it was up the big hill, like a roller-coaster on a climb, and down the other side into a slalom course of ice ledges before reaching the ice bridges along the fast-flowing open water of Dalzell Creek. After that ride, McKee said Wednesday, he was compelled to stop his team to catch his breath on the smooth surface of the Tatitna River five or six miles from the checkpoint. "When I hit the river," Murphy said, "I just went 'Yeah!'" "It puts you in a whole different league as a dog driver," McKee added as he and his new found friend shared breakfast and trail stories at the table in the half-light of the little log cabin that serves as the checkpoint. "I'm definitely getting an appreciation for those guys who are moving fast," Murphy said. "Those guys are definitely dog drivers" Those guys - defending Iditarod champ Doug Swingley from Lincoln, Mont.; five-time champ Rick Swenson from Two Rivers, three-time champs Jeff King from Denali Park and Martin Buser from Big Lake, along with a pack of others - were by then more than 150 miles ahead, far from the mountains and racing fast for the Yukon River, always looking ahead. Murphy and McKee, meanwhile, were momentarily looking back, happy to have survived the Alaska Range, still trying to catalog the memories for future years. They really didn't want to look ahead to the snow-short Post River country, notorious for sled-pounding tussocks, and the windswept isolation of the Farewell Burn, which has forced many a rookie musher to quit. Murphy was balancing the myth and the history of this stretch of trail against another report of unsually good conditions this year. "That's what they've told me everywhere," he said. "I guess there ain't no other way out of here anyway." With that, he opened a tin of Copenhagen chewing tobacco, popped a pinch between his cheek and gum, and went out of the cabin to spend some more time with the dogs he'd counted on to get him this far. Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com at the end of the Iditarod.
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