Blink twice, it has been said, and the weather in Alaska will change.
Mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race were getting a vivid reminder of that this week.
On Thursday, when they gathered for the mandatory musher's meeting at the Millennium Alaskan Hotel in Anchorage, there was near panic about the state of the 1,000-mile trail north to Nome, and not without reason.
At the time, there was no trail in many places, and snowmachines were burying themselves in deep snow.
By Friday night, just hours before today's 10 a.m. start in downtown Anchorage, things were shaping up a whole lot better. Trail-breakers for the Iditarod Trail Invitational and the dog race had teamed to punch a trail through chest-deep snow up and over Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range. And with temperatures forecast to drop down around zero overnight, there was a good probability that the trail was going to set up hard and fast.
At least for the first few teams.
Behind the race leaders, there are never any guarantees. Sometimes the lead teams will slog through soft snow, change its consistency, and leave the trail behind better than it was before their passing. Sometimes the lead teams will churn a good trail into sugar that slows the chasers.
Five-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson from Two Rivers wanted to know Thursday if race manager Mark Nordman was planning to put a snowmachine between race leaders and those farther back to help ensure everyone had a snowmachine-packed trail.
"Don't plan on having snowmachines come back," Nordman said.
For years now, the Iditarod has had a general policy of putting two teams of snowmachines on the trail -- a team in front to make sure a trail exists and is marked and a team at the very back to sweep the trail for lagging mushers.
The big logistical problem for race managers is the inherent nature of the Iditarod. Even in the best of times, the path that leads from the Susitna Valley to the Bering Sea is more of a route than a trail.
In some places, where there is forest, reflectors nailed to trees mark the way. Other places, where there is only tundra, tripods can provide a guide. But in many places, the trail -- historic though it may be -- is nothing more than the snowmobile trail of the season along which Iditarod trail-breakers drive surveyor's lathe topped with reflective tape.
Year to year, the exact location of the trail tends to vary considerably depending on who is riding the first snowmachine to pack it in. Still, there is usually some sort of established trail in place before mushers start converging on Anchorage for the traditional, ceremonial start of the race on the first Saturday in March.
For one thing, some trail is usually left behind the races that precede the sled dog race up the trail -- first the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmobile race and then the Iditarod Trail Invitational for cyclists, skiers and runners.
This year, however, so much snow fell after the Iron Dog in early February that any tracks left were buried feet deep. And by the time the Invitational got rolling, there was so much snow that the snowmachines for that race bogged down in Rainy Pass.
While mushers were meeting Thursday in Anchorage, the Invitational athletes were wallowing in waist-deep snow in an effort to get over Rainy Pass. With help from race volunteers and organizers coming from both sides of the pass on snowmobiles, they finally made it, but it was such slow going that race-leading cyclist Jeff Oatley from Fairbanks was caught by walkers over whom he'd held a lead of a day and a half when he left Puntilla about 20 miles from the top.
The mushers shouldn't have nearly so much trouble given the changing conditions, but it is not like there aren't nightmares that could arise. Nordman warned the dog drivers to be alert for moose between Nikolai and McGrath just over the north side of the range.
The state several years ago implemented a predator control program in that area to increase moose numbers. It worked. There are now more moose.
Unfortunately, in a winter when there is deep snow, the moose gravitate toward the snowmobile trails to try to get around, and once in the trenches that those trails become, they don't like to move. Add to this the fact the 1,000-pound animals can get extremely cranky from living on winter's starvation diet, and there can be problems. The late Susan Butcher, a four-time Iditarod champ, was knocked out of the race one year after a moose stomped her team, killing one dog and seriously injuring others.
It might have been worse if a musher coming up behind her hadn't stopped and shot the moose before it could stomp more dogs. Most mushers are this year expected to be packing heat from Nikolai to McGrath just in case. State law allows them to shoot a moose in self-defense, but they must see that its carcass is salvaged for food.
Nordman told the racers that if anyone does any shooting, he expects them to cut up the moose and report it at the next checkpoint so Iditarod volunteers can go out and get the meat.
"That's what your ax is for,'' Nordman said. An ax, snowshoes, a sleeping bag and a few other necessities are among the mandatory items all Iditarod mushers must have in their sleds.
By CRAIG MEDRED and KEVIN KLOTT
Anchorage Daily News