Alaska News

Mackey remains in control

The 15-dog team of Lance Mackey was following a snaky trail up the Yukon River into the dark, the cold and the wind on Saturday night as a chase pack of mushers formed up behind to try to run down the leader in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

At Eagle Island, a remote checkpoint set up in a heated wall tent halfway up the river between the villages of Grayling and Kaltag, four-time Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race champion Jeff King from Denali Park and 2004 Iditarod champ Mitch Seavey from Sterling, along with mushers Jon Baker from Kotzebue and Cim Smyth from Big Lake, looked poised to depart just about the time another trio of Mackey stalkers came off mandatory 8-hour breaks.

Those three included Sebastian Schnuelle from Whitehorse, Hugh Neff from Skagway and surprising Aaron Burmeister from Nenana. Schnuelle won the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race only about two weeks ago with Neff only four minutes behind in second. Burmeister is a veteran of 11 Iditarods whose front-running performance this year has caught many by surprise.

Whether any of them has a chance of preventing Mackey from turning this Iditarod into a three-peat remains to be seen. The Fairbanks musher looked to have a solid lead of four to five hours as the race headed for Kaltag and the jump west over the Kaltag Portage to Unalakleet.

Still, as a 38-year-old cancer survivor who still struggles with disabilities caused by the surgery that saved his life, Mackey probably understands better than most how fate can interfere with even the best-laid plans.

"Anything can and probably will happen,'' he told a cameraman for the Iditarod Insider who was in Eagle Island.

Mackey appeared confident, however, and said his dogs -- the most important players in the 1,000 mile race from Anchorage to Nome -- were "great.''

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The trail, on the other hand, was not so great.

It appeared to be covered with an inch or two of loose snow, and the way it sashayed from side to side as it went upriver was indicative of a trail put in by snowmachines running with only marginal steering control in deep, soft powder.

The good news for mushers was that, with temperatures dropping to 10 degrees below zero, the snow appeared to have consolidated into a surface firm enough to support trotting dogs. The bad news was that downriver, winds were starting to gust to 30 mph by nightfall, and airplane pilots flying the route were reporting limited visibility in blowing snow.

Snow -- blowing snow, fresh snow, deep snow, snow in just about every form -- has slowed this Iditarod almost since it moved north out of the Alaska Range early last week.

Arriving at the Yukon River during a break in the weather Saturday, Iditarod veteran Sonny Linder from Two Rivers said that "it's fun to be moving out of the snowstorms.''

Unfortunately, he also looked to be moving right back into them. Snow squalls were forecast all along the trail from Anvik to Unalakleet Saturday night into today.

All the snow has clearly slowed the teams. Average speeds were dropping down into the sub-7 mph range.

That's slower than the training pace of recreational runners who do 8- to 9-minute miles. An 8-minute mile is 7.5 mph. A 9-minute mile is 6.7 mph.

Front-running Iditarod teams often can do 8 to 10 mph at this point in this race, but only on good trail. Bad trail changes everything, and the mushers are clearly on trail that is less than ideal.

That had been every musher's fear going into this race. Near-record snows fell over most of the Interior this winter. The Iditarod Trail, which really doesn't exist in many places except during the Iditarod race, didn't get packed in by snowmobiles until late.

There were concerns that what the machines did pack down might turn to sugar instead of consolidating into a firm trail for the dogs. Mushers had nightmares about the dogs wallowing through something not unlike calf-deep beach sand.

Early on, those fears failed to materialize. Mackey and the teams chasing him averaged 8 to 9 mph for 150 miles from the deserted gold camp of Ophir across the desolate Innoko River country into the tiny Ingalik Indian village of Shageluk.

The pace has slowed considerably, however, since the teams hit the Yukon, which is problematic even in good years on the southern route. Once the trail hits the village of Anvik, it turns north and runs upriver into the prevailing winds for about 150 miles to Kaltag.

When there is little snow, the dogs hit patches of glare ice the winds make it difficult to cross. When there is a lot of snow, the trail blows in and the dogs wallow north.

Teams headed up the Yukon on Saturday were expected to be working into headwinds of 10 to 20 mph. It was expected to take Mackey at least 10 hours to make Kaltag.

When he left Eagle Island, the chasing teams of Schnuelle, Burmeister, Neff, Seavey, King, Baker and Smyth were still there resting. Despite getting lost for a couple hours Friday on the relatively short, 25-mile run from Shageluk to Anvik, Mackey still holds a clear lead over that group which has, so far, been paced by Schnuelle. A German emmigrant, Schnuelle and his team are just off a victory in the Quest.

It was once thought impossible to win that race and then compete successfully in the Iditarod, but Mackey put an end that theory by winning both races in 2007, and then underlined the flaws in the theory by repeating the same "impossible'' feat last year.

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Mackey didn't run the Quest this year because he was helping train rookie distance musher Harry Alexie. Some thought he might suffer from breaking a pattern that had worked so well for him, but that has not appeared to be a problem.

Mackey has been more dominate here than in any previous race, despite being chased by a high-powered pack of seasoned veterans.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

Live standings: Musher leaderboard

Voices from the Trail: Jen Seavy and Linwood Fiedler

Photos: Day 7

By CRAIG MEDRED

cmedred@adn.com

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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