FAIRBANKS — Jumbled ice on two frozen, far apart rivers is forcing a couple of changes to the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, which starts Saturday and runs from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, Yukon, this year.
Officials plan to start the race on the river side of the Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitor Center, continuing on the Chena River due to concerns about rough ice and the safety of mushers, dogs and race watchers.
More than 500 trail miles away, impassable jumble ice at the mouth of the Fortymile River in Canada caused a trail reroute that will add a climb of about 2,500 feet over 20 miles, while keeping the race's total mileage about the same, Quest officials said.
"We're still going to be on the river, just somewhere else," said Marti Steury, executive director of the Quest. "We're looking at a place where the ice will be safer and smoother."
There is a much bigger pileup of jagged ice at the Fortymile River's confluence with the Yukon River that the Quest's trailbreakers decided to bypass. The reroute is just on the Canada side of the border, about halfway into the race, between the checkpoints of Eagle and Dawson City.
Instead of heading up the Fortymile, the Quest mushers will follow a winter trail that home and cabin owners in the area use. Then they will follow a trail that parallels the Top of the World Highway into Dawson, race marshal Doug Grilliot said.
"We're real fortunate to have the ability to do that. It's a well-traveled winter trail," Grilliot said.
At the mouth of the Fortymile, Quest's trailbreakers described a mess of knee- to thigh-high ice "as far as the eye can see" from bank to bank, Grilliot said. Mushers can often navigate through shorter sections of jumble ice, but the trail crew, all experienced hands, said the reroute was necessary.
"When you've got several miles of it, it becomes impossible," Grilliot said.
Some mushers described the change as adding a fifth summit, but Grilliot said the hilly section is "no big, monster climb" and that the race is lucky to have the option of using the winter trail.
"If we had to have a situation like this, we honestly could not have asked for a better place for this to happen," Grilliot said. "We don't lose any mileage. Yeah they're going to have a bit of a hill climb there, for sure, but nothing they won't be prepared for or haven't seen during the race before they get there."
Contact News-Miner reporter Casey Grove at 459-7518.