The Yukon Quest is the Iditarod's little brother, the sibling that grew up and moved out of the city into the backwoods.
The Quest is colder, longer and far more lonesome than the Iditarod. The Iditarod's Dalzell Gorge is notoriously dicey. Take the sides off, tip it on its nose and you have the back side of the Quest's Eagle Summit. When it is minus-50 on the Iditarod, reporters write about it. On the Quest, minus-50 is expected.
The Quest has the Yukon River in common with the Iditarod, but the river name is the only similarity. The middle Yukon past the town of Ruby is wide and tame. Most years, it freezes smooth, a highway between villages relatively close together.
The upper Yukon is different -- rock walls and ice blocks, miles of glare ice and overflow, 170 miles of empty. More than 100 years ago, the Klondikers who headed to Nome when the creeks of Dawson played out snowshoed a path through the jumble ice. We who break the trail for the Yukon Quest today do it by snowmachine.
The Yukon end of the Quest trail has been set by the Canadian Rangers the past 15 years. There, the trail is relatively benign, traveling mostly along established summer mining roads. Dog teams face such challenges as long, winding grades and overflows.
The Alaskan portion is set mostly by volunteers. In 2009, more than 40 people spent a substantial amount of time along the trail.
The route out of Fairbanks is easy. Snowmachines and dog teams use the first 75 miles regularly, and for the most part it is groomed.
Rosebud Summit is the first indication of what's to come -- a 45-degree climb through a black spruce burn, culminating on a treeless, rock-strewn ridge. The wind blows here. Snowmachines creep along without much snow cover, searching for drifts in which to set marking stakes.
A half-dozen miles of this and the route winds down into the upper end of the Birch Creek drainage full of overflows and sharp drops for miles before the climb up Eagle Summit. You need a very good machine to even think of climbing the terrain the dog trail traverses. Windblown tundra on the west side is followed by an east-side drop so steep it's almost impossible to climb on foot without ice cleats.
Before the 2009 race, none of our snowmachines could make the climb.
Bruno Baureis, Mike Reitz and I made an initial run up the Quest trail in January 2009, leaving Fairbanks on the tail end of a minus-60 cold snap and hitting rain just out of Eagle. Such is Alaska weather.
High water just before winter had forced ice into side sloughs that normally froze smooth.
Yukon ice is impassable this year, the folks in Eagle said, calling it the worst freeze-up anyone could recall.
Still, they went out and began chopping a trail through the icy jumble so the dogs and mushers could come to town. Mike, Bruno and I were still 50 miles from Eagle when we met the first machines headed our way.
Every year, the Quest trail offers a different look. In the 18 trips I have made through the upper Yukon, it has never been the same. Cold and the camaraderie are the only constants.
Only three villages occupied by 400 residents dot the first 500 miles of the Quest. The race does not provide a trail linking villages as much as it offers a connection between villagers. The trail-breaking and especially the race itself, provide a respite from normal winter routines.
This winter, the dogs begin their trek down the Quest trail Feb. 6. Trail volunteers are already at work wherever there's enough snow. The crew employed by the Yukon Quest organization will be on their machines by the middle of this month, retracing the route established in years gone by and bringing news of neighbors and the first faint hint of a break in the long Interior winter.
John Schandelmeier of Paxson is a lifelong Alaskan and Bristol Bay commercial fisherman. A musher, he was trail coordinator for last year's Yukon Quest and has written on the outdoors for several newspapers and magazines.
By JOHN SCHANDELMEIER COMMENT