©Evy Gebhardt
Iditarod 2009 – Paul Gebhardt Update # 1 as of 5:00am on Monday, March 9
Bib #15 Paul and team are currently running in 8th position
Out of the SKWENTNA checkpoint, 149 miles into the race. Heading for FINGER LAKE and the run over the Alaska Range.
There have been a few races for me to compare to when it comes to starting the 1,100 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, as Paul left the starting line on his way to Nome yesterday afternoon. And I can tell you unequivocally that Paul was the most calm and self assured that I have ever seen him in the 13 years that he has done this. Enough so, that even I, the traditional worrier that is normally a ball of nerves at the starting line, felt completely relaxed. It was an intangible element that carried over to the dogs as well, and they were just playing with each other as they waited by the truck and noticeably calm as Paul hooked them up one by one.
There was no doubt in my mind that his leader Houston was counting down the clock, and I swear that Lieutenant had his game face on when those two leaned into the gangline ready to lead the team down the trail. Our crew of handlers, wearing Paul’s trademark red and black colors, worked in concert to get the team to the starting line as Paul stood on the brake holding the team in check. It went off beautifully, and more than one person echoed my feelings about Paul’s mental focus and the attitude of the team.
One of the things that has come up repeatedly in the many different interviews that Paul has done over the past week and a half, has been the excellent physical shape that Paul is in. He did a live on-air interview for the ABC affiliate on the 6pm news Friday night. As I sat in the “blue room” I was able to catch the rest of the coverage when Paul’s interview culminated and he was leaving the sound room. They too shared the sentiment that Paul looked very fit and healthy. It was an opinion that resonated not only through the media circles, but also did not go unnoticed by the mushers themselves. “A force to be reckoned with” was how one described the change. At a rock hard weight of 150, Paul was physically and mentally in the best shape I had ever seen him starting this race.
The dogs felt good too. They, like Paul, had enjoyed a good restful night of sleep the nights before the race. I know for a fact, that having the presence of Kristy around them and the routine of staying at our friend Ken’s Anchorage hillside home the final days before the race again also helped their mental state. Kristy is in one word, instrumental, in our program. She was probably the most nervous one of all, and kept herself busy helping out with the harnessing and putting dog booties on the team. Harnessing is something that I normally would do at the start, but I felt that she had been doing this all season, and I knew it is one final opportunity to have one on one with each individual dog. She has the emotional connection to the dogs that Paul and I share, and I think she can completely appreciate the feeling of saying goodbye to them at the starting line.
It was a team of 16 dogs, the maximum allowable number in the team, that Paul left the starting line with yesterday shortly after 2pm. As I noted, Houston and Lieutenant were leading the charge down the trail. The rest of the team shaped up as follows: Bear, Skunk, Hag, Tessa, Black Dog, Fawn, Rosco, Duke, Weasel, Copper, Recon, Marshall, Cat & Tinker. He does have one of the females (Weasel) that he wrestled with the decision as to whether to take her or replace her with a young, unproven dog in the team. She is a solid little racer that he knows will perform well, but she is just starting to come into estrus, which could have an impact on the males in the team. Paul felt that he could manage it, not unlike last year with a similar circumstance with the gorgeous white dog named Tessa on the team.
One of the biggest factors for Paul in determining the final 16 dogs to take was the weather. Over the past several days he has been analyzing the 10 day weather forecast reports all along the sections of the trail. He was looking primarily for any severe cold. At this point, with the exception of a few colder days later this week when the race would be rounding the halfway point and making its way up the Yukon River, it appears it will be a “warm” race for the teams. There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the exceptionally deep snow all along the trail. Paul saw a shot of the coastal village of UNALAKLEET, where villagers are reporting the most snow in over twenty years. The houses were literally covered in snow, with only the door visible in the photos. This has echoed far and wide from checkpoints along the trail, as villages along the Yukon River, and sections of interior Alaska report in with deep snow.
One concern now, as the teams make their way up and over the Alaska Range, through the Dalzell Gorge and onto the ROHN checkpoint, will be moose along the trail. Paul was not the only musher to carry a firearm in his sled in the event the team was attacked by a moose. Many of you recall the attack that killed his lead dog several years ago, and I could detail a number of negative encounters he has had with angry moose over the years. I can think of two instances during the Iditarod where teams were stomped by moose, and the races of those particular mushers was severely altered as they had to instead, take a bedside vigil with injured dogs. What happens is that the moose get onto the harder packed surface of the trail, and they don’t want to leave it to flounder in the shoulder deep snow. When the dog teams come along, the moose see them as a threat – like a pack of wolves. It is their instinct to fight off predators, and they do so with a furor – kicking and slashing at the dogs with their sharp hooves. Sometimes, just shooting into the air is enough to scare the moose off long enough to get the team safely by. In the event a musher were to have to dispose of a moose, they are responsible for properly carrying for the carcass and no other teams can pass that musher until it is properly cared for. The race travels through remote sections of rural Alaska, and this is quite literally a food supply that cannot be wasted by Alaskan law.
The deep snow on the trail is something that for Paul’s team and the type of training he does, offers him more of an advantage than those competitors that train predominately for speed and a hard packed trail. His tough-as-nails leader Houston is known for his trail breaking ability. (Trail breaking is when you have fresh snow, and possibly an unmarked trail – and the team just plows in and makes their own trail. Some dogs will really balk at this duty preferring to follow, and others, like Houston, just head out into the unbroken surface of the snow and lead the rest of the team behind them.) When we have had snowstorms, Paul will purposefully hook up the team to drive out into the fresh snow to teach them that they can carve out their own trail. It is part of the mental strength of our team. But being this rabbit on the trail that takes the lead and breaks open the trail is not without its hazards. Revisit last year’s Iditarod when Paul left the checkpoint of TAKOTNA to take the lead in the race. He would end up breaking open the trail for the other mushers, only to have them benefit from the labors of our team. (That, and the added bonus they all enjoyed of the combined effects of cooler temperatures on the trail after a snowmachiner towing a 300 lb. flat bottomed sled passed behind Paul and the rest of the field as well!) You can notch one more lesson learned for Paul, and know that he is wiser and more calculating in his decisions this year with the team.
A couple of quick notes as I close this update and head out the door to work: You can follow Paul’s progress in near-real time through the Iditarod’s “current standings” link. If you have also paid to do so, you can track Paul and all of the mushers this year via the GPS tracker he is carrying. Paul was not a big fan of this, as he saw the potential for misuse of the information between the competition last year, and had this reinforced by what he personally saw happening at the checkpoints where volunteers had the computer technology at their fingertips for easy dissemination to certain mushers. (against the “rules” supposedly…) But he had one of the high tech devises strapped, albeit precariously, to the front of his sled by race officials prior to the start yesterday. http://www.iditarod.com/ is the Iditarod Official Site.
There are also several news articles about Paul, including a very complimentary one that ran in the Sunday March 8th edition of the Anchorage Daily News http://www.adn.com/ and if you have not done so, today is the last day you can visit the Peninsula Clarion website to log in your vote for Paul http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/. Today is the last day to do so!
Also - check out your own daily newspaper. The Sunday, March 8th edition features Paul on the kid's "Mini Page" (if your newspaper subscribes to the feature). There are over 400 newspapers around the country that have the Mini Page.
I will be sending more updates throughout the days ahead – so stay tuned!
Until later, life is a journey – enjoy the ride! Evy
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