Copyright 2010© Evy Gebhardt
IDITAROD 2010 UPDATE #7 as of 6am Sunday, March 14, 2010

Paul Gebhardt Bib #7 currently in Position #21 into KALTAG as of 4:36am
Next checkpoint: UNALAKLEET

Kristy Berington Bib #38 in Position #41 into GALENA as of ten minutes to midnight last night
Next checkpoint: NULATO

It’s been a week since Paul and Kristy left the starting line of the Last Great Race, and I am positive that neither Paul nor Kristy had any idea what they would truly encounter on the miles that continue to lead them on their way to Nome. Even with all of his years of experience, Paul has never found himself in such a position to be regrouping as he is this year. The remainder of his journey is still a mystery this morning as he makes his way from checkpoint to checkpoint with a dog team that is slowly on the road to recovery.

He called me again late yesterday from the checkpoint of NULATO with some of the most encouraging news I had heard yet. He said the team had all eaten every snack and meal he had given them, and actually had spunk in their step when he pulled into the checkpoint to give them another rest. His travel times as posted on the Iditarod site this morning reflect his assessment. However the extreme cold was giving him cause to worry, as he knew that in order for the team to gain some weight and get some reserves back into their system when the temperatures were so cold, he would need to spend more time with them resting on the straw than some of his competitors were choosing to do.

The GPS trackers consistently were reading temperatures close to -40 during the sun-filled daytime hours, and Paul said they were told it was almost -60 degrees below zero overnight on the river. I want to stress that this is actual ambient temperatures, NOT windchill factors. Throw in the headwind of up to 30mph that the teams are expecting on their next leg of the journey enroute to the checkpoint of UNALAKLEET, and you can appreciate Paul’s urgency to get the team fueled up and hydrated. 

One of the things that the team has to support their well being are fleece-lined, wind repellent jackets that the dogs wear. This is the leader Kristy is running with on the trail now, HOUSTON, modeling his jacket.  Each of these are custom fit to the different sizes of dogs, just like the booties that they wear on their feet to protect them from the ice are different sizes. Lisa Davis and her dedicated crew at First Tool Corp in Ohio perhaps did not know what they were getting themselves into when the volunteered to sew booties for Paul a couple of years ago. But I can’t begin to tell you what a fantastic job they do crafting not just hundreds, but literally a couple thousand booties for both Paul and Kristy’s dogs to wear on the trail.

Each time the mushers stop to rest their teams, these booties come off and dry ones are put back on. Each team will use about 1500 booties during the race.
(booties packed in food drops to right)

While the team is resting, there are a number of things that the musher will take care of. One of the reasons that Paul and Kristy spent so much time in training camping with the teams was to teach the young dogs what is expected of them when they are on the straw. They learn to associate the patterns of what happens when the snaps from the gangline are unhooked from their harnesses and straw is fluffed up for them. Through repeating the same steps over and over, they will recognize these signals as the time to rest – and it is ideal if the dogs will immediately dig into the straw and get off their feet, to gain maximum benefit from the time off the trail.  They will literally learn to allow Paul and Kristy to work with their feet – from applying soothing ointments to putting fresh booties on, all the while they are laying down. Some of the dogs actually just roll on their backs and give you their feet. Others, like another of Kristy’s leaders named BLACK DOG, absolutely does not like to be touched by anyone. It is very strange, as we have raised him from a baby right here at the kennel, and his littermates are just as gregarious as they come, but he has a real issue with any contact and has had this anomaly since birth. What is remarkable about this canine athlete is that you just put a harness on him, get the booties on his feet and when he is out on the trail, he is a completely different fellow.

I did notice that Kristy had dropped another dog from her team, but at this point I don’t have a clue as to which one it would be. She is posting decent speed on the trail, and will now have the benefit of running checkpoint to checkpoint for the duration of the race, rather than camping out along the trail. Even on the 90-mile run over to the checkpoint of UNALAKLEET, she will stop at “Old Woman Cabin” midway and have a warm place to get out of the weather. This should do a lot towards keeping her personally healthy, something Paul continues to express worry about on her behalf.

Something that I am surprised by in terms of Kristy’s rookie run to Nome, is that she has not really been traveling in any tight pack of other mushers. Even on her midnight run into GALENA overnight, she had a buffer of nearly an hour on either side of her in terms of the other teams on the trail. Certainly this speaks to her ability to travel independently and to make good decisions.  She is moving right along on the trail, but Paul is hoping he does not see her until Nome!

I wanted to share this photo, which is from a previous Iditarod taken from the runners of Paul’s sled, of a section of the Yukon River.  Obviously, you can see that there is some beautiful, fresh snow alongside the trail in this shot, which can be both a blessing and a curse for the teams. Windy conditions will easily lift this blanket of snow and re-deposit it in wild ridges that dissect the trail, making it slow going for the teams, as well as obscuring visibility. But the extra snow is really nice for the dogs to have access to while they are running. It is common for the dogs to simply grab a mouthful of snow when they want to in a practice that is called “dipping”. Some mushers discourage the practice in their team, as they feel that it slows the whole group down. Paul, and I know Jeff King – who obviously isn’t being slowed down by it this year – are some that feel it is another avenue for their dogs to get additional hydration.

Paul had indicated that there was not much snow around this year, and with the temperatures as cold as they were, the snow conditions were not the fluffy, delicate flakes that you would envision, but rather a more abrasive, crunchy snowpack. Most people have no idea that snow can actually have different textures. You either have “snowman snow” or regular snow. But for mushers that are knowledgeable about it, the quality of the snow is almost a science. Paul has taught Kristy about reaching alongside the sled as you are running to grab a handful of the snow and gauge what it is like. Depending on the conditions, the mushers will then use different types of plastic on the bottom of their sled runners that perform differently depending on the conditions. Yellow plastic performs differently than blue, and there is also black and white plastic too. You can see the tightly coiled runner plastic tucked into Kristy’s drop bag here.  Changing the plastic is a quick job that is usually taken care of during those rest periods when the team is on their straw.

However, on this next leg of their journey as they leave the Yukon River and begin a tough overland route heading towards the Bering Sea Coast and the checkpoint of UNALAKLEET, they may go through more sled runner plastic than they expect to. It sounds like there is not a lot of snow on the trail, and since they are traveling across the tundra, it could be a rough ride. Normally it is not as rough as the earlier section of trail across the Farewell Burn, largely due to the contributions of the snowmachine traffic that uses this corridor like a highway. Like the abundance of snow on the trail, having the snowmachines around can be a blessing and a challenge as well.

Obviously the Iditarod relies on snowmachines to put in the trail (something both Paul and Kristy had commented on in referencing the amount of work that went into the earlier section through the Alaska Range).  They are a part of the fabric of rural Alaska life, and are used to get around like we drive cars. But like a car driven by an inattentive, or impaired driver, a snowmachine can also be deadly. On more than one occasion, dog teams have been struck by snowmachines traveling at high speeds – the consequences have been fatal to these dogs.   Something Paul and Kristy did to mitigate the potential for disaster in this area was to apply reflective tape to the back of their Northern Outfitters parkas. The lines that Paul uses for the gangline from the sled (as you can see running straight up the middle between the dogs in this picture) has reflective tracer woven into the nylon. He has a thick strip of industrial reflector tape across the back of his modified sled, and all of the dogs’ harnesses also have reflective tape on the sides. As an additional measure the use of flashing lights on the lead dogs’ collars will also help to at least try and make the snowmachine traffic aware of the team.   Fortunately for Kristy, these next couple of runs will put her onto the trail in the daylight , as I appears she is doing now again as I close this update.

I want to thank each of you that have reached out to let me know of your prayers and positive thoughts for both Paul and Kristy. Although I would love to be able to be penning updates that had us on the edge of our seats with Paul in the lead pack as he has so many time before, I have no doubt that there will still be stories to tell as the miles of trail unfold. They are now 761 miles from where they started their journey, and there is still a whole race left to go before they reach Nome. Remember last year… THINGS CAN CHANGE!

Until later…. Evy.