Tuesday March 4, 2014 Home Again

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We got up at our hotel in Anchorage Alaska, finished packing and had one final breakfast at the hotel cafe.  We found that there was camaraderie of folks who had traveled to be at the race.  Lots of chatting and exchanging hotels on our Alaskan experiences.

From the time we left our hotel until the time we walked into our door at home, it was almost exactly 11 hours.  And that was without any delays such as were happening back east with winter storms.  We were reminded just how far away Alaska really is, even by plane.

We found it very ironic that we heard the day after we left, Anchorage got a foot of snow and zero temperatures. And we missed it!

But we didn’t miss what might be called The Greatest Race on Earth: The Iditarod.  This race, which is still going strong. Can be followed online at the Iditarod website.  This year, one portion of the race was much more harrowing than usual, the descent through the Dalzell Gorge.  One of the mushers used one of the cameras he could attach to his chest to record his wild journey through the gorge.  Click on this link to see it.

Until our next trip, we wish you your own adventures.

March 3, 2014 Final Full Day in Alaska

Staying up late working on photos and following the race becomes the way of life when following the Iditarod from Anchorage.  As we woke up, we immediately went online to find out who was in the lead.  There is a tremendous amount of info available about this race:  the order of who is in the lead and what place each musher is, how fast they are traveling, what mile marker and check point they are nearest to, as well as news bulletins and blogs and FACEBOOK posts.  Some fans around the world take these two weeks off form work in order to follow the race nearly full time.

We got our fix, and saw with the nice weather that we could spend the day driving south on the Kenai Peninsula to go to The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, about an hour drive form Anchorage.

On the way, we stopped at Judy’s Diner, and because it was full were asked to join a local couple there for breakfast.  There we got the chance to hear some of what it is like to live here, as a commercial fisherman who is now on disability. This couple lives in a home that his father built in 1940.  Delightful to have the chance to visit.

The drive south was lovely, to say the least, especially as we drove along Turnagain Arm, a fjord with some of the world's greatest tidal changes.  We drove and oohed and ahhed, and pulled off for stops and photos often. 

At one place, Beluga Point, the wind was blowing so hard that we were really chilled in just minutes.  This is coldest that we have been since arriving in Alaska.  It was the definition of wind chill.  We watched the tide flow rushing out of the Turnagan Arm, exposing extensive mudflat with many chunks of ice that had been left as the water streamed away.

We arrived at the Conservation Center just as one of the young interns was getting ready to take a tour group on a walk around tour.  We had been here is the summer, and it was a treat to come back with snow on the ground.  This is a place that takes in orphaned and injured wild animals including bears, eagles, foxes, and moose.  Our guide coaxed both the Grizzly and one of the Brown Bears to come out for some bacon.  They were not hibernating.  We also saw the Musk Oxen and Elk herds.  They had an injured Bald Eagle who often communicated with wild eagles that would land in a nearby tree.  The Lynx was especially beautiful. They had done some big expansion of their animal areas which was nice to see.  They are also helping to repopulate the wood bison in Alaska.  The tour was informative, with lots of photo opportunities.

Patti also had to try her hand (or her foot) on one of the Scandinavian kick sleds.  Very cool, people powered-no dogs.  But not enough snow there to really go very far.

We headed over the Girdwood to see the Alyeska Ski Resort.  Beautiful skiing and lovely views, but pretty pricey area.

The drive back up to Anchorage was lovely again, with the tides changing the water that we drove along.

Dinner was at a local Seafood restaurant.  We felt we needed to have Alaskan salmon before we went home.  Delicious!

Back at the hotel, we followed the race online, and Dick began to pack up for the journey home the next day.  We were both tired, but very grateful for the chance to travel and see so many exquisite sites.

March 2, 2014 Restart or Official Start Day of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

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Today is when the 1000 mile race really starts.  We woke up excited and ready to get up to cheer them on.  The race will start on Willow Lake, over an hour north of Anchorage.  As we ate breakfast, we heard that there was a moose behind the hotel.  Our hotel was in downtown Anchorage but there was a wooded slope that must have been inviting to moose.  We found him laying quietly, chewing his cud. 

On our way out of town, we decided that we had to take a look at how the snow sculptures were faring.  Actually, better than we had feared, with some hanging in there well, while others  drooping more and more into puddles.

We then headed North towards Willow Alaska where the restart happens.  We were quickly pulled into the Anchorage version of a traffic jam.  Made worse by soon moving to a 2 lane highway.  It was  slog getting the 75 miles of driving done, but we arrived around 12:30.  After parking in an impressively massive lot that was a meadow that had been scraped of its snow.  We loved the view of Denali.  We crossed with the crowds over to the lake where the mushers, dogs and fans had gathered.  

It looked quite different from the quiet lake we had seen on Thursday. The crowd was building on the lake. Chutes for the mushers were formed with orange plastic snow fencing held by stakes driven into the lake's ice.  We quickly found that the musher area was cordoned off with entry being an official badge.  Luckily, one of the badges that would get you in included our volunteer badge.  

So we got the spend the hour or so right before the race talking with the mushers, handlers and family members that we had met during the precious meet’s activities.  This was so much fun.  They were excited and ready to go.   We greeted and sent wishes for luck and safe trails to so many of these wonderful folks.  We were even invited to help ourselves to some of the food that Matt Failor’s cousin had brought.  So nice!  We connected again with Matt's sister and mother. 

 It was great to see the sleds up close, and to notice the different strategies that were being employed from shiny new ones with trailers, to old tried and true, to some with built in dog kennels where they could  carry some dogs that are resting while the others pulled them.  Only time will tell which strategies will be successful.

Patti talked Matt Failor into letting her take a photo of his finisher’s belt buckle, something you can’t buy, but must complete this race to earn.  Only about 200 people have this buckle, a very elite group.

The mushers trucks and dogs were arranged in a big circle on the ice.  They were in the order they would be leaving for Nome.  The tug lines for the various teams were stretched out towards the middle of the circle.  Everything was very orderly. We stayed and watched the first few teams line up and be lead into the gate for the start.

We were exited to be at the real start of this race that we had been following so closely for a number of years.  It was a happy day for us! 

And, clearly in view beyond the lake was Denali.  We were nearly 200 miles away from it but it had a very noticeable presence.  We talked about how we were so drawn to the mountain.

Then we shifted over to the fan area, where we watched all of the remaining teams be called into the start line, be announced and then a countdown and truly off to Nome now.  (Nome is a town about 1000 miles away on the coast of the Bering Sea.)  The dogs were so eager to get on their way that it took many people to hold them and the sleds.  When the countdown (5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO) reached "go," everyone let go and the team rocketed forward.  The team will spend the next 8-15days on the trail, depending upon how fast they went.  Some are racing to win, others have the goal to just finish. 

We found a good place along the snow fence to watch the mushers and dogs race by on their way to Nome.  One after another, the teams were counted down and launched forward.  We loved having them come by so close to us. Then, each one was gone, headed up the trail.

We chatted with those around us between starts.  There were people from all over the world including Australia right next to us, and a woman form Irvine California just down the road.  The kids had made signs which I loved.  There were also other signs and flags that people displayed.  Everyone was encouraging as each one took off.

As it finished, they put out the call for volunteers to stay and help dismantle the snow fences for the clean up.  We could tell the traffic would again be bad, this time going the other direction, so we did pitch in.  Many hands making light work and all.  

As we looked back at the lake, we had yet another perspective on this event.

A quick dinner at Denny’s and then we fell asleep at about 9:30 trying to watch a bit of the video of the day.  Sleep tight and ride well mushers.

Saturday March 1, 2014 Ceremonial Start Day for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race

We got up before the sun rose this morning in order to get some breakfast and be able to get down the street where the crowds were already starting to build for the start of the big race. Dick moved our car a few blocks away so that we wouldn’t get trapped in the post-Iditarod traffic jam.  As Dick walked back, he could see that t he snow track was ready for the mushers.  People were already gathering and it was a carnival atmosphere.  

The street that was bare and basically empty a couple of days back was now full of snow, thanks to the trucks bringing it in.  As far back as we could see there were dog trucks and mushers as well as excited fans hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite, grab an autograph or photo, or have the chance to see the dogs in person.  This free-for- all went on for quite some time, then at about 9:00 the volunteers began to clear out the folks without the official backstage passes.   

We all then crowded behind wooden snow fences to wait for the fateful hour of 10:00am.  At this time, the honorary 1^st musher was announced, and the after this, every two minutes a musher would be introduced with a brief bio.  A large group of volunteers would help walk (run) the dogs up to the starting line.  The musher would go down the line of up to 16 dogs giving them each a scratch, a hug, or a supportive word,  Then 5,4,3, 2, 1 they’re off to Nome.  (Actually, today, just off for an 11 mile run through cheering crowds. The real race starts on Sunday.)

They then started their easy ride thorough the city of Anchorage, population about 250,000, plus a lot of dogs.  The noise of the dogs was loud today. These dogs are used to living and running in the wilderness, so going through city streets with cars and horns and shouting crowds is a nerve-wracking for the dogs and mushers alike. 

The whole route would be lined with fans, and we took some time finding some different vantage points.  Wow!  This is such an exciting time.  In the past several years, we have been able to watch it by live feed from the Internet, but now, here we are in Anchorage!We moved from the starting line, to the upper floor of a parking garage, to a turn of the trail at a corner where we could watching them turn, to a long straightaway with fewer people watching.  All spots gave a different perspectives, and we took hundreds of photos.  There was quite a camaraderie of people talking about different mushers, and trying to identify who was coming next from the newspaper or various programs or guides.   

Children made a game of trying to get the mushers to throw them some of the dog “booties”.  These are small Velcro socks which they put on all of the dogs to protect their feet. They generally have to be hand sewn and cost about a buck a piece.  So not everyone wants to share these precious items with the crowds, but many did, and we stood by some kids who were pros at collecting these.

Many in the crowd have their lists of the order of the mushers, so that they (or we) could shout out, “Way to go Ailey” or, “Yah, Matthew!  Have a great race!”  Having gotten all of their autographs, as well as having met some of them in a more personal manner in the past couple of days, they are now more than just names to us, but people that we kinda know….Some that we had spent more time with, like Dallas Seavey or Math Failor, were especially fun to see and cheer for.  And we cheered hard for the mushers from Minnesota, California and Ohio.

Once all of the mushers were off, and we had our fill with soaking in the ceremonial start of the race (which isn’t really racing yet, just a dry run and a chance to soak in some cheers from the fans).  Then we headed over to one of the gems in Alaska The Native Alaskan Heritage Center.  This is a hopping place in the summer, but in the winter is only rarely open rarely, but is open on Iditarod race day.

This pan-tribal center does amazing education for youth as well as interpretation for the general public bout the different native Alaskan groups.   The place was beautiful with at least a little snow still around.  We heard dancing, drumming and had the chance to walk around this lovely campus with a couple of Native Alaskan high school student guides.

Then it was a race back into town for the “Run with The Reindeer” event.  This is styled after the Spanish running with the bulls…much shorter and somewhat less dangerous.  It had several different categories including men, women, military, and tourists.  The idea was to dress up as crazy or silly as you can and then run through the streets for a several blocks. 

Nearly a dozen male reindeer were walked on leads to one end, and then, a female in heat is brought out at the other end.   It is a race for the reindeer trying to get at the girl.  The crowd walks and runs along, trying to not  get in the way of the deer. The costumes -ran from superheros and people in jammies, to some semi-naked folks to ones understood only by themselves and their friends. There were well over 500 runners .  Only in Alaska!

After dinner, we trudged back to the hotel room, knowing that we needed to rest as well as get our writing and photo downloading going.  We each shot over 1200 photos just today.  That is a lot to deal with.  Plus our hotel internet is a very slow network, so we aren’t getting things posted as quickly as we would like, but that is how it goes.  Another amazing day in Alaska.

Friday February 28, 2014 A Visit to a Professional Racing Dog Kennel

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Today we got to go on a tour of the kennel one of the premier young dog sled drivers, Dallas Seavey.  Dallas won the race in 2012 at age 23.  He and his wife have a kennel near Willow Alaska. He is also on a reality TV show for the National Geographic channel called Ultimate Survival: Alaska.  The show is about life in Alaska and this young man is one of the stars, .  We have only seen some parts of show on the Internet, but they are really quite good. (See this video to see more of the kennel and hear more from Dallas: Seavey video)

He is now so busy that he rarely can promise to be there for a tour, but was able to meet with us the day before the Iditarod start.  Wow!  He is a true professional, but also very clever and funny.  We enjoyed all of the parts of the tour: riding up to Willow from Anchorage with our young enthusiastic guides, from the Salomon Berry Tour Company. The chance to spend a chunk of the day with one of the premier dog mushers in the world the day before a major race was wonderful.  He was relaxed, funny, factual and very much in control of his kennel and his dogs.   It was great seeing and meeting the dogs (including playing with some of his 2 month of old puppies), and hearing from Dallas about the race. 

But the most wonderful part was getting the chance to ride on an real life dog sled.  They didn’t let us actually steer the sled.  Probably a good idea.  But Patti rode on a “tagalong sled”, while

Dick rode on a chair in the basket of a sled due to his post shoulder surgery healing status. Both had a terrific time.   

Those dogs love to run and can go fast. And the sled drivers were very nice and informative. We were out for over 45 minutes as we rode across frozen lakes and through some woods.  What a total treat to be able to get a small taste of what it means to race behind dogs.

Altogether, we spent a number of hours seeing what a working kennel looked like.  An added bonus was having the chance to meet Christian Turner, a young musher from Australia who is working with Dallas and will be running one of his dog teams in the race.  It was actually Christian’s dogs that we got to ride behind, so we rode on a sled pulled by dogs that will on Sunday begin a 1000 mile sled dog race.

We arrived back at the hotel tired and hungry.  After a dinner at a Thai restaurant, we walked back towards our hotel, only to find that the dump trucks were arriving to put the snow on the street for the race.  We raced back to grab some more clothes, and then watched for the next hour while 30 trucks  brought over 350 loads of pristine snow to be spread out on the street.  Down the main street, it would go about 14 feet across, making a good path to drive the dogs down.  On the side streets where they line up, the streets must be covered from curb to curb needing much more snow.  This will all stay in place until around six on Saturday when they will come in and scrape up any of the extra snow that hasn’t melted by then.  This whole process needed many workers and volunteers.  We had some great conversations with those involved and gathered a lot of info.

Finally it was time to go back to the hotel and try our best to work on photos and do some writing.  The life of a traveler/reporter is a hard one…but very satisfying. What a wonderful day.

Thursday February 27, 2014 Seeing Denali and The Musher's Banquet

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In Alaska in the winter, it doesn’t get light too early, so we slept in a bit, but then off to find breakfast and to plan our day.  Today during the day was a day “off” for us, and we wanted to take a look at what downtown Anchorage looked like a couple days before the big ceremonial start happens.  On this day (Saturday) there will be thousands gathering lining the streets of Anchorage to cheer on the 69 mushers. They will start one every 2 minutes until they are all going, then drive their teams through the city streets and parks for about 20 minutes. Then the pack things up, go home or to their hotels until the actual race start on Sunday.  More on that later.

What is especially interesting to us is, there is pretty much no snow in the city of Anchorage, Alaska has had a very warm winter, and the snow that they have had has mostly melted.  There were jokes that the race should be rerouted to run   Florida up to Kentucky this year.  So what do they do?  There is a plan in place that truckloads of snow will be brought in starting on Friday to cover the streets so the dogs can race on through.  The streets right now are either dry or filled with puddles.  We are waiting to see the transformation, but are concerned

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Throughout the day today the temperature has been in the upper 40’s and we even saw a 50 degree reading on the thermometer. This is not good for snow.

As we walked back to our hotel, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and Dick announced, “We have got to get into the car and head north.”  What we had hoped to have happened, did.  The sun was out and the sky was clearing up, so the mountains above and north of Anchorage were beautiful.  

That also meant, the mountain would be out.   Denali, or Mt. McKinley as it used ot be called, is the highest mountain in North America, over 20,000 feet tall.  It is so tall that it can be seen from very far away when it was clear, and we hoped to be able to see it today.  It is in Denali National Park over 200 miles north of Anchorage. This wasn’t going to be a realistic drive, but we hoped we might be able to drive far enough North to see it.  And see it we did.  The first peek of it happened about 56 miles up, and then at the miles I the 80’s there was amazing view after amazing view.  Wow!  Doesn’t begin to describe it.  The mountain captured us when we were here before and we were so very happy to see it again.

A highlight was stop at a boat landing north of Willow, where a nice guy (a transplant form Minnesota) let us hike on a snowmobile path where we got some great shots of the mountain.  Then we had a great conversation and heard about his family history and relatives in Norway.

On the way back to Anchorage, we stopped off in Willow at the site of the true start or restart of the Iditarod Race.  It seemed very quiet there.  Hard to imagine hundreds of fans in a few days there….having to ride in on shuttles because there wouldn’t be enough parking.

When we got back into town, we decided to take a quick drive over to see the snow sculptures on display.  They were lovely, but rapidly melting, with some of them looking more and more funny as the warm temperature did its deed.  We could see that by Monday, many would be reduced to puddle status.
 

Then a quick shower to be ready for the Musher’s Banquet.  This is quite an affair where two thousand fans gather, and have dinner with the mushers, who each in term takes the stage, and draws their number to see what order they start the race.  They then get the chance to make a little speech.

We were with a tour group and so had a reserved table.  The idea was to mingle and spot mushers where you could grab autographs and photos.  We worked hard to grab ad many of these as we could.  Both from old favorite and famous mushers and the young “rookie” (those who have not completed this race before.   The meal was hearty, with most people getting a huge chunk of steak.  Dick went with the veggie lasagna.  There was also salad and chocolate cake.  But the main course was the mushers.

The banquet was such a blast. It was a combination stuffy social event with the required speeches by politicians and sponsors. (A surprise guest was Former Governor Sarah Palin.) Everyone got thanked multiple times.  But the core of the event was really the chance to meet the mushers. This included roaming from table to table asking for autographs or to take a photo.  Patti was really enamored with getting photos and autographs of both famous folks, and of the newbies. The old hands brought their own Sharpie pens or posters to hand out.   Sometimes it was hard to tell who was the musher, and who was their sister or brother or dog handler.  But most people dealt with this with grace.

After the mushers had the chance to come up and draw their number out of a boot, and give a speech if they wanted, they then came down a gauntlet of fans getting autographs and sharing thoughts on “Which one is he?” or “Do you know which page of the program she is on?”  We pooled our information.  While Patti was busy with this, Dick undertook taking a photo of each musher as they were on stage giving their speeches.  Each in our own way recording and enjoying the experience.

We stayed until the very end, about 10:00, having arrived shortly after 5. We left tired, ready and geared up for the race.

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First Day of the Iditarod Week for Patti and Dick

Wednesday February 26, 2014

Okay, so it is Wednesday, and the race starts on Saturday, what else is there to do in Anchorage in the winter?  Plenty!

Today we got oriented to what was happening this week.  We went over the Wassalia (about one hour north of Anchorage) to the Iditarod headquarters to get a peek at the official “Vet Check”, where mushers bring their dog teams in for a final check on their health and fitness to undertake a 1000-mile race.

It was a literal “zoo” with dogs, mushers, dog trucks, volunteers and fans milling around.  But it was so much fun!  The dogs are so happy, and well taken care of.  What total fun to be here.  And the mushers are so generous with posing for photos and signing autographs like any really gracious sports figures.  We met and talk with about a dozen of the over 60 mushers who will be racing beginning on Saturday.

Highlights included being able to watch the volunteer veterinarians in action, with stethoscopes in hand, checking out the dogs.  They looked at their feet, their limbs, and their teeth.  All of these dogs have had blood tests and EKG’s this week.  The vets (who also have flown in form around the world) work to ensure that every dog athlete is prepared and healthy enough to make the long run.  The dogs will them be checked out again at each checkpoint along the way.  If either the musher or a vet feels that the dog is sick, injured or just too tired, the dog can then be “dropped” out of the team.  There it will be cared for and pampered, then flown back to Anchorage where it will be reunited with its kennel.  These dogs are VERY well cared for.

The mushers were so happy to talk with us as fan, and often asked, “Where are from?  Have you been here before?”  We met Cindy Gallea  who now lives just outside of Rochester where Patti grew up, and Matthew Failor, who is originally from Ohio where Dick lived for 40 years.  Mathew’s mom and sister were also there for the race, and we had a lovely talk with them about what it is like to have a loved one out on a 1000 mile wilderness trek (his mom said, the first race he went on, SHE didn’t sleep the whole weekend with worry.) And Travis Beals, age 22, who is running in his second race was so nice and pleased to have us meet his dogs and explain what he was doing.  He and his partner Sara Stokey run Turning Heads Kennel together, and you could see they were quite a team.

It was great to see the dog trucks up close.  This is the way that mushers get 12-20 dogs form their home kennel to wherever they are racing or training.  The dogs, which are so well trained, go in and out of the truck with minimal fuss.  There actually was surprisingly little barking for so many dogs all gathered together.

After we had spent several hours at Iditarod Headquarters, we drove back to Anchorage (about an hour’s drive) through some fantastic scenery.  Mountains all around!  We took the time to stop at a small park Mirror Lake where we had had a picnic lunch on a summer day.  Today, the lake was frozen with snow all around.  As we soaked in the view, a small plane with skis on it landed not far from where we stood. We are NOT in San Diego any more!

We then went over to do a volunteer shift at the Millennium Hotel, the in town Race Headquarters.  There we assisted other volunteers in checking in, getting their name badges, signing releases, and hooking them up with where they needed to go. This races uses literally thousands of volunteers.  Dick worked to get names typed into the database, while Patti helped with some of the other paperwork.  It was organized, but still pretty busy.  We talked with folks from all over.  We heard that several people had flown in from South Africa.  There are mushers from Norway and Jamaica.  And from every state.  This is an amazing gathering.

At the hotel, we had the chance to meet a musher, Hugh Neff.  He is one of our favorites, because he uses his sled dog racing to support literacy.  He told us that he does 50 school talks every year.  He was so nice, and we got to have our photo taken with him and his dog.

The final even of a very long day was a reception for an Alaskan native championship musher, John Baker. There we got to see the kind of support that these men and women need in order to do this event.  Some estimate that it costs the musher between $40,000 and $100,000 a year to train and take care of these dogs and to run these races.  Wow!  It takes a village to run a dog team.

Finally, back to the hotel to download the 500 photos that we took jut today.  It will have to wait until morning to post this.  We are in Alaska. Wow!