3/5/06

2006 Iditarod

The dog teams and mushers are on their way to Nome! The 9-10 day, 1150 mile race got underway for real this past Sunday (discounting the ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday), and once again, I volunteered as a dog handler.

The teams consist of a musher, a sled, and 16 dogs, all of whom have been training for this race all year and are pumped up and ready to go. The team trucks come into a large staging area, where the sleds are loaded and the dogs put into the harnesses. With 83 teams, that’s 1328 dogs! The noise from the barking is defining.

The dogs are incredibly hyper by race time, and it’s my job (along with the other 200 dog handlers) to get them, the musher, and his sled, from their trucks in the staging area to the starting line, in some type of orderly fashion, and without running over any spectators.

These dogs are so strong, and so ready to run, that it takes at least one handler for every two dogs, and more is better. The first team I helped to the starting line only had 8 handlers, and I ran my butt off trying to keep up with the dogs ~ it was a case of who’s handling who here. The last team I helped had 14 handlers, and we were able to make a stately “trot” to the starting line.

This year they moved the staging area closer to the starting line out of the ice of Willow Lake, so there was no hill we had to get the teams down. Last year, heading down the hill with a team of dogs going full tilt, I fell down twice, along with just about every other handler there. I’m proud to day I didn’t fall down once this year, although I did have a dog that kept bumping into my heels as if he was saying “move over and let me pass!”

As most of the big time mushers have their own team of handlers, we volunteer dog handlers get assigned mostly to the rookies and the mushers who haven’t got a lot of corporate sponsors. I helped 3 teams up ~ #25, Clint Warnke, # 57, Hugh Neff, and #76, Karen Ramstead. As of the time I write this, only Hugh Neff is in the top 25. If you want to follow the standings, go to www.Iditarod.com

As must of you know, I’m a fairly organized guy. I’d made my list of stuff I wanted to take with me, had most of it packed the evening before ~~ but I left the camera in the charger, cause I wanted to make sure it was fully charged. I was half way to Willow on the shuttle bus when I realized that I left it home, still sitting in the charger. That’s right, I don’t have a single photo of the race!

Luckily, the pictures that follow, come from friends and co-workers that were at the re-start.

I’m aching today, sore in muscles I didn’t know I had, and feeling like I’ve been jerked around ~ well, I have been! I’ve got my volunteer baseball cap, though, and will spend the next 9 days checking up on all the mushers and their times over the internet.