Weather was forecast to turn sour quickly over the Iditarod trail, but it didn't materialize Thursday. Teams waited out a hot midday sun between Takotna and Iditarod Thursday. As mushers heated food outside a tiny cabin in the old abandoned town of Iditarod, they talked of warm temperatures and trail conditions ahead.
Temperatures are warm on the Iditarod trail. Veteran Sonny Lindner says the thermometer on his sled read 50 degrees as he waited out his 24 hour layover in Iditarod. He says the heat forced him to take a few extra hours rest on his way into the checkpoint. “It sure is comfortable though.”
Weather and trail conditions haven’t affected Lance Mackey, but both have taken a toll on his gear. “When I got to Rohn, I could hardly walk and there was like six inches of my pants hanging out of the bottom of my snowsuit,” laughed Mackey.
His sagging pants collected snow as he traveled down the trail. When Mackey couldn’t get them to dry, he pulled out his knife and cut roughly three or four inches off each leg. “And as you can see I stayed within the lines, just like a kid in a coloring book,” he joked as he looked down. His shredded pants now hang well above his ankles. The four-time champ also had problems with his feet. Warm weather meant constant moisture in his vapor barrier boots, so he traded them out for a pair of mukluks in Nickolai. He managed to keep his feet dry until he came upon a stretch of open water roughly 15 miles outside the Iditarod checkpoint. “I was lucky enough that my dogs jumped in and went across it," he says. "But when I got to the other side, I was packing a dog and had this little lip to get out of the creek there and my sled got stuck. I was just standing up on my cooker dry as can be until I jumped on top of the bank to help the sled and both feet went underneath me and splash! Up to me knees, so I came in here with wet boots.”
Nearly everyone who came into Iditarod arrived soaking wet. It didn’t shake up the mushers, but Jason Mackey says open water may have spooked his team dog Hobbs. “Earlier this winter, I fell in the little Su training and I damn near drown my team," says Mackey. "The front four dogs were in 6 or 8 feet of water and when we had to cross that creek out here, it was only knee deep, but right after that, it was almost like he remembered, so I ended up packing him in here for the last 15 miles.” Although Mackey has never had to drop seven year-old Hobbs from a race before, he was considering it. “Once you pack ‘em, it just seems like you’re gonna pack ‘em again.”
Jake Berkowitz laughed about how his dogs reacted to the water. “We were probably two feet deep and the dogs are just standing in the water, just drinking the water, that’s how hot it is out there," laughs Berkowitz. "Usually you have dogs freaking out in two feet of water, but they’re just shaking around in it.”
But warm temperatures haven’t slowed dog teams significantly. Martin Buser’s team is still making its’ way down the trail, and mushers are still scratching their heads over his strategy. Jake Berkowitz says despite the competition up front, he will continue to run the race he had planned from the start. “You start changing it and doing what other people are doing and that’s when you start screwing up a dog team," he says. We’re just gonna keep to our plan and change it if necessary, but probably just keep it the same.”
Four-time champion Jeff King did modify his plan. He originally wanted to take his 24 hour layover in Anvik. “Because this is such a remote part of the world on the trail," says King, "it’s way less likely that there’s an established trail and therefore it’s likely to be slower, but I’ve been banking rest based on thinking I was going further.”
It’s 55 miles to Shageluk from Iditarod, but because there are no villages in the immediate area, the trail is rarely traveled. It is reportedly soft and punchy with areas of overflow. A warm midday sun did help the snow to settle, so some part s of the route could be hard packed.