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Warm Weather, High Winds Forecast for Iditarod Trail

Takotna, AK - This year’s Iditarod has been blessed with warm, relatively calm weather.  But it’s all about to change.  The National weather Service map of the region is dotted with red and green, indicating both winter storm warnings and watches.  While temperatures are expected to remain above zero, it’s the wind that could challenge even the most experienced mushers. 

As mushers wolfed down lasagna at a long table in the Takotna checkpoint late Wednesday afternoon, talk of the weather somehow turned into an extreme game of telephone.  Reports of forecasted 50 mile-an-hour-winds morphed into speculation that temperatures could rise to 50 degrees.  The communication breakdown had mushers like Aaron Burmeister literally weighing his options.“That’s my brain fart right now," he laughs.  "It's which cooler am I gonna leave here with, so I’m gonna go measure ‘em out.” He was trying to choose between a bulky insulated cooler, and a smaller, lighter yellow bucket lined with duct tape.  He needs water on the trail, but he also wants a little more room in his sled. “The thing I feel like I need to be carrying in my sled instead of wearing it is my parka and my heavy snow pants." he says. "Typically, I wear them, and right now it’s gonna be raining.  I’m probably gonna be wearing a wearing my raincoat and pair of lightweight pants and need to put my parka and snow pants in the sled which takes up a lot of space.”

But the National Weather Service isn’t forecasting rain or temperatures much higher than 30 degrees.  There is a however a storm blowing in.  With it could come high winds ranging from 10 to 35 miles an hour or more, and a steady snowfall.  Burmeister says that’s a forecast his dog team can deal with. “They live and train in wind every day," says Burmeister, "so, that’s just another day for us.  That won’t be a big deal.  AS long as the trail markers have marked a decent trail for us, which Iditarod always does, the wind won’t be an issue.” It has rained on the Iditarod trail before.  But it’s something Brent Sass doesn’t train for in interior Alaska. "I don’t even know what to tell you."  He sighs.  "Rain is not a good thing at all.”  Sass made a last minute run in Anchorage to pick up some disposable plastic ponchos to throw over his head in the event falling snow does turn to rain. He says he’s trying to stay positive about the weather forecast.  Warm temperatures have slowed down his team of large, fluffy, thick coated dogs. “We’re calling 18 degrees cold in this race.  That’s pretty much warmer than I’ve traveled all season long with my dogs.  I can’t change the weather,” says Sass.   If forecasted high winds do materialize, however, Sass says he’ll be ready. “Yeah windy is good.  Windy is fine.  Up where I train, it’s windy in Eureka all the time.  These guys will do fine in the wind and it will cool them down. That’s all you can hope for.  Maybe it will slow some teams down.  It could slow me down too,. But I think it will help us more than hurt us.”

Teams resting for 24 hours in Takotna were blanketed with a fresh layer of snow.  Most of the dogs spent the day in their coats, curled into tight little balls… except for one.  Aliy Zirkle’s fluffy white team dog Puppet spent most of her afternoon sitting up, dozing as fat snowflakes hit her nose.  Zirkle wonders if Puppet was just enjoying the wintry weather.  She says she’s dealing with the warm weather and regardless of how it changes, it’s not likely to shake her.  "It’s kind of irrelevant.  It’s a race and I’ll keep going.  My plans just like everything else are always changing because you do what you have to do to try to get down the trail and get down the trail as fast as you can.”

Veteran Gerry Willowmitzer, of Whitehorse, says weather is what it is.  "All these races are really made by the weather," he says.  "It could rain tomorrow, it could be 40 below tomorrow.  It does whatever it wants with us.”

Willowmitzer has finished the race four times.  He says a good musher simply learns to prepare for anything. While temperatures aren’t going to rise to 50 above, and rain is little more than a rumor, what happens up ahead is sure to include at least a little drama.