Race volunteers watched with excitement Sunday, as Yukon Quest Alaska 750 frontrunner Josi Shelley took off from the Rampart checkpoint in fresh snow, well ahead of the rest of the field. But later in the day, the cheers turned to gasps when a race judge, who’d gone out to check on second place musher Jonah Bacon, got his snowmachine stuck in overflow.
All Rampart volunteers, officials, and vets, as well as Bacon and his 12-dog team are safe, but things were dicey for a while Saturday.
It started around midday, when the trail that should have guided Bacon’s team toward Rampart was nowhere in sight, swallowed by new snow.
“Everything had blown over, so everything looked just like straight snow,” Bacon said. “At times, I could tell we were on the trail, but the dogs couldn't see where the trail was supposed to be. And even when they were on the trail, they were, like, swimming through like a foot of snow.”
He had to keep going on foot — with frostbitten toes — leading his team through eight miles of drifts.
After using his tracker to watch him plod along at one mile per hour for the better part of the afternoon, trail veterinarian Emily Henry says her team sent race judge Steve Hilton to check on him, out of an abundance of caution.
“Jonah did not ask for help,” Henry said. “We just wanted to make sure he was okay. We did send somebody out to check on him, and that's kind of how we got into the situation.”
Hilton took off on a borrowed snow machine in the evening darkness to find Bacon. But as he drove over a section of trail on the frozen Yukon River, his snow machine got stuck, and he started sinking.
Hilton declined to comment for this story, but Rampart checkpoint volunteer Keely O’Connell saw it all go down from the riverbank.
“The headlight was moving, moving, moving,” O’Connell said. “And I can actually see the trail markers in the headlight of the snow machine across the river. And then the snow machine stops. We assumed that that meant that he had gotten into some thick slush sitting on top of the river ice. But something much scarier ended up happening.”
Hilton was able to call the vets back at the checkpoint, explaining that he was up to his knees in slush and didn’t know if it was safe to walk back across — a distance of about half a mile. He said he could hear the ice cracking beneath his feet.
At the same time, Jonah Bacon had just started walking his dog team, about a half-mile from where Hilton was stuck.
“We were gonna cut across, and two headlights turned on in the middle of the river,” Bacon said. “Then they just start shouting at me. I couldn't tell what they were saying. I just had the feeling like they were trying to stop me from going somewhere.”
Bacon stopped his dogs on the ice until a Rampart community member named Ben Newman drove across the river on his own snow machine and guided the team to safety. Then he retrieved Hilton, the stuck race judge.
Just a day before, Yukon Quest officials cut the section of trail that led to Tanana from the race, rerouting it directly to Manley. Among the given reasons were sections of open water on the trail.
Race vet Emily Henry says it was a moment everybody can learn from.
“Maybe being more prepared with having a set emergency plan, because Steve could have been out there for a lot longer in a bad situation,” Henry said. “I do think we have some areas for growth for next year, as well as, just utilizing local resources to make sure we're putting trails in places that are going to be safe for mushers.”
Henry thanked the locals who helped — from Ben Newman, who went out on the ice to fetch Hilton and Bacon, to all the people who fed and cared for the race entourage. O’Connell, the race volunteer, says that’s just how it is in Rampart, which doesn’t have regular access to emergency services.
“When something bad happens, you contact the reliable people to help with whatever the emergency is,” she said. “It’s not 9-11 — it's the Facebook group chat that’s the first thing you go to in Rampart.”
Bacon says he and his team will take an extra long break in Rampart, but he plans to continue the race.
It’s about 60 miles from Rampart to Manley, and another 85 to the race’s final checkpoint in Nenana, where mushers must take an 8-hour rest. From Nenana, it's 50 miles to the finish at Pikes Landing in Fairbanks, where Josi Shelley is expected tonight or tomorrow.
The final 2 mushers in the 4-team race: the father-son team of Jason and Patrick Mackey are headed for Rampart after completing their mandatory 24-hour layovers at the Yukon River Bridge.
(Shelby Herbert)
