Yukon Quest Part V: Eagle to Dawson City

"Helloooo, sexy girlfriend!"

Sam greeted me as he entered the hotel room. In reality, he greeted my bunny boots, which were sticking off the edge of the bed. I didn't know what he was saying (I have never seen "Sixteen Candles"), but was in no shape to care. Had I cared, I was in no shape to conjure words in the proper order to ask him about it. Upon further inspection, I found myself face-first on the mattress and sweating because I hadn't bothered to remove my coveralls, boots or hat before falling asleep for ... well, how long was I out?

I looked at the alarm clock. 9:07 a.m. Five minutes, maybe six. Oy.

Sam said something about taking pictures on American Summit, the steep climb that mushers face after leaving Eagle, and he left. He might have said something about throwing dwarves into glass-bottomed boats, too. That's my recollection, anyway.

I tried to sleep, but the critically unhealthy amount of caffeine I had consumed during the past 24 hours was not allowing that. So I slung the Marantz over my neck and headed back to the dog yard. I needed to get some recordings in case we missed the leaders getting into Dawson City, or if they arrived too late.

At the old schoolhouse, I chatted with Mike Ellis for a bit -- without turning on the microphone. He and his wife, Sue, had recently moved up to Two Rivers to pursue dog mushing as full-time as possible. They're from New Hampshire and take pride in their kennel of purebred Siberian huskies. They're the picturesque sled dogs, with thick fur coats and pointy ears that are most people's preconceived notion of the animals. In truth, most sled dogs today are bred for speed and mixed with short-haired animals like hounds. They're all-around cool people and very friendly to the media and folks who no nothing about mushing.

I finally did turn on the mic, and whoa! Ellis has a baritone voice that sends the Marantz levels into the red "unusable" zone quite easily. I got some quotes out of it for the paper, but I kept one finger on the volume button while transcribing so my ears would not catch a sonic boom.

On the way back, I passed Annalee, who was brimming with perk after her first shower in two days. She had already filed more stories than the Star could handle, so she was free. I was going to nap, but then a thought struck me: "Who gets to see Eagle in the wintertime?" So bollocks to sleep when there's life to be had.

Annalee and I decided to have a beer or two on the bank of the Yukon River. She knew a nice spot where she and Sam had camped out to take pictures the day before. I went to the market to grab a six pack.

No such luck. No booze in Eagle. I got a questionable glare from the storeowner when I asked, but luckily I've long since gotten over any shame of my alcoholism. She smiled when I told her my master plan about a beer on the banks of the Yukon. "You'll just have to wait until you get to Dawson," she said. Oh yeah, I guess I'll be on the Yukon banks for a while, huh?

I reported the snag to Annalee, and she quickly remedied the situation with leftover wine from Circle. We were a little worried about carrying it around town, so we transported it in plastic bottles along with some Doritos. We left a trail of chip crumbs to a perch on the northwest side of town, a few feet back from a steep dropoff to the river. We plunked down in the snow and sipped the wine, enjoying this view:

OK, so maybe I gulped the wine, which did not make breaking trail to and from our picnic area very easy when a bathroom break was necessary. I finished my bottle before Annalee could drink a quarter of hers. At this point, I did feel a little ashamed of my alcoholism, especially when I ended up stealing a few swigs from her bottle.

An hour flew by as we talked about nearly every getting-to-know-you topic. Our families, countries, childhoods, politics, you name it. It amazed me how comfortable we'd gotten with each other in a short time. Four days earlier, we were answering the other's questions with one word or dodgy phrases; that day, it seemed like we were long-lost friends catching up.

Well, 12:30 rolls around and we figure we'd better find Sam since our flight leaves in 90 minutes and I hadn't seen him since he barreled into the hotel room that morning. We hoof it back to the hotel and wait, watching a cartoon on rabbit-eared television. Annalee knows what it is; I don't. Is it a Canadian-American divide, or am I just out of touch with the latest Nicktoons? Never mind. There's a little more wine.

With about half an hour to go, we start getting antsy. No sign of Sam, though his gear's in the hotel room, and it takes about 10 minutes to get to the airport. We walk to the checkpoint, where they tell us Sam has just left to got to the hotel room. Uh oh, now we're the one's who will be missing the flight.

Annalee hitches a ride on a snowmachine and I break into a run, but stop when I hear someone yell, "Hey, I'll give you a ride." Yeah, I like Eagle.

I slid into the backseat of a pickup and tossed them $10 as I exited. They tried to refuse but I insisted. Sam was there, wondering where the heck we were. Funny, I was thinking the same thing not too long ago. We pile into a van; literally, Annalee and I wedged between luggage in the seatless back. We beat the pilot to the runway.

The flight to Dawson City was fun. The pilot told some dirty jokes, and the view was breathtaking. Did you know there's a bulldozed line through the trees along the Alaska-Yukon border? Weird.

Sam rides up front and I sit in the back with Annalee and about 100 pounds of gear on each of our laps. Our arms are pinned down, and I elbow her a few times. Wait, am I flirting? And if so, what am I, 12 years old?

We land in Dawson, and if there was any sort of customs procedure, I don't recall it. I showed my passport to a smiling lady behind a counter, and that was it. I guess there's no point of smuggling anything into Canada, anyway. I'm pretty sure the illegal contraband supply chain flows the other way.

From a few folks in the airport (which is slightly smaller than my house) and a taxi driver, we learn that the buzz around town is: Either the first musher to Dawson will be here in a few hours, or he got here 15 minutes ago. The odds are on our side, but I'm anxious to get to the checkpoint. We go straight there, luggage and all.

The Dawson City checkpoint is the visitors information center on Front Street, which runs alongside the Yukon. When we get there, Annalee and I dart to the nearest race official. No, no one has arrived. Phew. We go back to the taxi and unload our tons of stuff. We were joined by Jason, a Whitehorse Star reporter/photographer who would be joining us the rest of the way.

Since no one has an idea when the first musher will be in, we stow our tons of gear in the visitors center and grab something to eat. The checkpoint has a snack counter run by a local mushing organization. It's staffed by a gaggle of young females, so I found it easy to pass time by the snack counter. Free coffee and a delicious assortment of homemade baked goods didn't hurt, either.

A couple of hours go by without a musher in sight. By dusk, everyone is certain that Hans Gatt will be coming in first, but no one knows when. There's a few hundred people milling about, all with their own unsubstantiated rumor about the race.

The coffee wore off at 5 p.m., and I found a nice park bench outside the visitors center. I slouched and decided to doze, confident that if the commotion of the crowd didn't wake me, Sam would. The first person to Dawson is a big deal. It's like winning a 500-mile race, and the prize is 4 ounces of Klondike placer gold, which is quite a nice investment these days. For a reporter to attempt a nap while awaiting the finisher was risky, but my wits were slipping, so I had to do something.

At the point when my eyelids seemed too heavy to lift, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. It was Izumi, the Japanese film crew's interpreter. They wanted to interview me. Wow, they must be bored, I thought. So I stumble through five minutes of chatter, offering opinions supported by three whole days of sled dog racing experience. The crew was very attentive, even though Izumi was the only one with any idea what I was saying.

Jason got a picture of the scene, including a wonderful symbol of my cluelessness:

A few minutes after my star treatment ended, a siren sounded from the bluff overlooking the city. Gatt was here! We all rushed to the riverside. I huddled behind a crowd and listened to their chatter, takingg notes to add as possible color to the story. We were all waiting. And we waited. And waited.

Twenty minutes later, Gatt arrived, soaked in overflow with a face that looked like it would never smile again. Annalee and I get our recorders out, and he took off before we could get a question in.

Oh crap. Now what the hell can I write? The Yukon Quest media flacks were saying he would likely return to the visitors center, but that likelihood isn't good enough. Maybe I could ....

Sam grabs me by the sleeve. "You're going to that dog yard," he said. "If you don't, we're screwed." Good plan. Where's the dog yard. "Just follow him along the river, the trail is marked." Noted. So I set off across the Yukon River and up into the hill on the opposite bank. Gatt was in my sight until here crossed through some trees, but Sam was right, the orange-and-black trail sticks were easy to find.

Well, they were easy to find -- until I got to the point where Gatt disappeared into the trees. A road cut through the trail, but there was no marker in plain view in any of the three possible directions. Hmmm. Take a left on the road, and it dead ends in a group of houses with no apparent dog yard. Take a right on the road, and it leads to a hillside highway connected to an ice bridge. I had seen large trucks barreling down that slope, so I don't think they'd send a dog team there. That left forward, up the hill on the trail, as the most plausible option.

I found a positive sign a few feet up the trail -- dog poop and tracks. Good. But after about a half-mile, the trail didn't have any apparent paw marks and I hadn't seen any form of excrement either (the first time I'd ever been disappointed of that there was no poop or pee on the ground). But why would they make the dog teams run on a highway? I continued forward. Another steep half-mile later, I reached a fork in the trail. No markers either way. I had messed up, big-time.

I loped down the hill, carefully choosing my steps in the last glimmer of the day. My coveralls were a sauna, and the Marantz recorder was swinging wildly from my neck. Why would they send a dog team across a highway? Because there's a dog yard on the other side. By the time I found Gatt's spot, he was gone for the night.

All right, all right, Josh. keep it together, I told myself. I might have said it aloud; I really don't know. The important thing was to get back to the finish line to interview the next mushers and pick up the pieces from there.

I got to the entrance of the dog yard, and the siren sounded again. Dang. It was at least a 15 minute walk to the finish line, and I was moving slower than usual. The best way to catch the No. 2 musher was to wait at the dog yard.

About a half-hour later, no dog teams were in sight down the river, and I had get back to the checkpoint to make deadline. I went into the vet's tent to see if I could bum a ride. They couldn't offer one, but Peter Fleck's dad and handler did. I must have looked like an escaped mental patient at that point. Luckily, everyone was being uber-patient with me.

When I got to the checkpoint, I learned that the siren was a false alarm. Phew, so there's still a chance my story wouldn't be entirely horrible. Lance Mackey took second and Hugh Neff was in third. They are both well-known to be media-friendly, and each talked for about five minutes apiece while soaked in overflow at 0 degrees. It turns out there was a huge patch of water about a half-mile from the finish line that was unmarked. No wonder Gatt looked ticked.

When I arrived at the checkpoint, and morosely, angrily and deliriously wrote three stories in 90 minutes. I calmed down while sharing a few Lead Dog Ales with Sam at The Pit.

Then I had the best four hours of sleep in my lifetime. I woke at 7 to call Dan for the radio spot. I didn't mean to fall asleep again, but the next thing I knew, it was 11 a.m. and I had a race leader to find.

Yukon Quest Part IV: Eagle

Editor's note: Doing what I can while doing what I can. Happy stuff from Eagle tomorrow --and a massive failure in Dawson City.

The small plane weaved over the Yukon River, slowing and swirling whenever a dog team was in view, allowing the two photographers in back to get a shot.

I was in the copilot seat, trying to stay awake as I roasted in my parka. It was way too hot to wear that thing, but the only way I could fit it on the plane was to put it on. The aircraft was obviously designed to accommodate medium and oompa-loompa sized pilots. The steering apparatus kept hitting my knees, and I had to move a leg or arm out of the way every 10 minutes so the pilot could reach some sort of knob or lever.

The view was breathtaking, though I struggled to see through the early morning sun. The Yukon River is more or less encased in mountains, and the flat, wide whiteness of the river cutting through evergreen-covered hills is a stunning sight. We were low enough to see the trail. I followed it with my eyes, noting where it cut through craggy patches called jumble ice.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We landed around 1 p.m. and hitched a ride into town. One of the first things I found out about Eagle is that anyone is happy to give you a ride to wherever you need to go. Usually, this means you're holding on to the back of a snowmachine, since that's the best way to get around Eagle in the winter. The town can't be driven to in the winter, so why drive a 15 mpg truck?

After dropping our bags off at the hotel, we walked seven blocks to the checkpoint at the old schoolhouse. About halfway there, we passed the library, where the Yukon Quest media folks had set up a wireless router. We arrived at the checkpoint about 10 minutes after the top four had arrived, all within about 15 minutes of each other. Great, I thought, no need to get creative; the story's apparent.

So I interviewed all four and hopped back to the library to get a story done early. Only I was not functioning well enough to get the dang thing done. My mind was drifting every five minutes, and there was always someone requesting my attention. Peter Kamper, the Quest video guy and Mile 101 checkpoint manager, was talking mushing strategy to me and making some pretty salient points, but I was absolutely fried. I'm pretty sure I know what doing heroin feels like after that afternoon.

So Annalee I went back to the checkpoint to write somewhere else and catch the next pack of mushers, who would be arriving in about an hour. I opened my laptop and finally got a few paragraphs flowing, when the Eagle checkpoint manager, a tall German fellow, informed me that I was sitting at the mushers table and would have to move. To where, that open table next to us? No, that's the veterinarians table. So I've got to squeeze into a spot a the two nearly full tables where I'd have to dodge the hanging

Yes, he said, adding that he could kick me out if he felt I was an intrusion.

I was miffed to no end about that last part. Kick me out? I had been nothing but professional this whole way. What the hell? In all honesty, I wanted to throw my laptop against the wall and retreat to a place that had warm beer and silence.

I met him several times later on the trail, and it occurred to me that he was just being efficient and trying to explain to me his purpose there so I would know. Just a hard-to-the-rules German. There were a lot of those types on the trail, treating the race as an all-revered spectacle that should be run efficiently and with as little intrusions as possible. As a member of the media, I am essentially an intrusion, so I came to despise this attitude. All in al, he wasn't trying to be pushy, though. It was just a cultural communication glitch.

Still, I was ticked, so I tried to walk it off around the dogyard. Luckily, a few mushers arrived while I was steaming through, and I got a couple more interviews. It was well after dusk by the time this was all done, so I trudged to the new schoolhouse at 7 to pick up some diner -- Mexican food again, the same as in Circle,; was this a coincidence or was there some strange connection I wasn't aware of? -- and I blindly ambled along the lightless streets to the library. The stars were bright, beautiful and the only things I could see. I kept on course by stepping lightly and feeling for snow berms with my feet.

At the library, I was somewhat delirious and more than eager to lash out at anyone who gave me the opportunity. I thing everyone realized this. Somehow, three stories were written and sent to the News-Miner. I honestly don't remember doing this. I remember thanking Peter for the strategy advice, which became the focal point of my main story. I remember making a last-minute run out to the checkpoint to try to catch Joshua Cadzow to ask about why he had dropped dogs, but I don't remember writing a darn thing.

At midnight, I went back to the checkpoint, using my cell phone to dimly light the way (I threw my bag against a wall in Central and broke the bulb in my headlamp). I needed radio clips, just in case we didn't get to Dawson in time to see the leaders come in. On my fifth or sixth wind, I sat around the checkpoint, caught two mushers and read the trail report from trail coordinator John Shandelmieier, who is known to leave little surprises out there.

Since there was no phone at the hotel, I decided to nap at the library before my radio interview with Dan. I threw some more wood into the stove and found a broken desk chair top that worked as a pillow. I got about 15 minutes of sleep. Before calling Dan, I killed time by breaking down numbers from old Quest results.

I strolled back to the old schoolhouse in the early-morning sun to see if there was breakfast available. There wasn't. Oh well, I was in better spirits anyway. It was warm, relatively of course, at just -10 degrees. I sat at a fire outside the checkpoint with some volunteers and chatted about sleep deprivation, which was becoming my newly acquired field of expertise. One of the volunteers said going 36 straight hours without rest was easy for him. "You just have to know how to take the edge off," he said before walking into the woods to smoke some weed. He came back a calmer man.

I stumbled into the hotel and fell face-first onto my unused bed.

Yukon Quest Part III: Circle

Editor's note: This is part III of a series that has become indefinite. I'll write something for every morning, but that's all I'll promise.

Sam and I arrived in Circle at midnight, just in time. The trail runs alongside the highway just before it reaches town, and we saw Lance Mackey heading to the checkpoint as we entered city limits. We stopped in the middle of town --- which is the corner equidistant from the grocery store/gas station, the school, the washeteria and the fire station.

I hopped out and saw three mushers unpacking the same equipment at the same time. Lance Mackey, Zack Steer and Hugh Neff had arrived within minutes of each other. I got a few quotes and details before walking back to the truck to wake Sam up. It was then that I began to envy him. With no daylight, Sam couldn't take great pictures easily, so he always had a fail-safe excuse to nod off.

We checked into our hotel, the Circle School. We picked out some spots on the gym floor and set up our sleeping bags. There was a bag in the corner with pink and blue hair sticking out of the top. Looks like Annalee had made it. I jogged to the fire station/checkpoint and scoped the place out. No one was due in for another hour or two, so we decided to call it a night. Before laying down, Sam and I agreed to hike out to Carl Cochrane's cabin on Birch Creek. We turned in just before 3 a.m.

My cell phones were both low on power and there were no nearby outlets. They were my only alarm clocks, so I was worried that I would miss my first radio call-in at 6:45 a.m. I was anxious and woke every half-hour or so. When I jolted awake at 5:30, I figured that would be the best I could do. Sure enough, the cell phone I used as an alarm died at 6. I killed the time by writing my family an e-mail and looking at the front pages around the country for their Super Bowl coverage.

Exiting the gym I noticed what looked like school projects covering the hallway walls. This was my favorite:

Groggy and inexperienced, I called the radio station from the principal's office. KUAC's Dan Bross practically held my hand through the call-in report. I was grateful.

Sam was up when I returned. We game-planned: I should go get most of my race-story interviews done early in the morning so we could leave for Cochrane's cabin by 10 a.m. Game on. I grabbed my notebook and stumbled over to the fire station, where there was nary a musher to be seen. The leaders were long gone, and the second wave of arrivals were snoozing away.

I grabbed some bacon and eggs and chatted with the handlers, which had proven to be both fun and productive because they knew more about the sport than I did. Rachel Steer, Zack's sister who was handling for him, showed me some clips she made with a Flip camcorder. It was pretty funny stuff. I was especially interested because it showed at least one musher when he wasn't on guard with the media around. Well, kind of: Rachel is a magazine editor and freelance writer (and former Olympic skier).

Belgian rookie Sam Deltour arrived in time to tell me some interesting stories about sleep deprivation, and that was enough to hold me over. To Cochrane's!

Cochrane's cabin has been a pit stop for mushers since the original Quest in 1984. Carl is a tough old coot who learned to love the outdoors while he grew up near Jacksonville, Florida. His small, two-room cabin (a huge living area with a sleeping quarters just big enough for a bed) is covered in handmade crafts. He's 76 and doesn't look a day over 92. He built his cabin -- twice, the first one burned down -- and several other structures around it by himself.

Annalee was interested in the cabin, too, and came along. We stopped at the bridge over Birch Creek, about 10 miles back along the swerving road from Central, and hoofed it from there.

It was a 2-mile jaunt down the creek, and we followed the Quest trail the entire way. I told stupid jokes, Annalee collected dog booties -- yipping "Bootie!" every time we saw one -- and Sam quietly struggled with a bad back while carrying his camera gear. It began snowing about a mile into the journey and we all ended up pretty frosty.

Cardboard signs that said "Cabin" were affixed to the trail markers, so we knew when we were close. We climbed straight up the riverbank on steps covered with unstable packed snow and knocked on the door. Cochrane took us in like old friends. Peter Fleck, the 19-year-old kid from Salisbury, England, showed up a few minutes later.

Cochrane told us the history of just about everything inside his cabin, including himself. As a kid, he lived in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, fer crimey sake. "Fer crimey sake" was his favorite expression. We listened to his stories while sipping coffee fresh off his wood stove. Bart de Marie stopped by about a half-hour later and downed a few cups himself.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Cochrane hosted Quest mushers even when he barely had anything of his own. Once, racers camped out under the frame that was to become his cabin. Today, he has a small bunkhouse for visitors and mushers to sleep in.

Sam and Annalee took some shots of Fleck and de Marie working with their dogs, then we each took a swig from Sam's flask and tromped off. About a half-mile later. Sam realized he had forgotten his equipment belt and turned back. While we were waiting, Annalee decided to sit on the riverbank, and ended up in the riverbank.

She said it was comfy, so I plopped into the snow beside her. I have no recollection what we said, but for the first time in three days neither of us were talking about the Quest, and that was nice. I was kind of loopy from the lack of sleep, but we got to know each other. Sam was back in what seemed like no time. It snowed harder on the rest of the walk, however, and the journey to the truck did not seem like no time.

I caught about 10 minutes of sleep before banging away on my stories. Sam was out on the river waiting for a musher -- any musher -- to come by. The race begins on the Yukon River from Circle, and it's a pretty big deal to get a shot of a dog team on the river. Deltour appeared on the river with just enough daylight for Sam to get the shot he needed.

The school cafeteria sold us Mexican food for dinner, and all three of us pounded on our keyboards until something that looked like journalism appeared.

Then came the nightcap. Sam treated us to some more whiskey from the flask, a pilot who was also crashing in the gym passed around Coors Lights and Annalee uncorked a bottle of wine that was a little slushy from sitting in the truck since we left Fairbanks. It wasn't the first time I'd drank in a school gym, but it was the first time it wasn't a school I was attending.

I strolled back to the checkpoint to make sure nothing crazy had happened. It was about 20 degrees and the sky was full of stars despite the bright lights from the school. Nothing crazy had happened. Katie Davis was at the checkpoint, and I interviewed her for the radio while she was wearing a yellow-top, purple-bottom longjohn combo that I'm sure has gained a level of notoriety in her hometown of Olney, Montana. davis' handler posted this on her kennel's blog:

Shamelessly stolen from EveningStarKennel.blogspot.com

Sam and the pilot passed out by 11. Annalee and I refilled our cups with wine and chatted until about midnight.

I got about five hours of sleep and was relatively more relaxed for the radio call-in the next morning. I took a hot shower that was well worth the $10 it cost me, picked up my stuff and headed out to the truck, where I saw Sam looking at the engine. Not a good sign.

Luckily, all it needed was a jump start. We drove to the airstrip about a mile away and listened to National Public Radio while we waited for the plane. It was late, and I started wondering if we could catch the leaders by the time they got to Eagle. Two mushers had set a record pace to Slaven's Roadhouse -- halfway to Eagle -- and if we didn't get there by 3 p.m., the frontrunners would be sleeping during the mandatory 4-hour stop.

Our plane landed in Circle only a half-hour behind schedule, and we piled in with a Native family. We left the truck behind for our assistant managing editor Sam Bishop to pick up -- with a note inside saying it needed a jump.

Yukon Quest Part II: Mile101 to Circle

A dog team leaving Mile 101, en route to Eagle Summit.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Editor's note: Yeah, yeah. I said I would post all the way to Dawson City. So sue me. I keep remembering things and overwriting, which means I either have to post huge chunks like this or take a second day to pare it down. Circle to Dawson City will be up tomorrow morning.

Also, I've been mooching from Whitehorse Star reporter Annalee Grant's pictures since she posted them on Facebook. Muchos gracias to her for permission to put them here. I couldn't download News-Miner photographer Sam Harrel's pictures and he's out of town at the moment. You can see his work at http://kuac.org/about-us/events/yukon-quest.html and http://newsminer.com/pages/sports_yukon_quest.

Man, the lights on that truck were horrible. I was swerving toward the White Mountains with about 30 feet of visibility and about 50 percent of a functional brain. Maybe a wink or two of sleep would have been a good idea. Oh well, I couldn't change any of that, so we barreled forth.

Sam was riding shotgun, half-dozing and half-accompanying me with conversation. There were a few times that I woke him while he was drifting off because I needed the chatter to keep me conscious. Annalee was in the back either sleeping, ignoring us or being to conked out to make a sound. Up. Down. Right. Right. Hard left. Right. Is that a turn or a hiking path? Oh, It's a turn; hard left!

Mile 101 wasn't hard to spot. The road was lined with trucks and the sole beacon in the dark morning was the checkpoint. I still passed it up, though, and had to make an embarrassing five-point turn. We parked and got out to a stiff breeze in still-surprisingly warm weather. It was above zero anyway.

At the checkpoint, we schmoozed with the handlers and German folks who were running the hospitality house. The house had two small rooms: a kitchen in the front and bunks in the back. The checkpoint managers fried up some eggs, bacon and toast for anyone who wanted it. Mushers could sleep in the bunks, but there was only a thin sheet between rooms, so I'm not sure anybody actually nodded off back there.

There was a wood stove in the hospitality house, and between that and the kitchen, it got blazing hot. People were walking into the 5-degree air outside in just T-shirts to cool down. I stepped in and out of the house about 122 times for the eight hours I was there.

We were told that the dogyard would be off limits with certain exceptions, but Sam, Annalee and I had no problem just walking up to the mushers and chatting. Annalee and Sam snapped away with their cameras while I basically just kicked back and observed. I was waiting for the slower racers to arrive because I would see the fast ones later that day.

Around 10 a.m., Sam and Annalee took the truck to Eagle Summit, the most infamous spot on the trail, to shoot some photos. Half of the mushers who scratch from the Quest do so immediately before or after mounting Eagle Summit. The steep side of the 3,500-plus-foot slope is on the north end. It's a sharp climb from Whitehorse and a steep drop from Fairbanks. If a musher loses control on the way down, they could damage their sled and see half of their equipment spilled across the mountainside.

Here's Annalee's view walking the three-mile trip up the summit:

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

And here's one of the three mushers they saw passing by:

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Meanwhile, I waited at Mile 101, snacked on bacon and toast and talked to some of the more inexperienced mushers. They had some hard times on the trail between Two Rivers and Mile 101. Dries Jacobs came into the hospitality hous and immediately stripped down to his snowpants and undershirt, hanging a closet full of clothes above the wood stove. He had never seen overflow like that.

Well, since most of y'all are from Florida, let's review my notes on overflow. You see, when a river doesn't freeze to the bottom, there's always a current of water running underneath. When that current hits a corner or stopping point, pressure builds and the water cracks the ice and seeps through to the surface. Voila, oveflow. It's the bane of competitive mushers everywhere, as it soaks them and their dogs and the water quickly freezes.

Dries, a young Belgian running dogs owned by prominent musher Mitch Seavy, sat down next to me with a plate full of grub. He was simultaneously exhilarated, tired and cold. He obliterated a fried egg and toast with a spoon -- the only utensil available -- as he half-complained, half-bragged about how he sank to his thighs in overflow and had to untangle his dogs from trees. He was having the time of his life and struggling every minute of it.

It turns out that while Eagle Summit gets all the attention, the peak before it, Rosebud Summit, was causing all the grief. Eagle Summit had a smooth trail that made for some easy up-going and a pile of powdery snow for a relatively simple descent. Rosebud Summit, on the other hand, had patches of snow-free, rocky trail and overflow that got deeper with each sled that passed over it.

The rest of the rookies had similar horror stories of their overnight romp on Rosebud Summit. I was jotting them down for a story when a middle-aged guy arrives at the checkpoint dragging a sled full of supplies.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

His name was Joachim, and he was walking the Quest trail because -- actually, I'm not really sure why. He likes walking, and his wife got him a ticket to Fairbanks for his 50th birthday so he could make the five-week journey. Luckily, the checkpoint was run by Germans, because he couldn't speak a lick of English and I had to interview him with a translator. The translator, a burly fellow who should have starred in Das Boot, kindly took a few minutes from frying eggs and stirring halibut chowder to help me get the story.

Sam and Annalee got back from Eagle Summit while I was talking to Joachim, and we were off to Central shortly afterward. Away from the wind of Mile 101, it was practically summertime. All right, it was about 20 degrees, but that's hot here.

Central is one of the favorite spots along the trail because the local roadhouse, Crabb's Corner, is the first full-service stop. The fact that they give a free steak to all the mushers doesn't hurt, either.

The HAM radio operators who track the dog teams were set up in a little shack outside:

It was extra packed that day because there was another little sporting event going on that day, Sunday, Feb. 7. I got some radio clips done and settled down in the restaurant with a cheeseburger (paid for by my expense account), a beer (not so much) and a decent view of the TV. Here's what a Super Bowl party looks like in Central, Alaska:

But with three stories to write, I didn't watch much of the game. I just kept track of the score and hammered out the articles in a laundry room. The table I set my laptop on was bouncing around as the dryer next to it jostled wildly. Normand Casavant was drying his shoes. A few hours and another beer later, I was done. The Super Bowl was long over, and I didn't hear about Peyton Manning's infamous pick until the next morning.

I met Sam at the bar, and we discussed the mushers' paces to decide when we wanted to arrive in Circle, the next checkpoint. Annalee was chasing two Whitehorse mushers in the front of the field, so she had already hitched a ride there with a dog handler. At 10 p.m., we decided the most prudent thing to do was catch the leaders as the came into Circle around midnight.

I had to keep checking my e-mail in case the copy desk had questions, so Sam napped in the truck and I killed time with Cindy Barrand's dog handler, Darryl, discussing the viability of dog mushing as a major U.S. sport. He thinks it can be done; I say no way.

At 11, Sam and I headed up the slick, swerving highway to Circle, our ever-cruddy headlights leading the way 30 feet at a time.

Yukon Quest Part I: Hitting the Trail

Note: This is the first of four daily posts on my experience with the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Check back tomorrow for Part II: Mile 101 to Dawson City.

Photos by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

I usually start my long blog posts "en media res," using a descriptive tale to bring you into the moment. Really, check the old posts. I'm that formulaic.

But what story could bring you into the Yukon Quest? How can I possibly find the precise combination of words to let the few Diagonal devotees, 99 percent of whom have yet to see a full winter, what it's like to follow a 1,000-mile sled dog race?

So forget that. Let's get down to brass tacks and save the flowery stuff for later.

The Yukon Quest runs between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon, reversing direction every year. It's the route that people traveled by dog team for trade in the old, old days. This year, the race started in Fairbanks.

From Fairbanks, the trail cuts through Two Rivers (Angel Rocks and Granite Tors country) up to the Steese Highway where it follows mountain and river trails to the Yukon River city of Circle. Then, it's off to Eagle on the Yukon River and across the Canadian border to the midway point and party haven of Dawson City, where mushers must spend at least 36 hours.

Ah, Dawson. . .

Crap! Off track again. The final half of the route teeters around the Yukon River and stops by the Klondike Highway towns of Pelly Crossing, Carmacks, Braeburn and finally Whitehorse. The Yukon section is typically warmer and has a better trail since the Canadian Rangers -- their military's Far North information officers and reserves -- traditionally prepare the path. The Rangers backed out this year, but the guy who headed the operation, John Mitchell, was hired to do it again and the result was similar.

Mushers can't get outside assistance except in Dawson City and must finish with at least six dogs. They can leave dogs behind at checkpoints or other designated areas, called dog drops. Got it? Good.

I didn't even know that much when I started covering the race. What's more, I was doing double duty as a radio correspondent. The tough economy has forced a lot of cuts at newspapers across the country, and the News-Miner's feeling a slightly gentler pinch than, say, Southern California, but we're still cutting back and needed a partnership with public radio station KUAC to help foot the bill. Otherwise, we'd have turned around in Circle and covered the rest by phone interviews, which is a fairly inaccurate and flavorless way to report on a sled dog race.

So KUAC news reporter Dan Bross hooked me up with a microphone and a Marantz recorder. After an hour of explanation and an hour of fiddling around on my own, and I was ready to make some crappy recordings. My assignment was to send Dan a few clips per day and be interviewed by him on weekday mornings at 6:45 a.m. -- which is perfect for someone with an 11:45 p.m. newspaper deadline (there's a twinge of sarcasm there, if you didn't notice.)

I've got a face for radio, especially with my on-again-off-again bushy beard. But the good Lord also blessed me with a nasally mumble that must make do as my voice, so the call-ins were going to be interesting, I assumed.

The first place I did a lot of information-gathering was at the vet check, where mushers bring their dogs in to be tagged with a microchip and get a health inspection. I brought the Marantz and got used to looking like this:

Photo by James Brooks/News-Miner

The mushers weren't as closed-lipped as advertised. With a little chatting, they're fairly open to answer any questions; well, as much as most other athletes, anyway.

At the vet check, I met some of the people that would become my personal favorites along the trail, namely Katie Davis, Pierre-Antoine Heritier, Sam Deltour, Dries Jacobs and Peter Fleck. These are folks who didn't stand much chance at winning and seemed to be enjoying the experience more than others. Sam especially won me over by describing one of his main leaders as "the most gorgeous dog ever" and "a sassy little bitch." Honestly, I judge people favorably if they're what we newspaper folks call "good quotes," even off the clock.

At 12:30 p.m. The star of the show arrived. Lance Mackey is the most well-known dog musher on the planet. He's the Alaskan Lance Armstrong, since he's won four Yukon Quests and three Iditarods and beaten throat cancer. Really, what can I ask him that he has not been asked 1,000 times? So I asked him what he's been asked 1,000 times and was filmed by a Japanese person while doing so.

Oh yeah, there was an 18-person Japanese film crew shooting a documentary for a public broadcast service. They went everywhere and interviewed everyone. Izumi, their translator, was very courteous and the swarm of Japanese people traveling across the Yukon Quest trail was a spectacle in itself. From what I observed, that documentary will turn out fabulous.

The six days were basically a ritual of celebrated waiting. There was a banquet where mushers drew their starting order from a hat and waited until Saturday. There was a "meet the mushers" event where the racers signed autographs and waited until Saturday. Then there was Friday, when everyone just waited until Saturday. Except for me, News-Miner photographer Sam Harrel and three-time champion Hans Gatt.

I needed a solid source for my pre-race story and Sam needed a fresh photo, so we met Gatt in the parking lot of the Alpine Lodge, where he was staying until the start. He let his dogs out of the dog truck to run around and loosen their legs, so Sam got some nice photos. He chatted with me about the race, and despite my limited experience, I came up with a pretty interesting piece. The dogs were pretty well-behaved, besides peeing and pooping everywhere. We also met Susie Rogan, Hans' better half who was probably the most media-friendly person on the trail. She's talkative, sassy and the perfect foil to Hans, who's always thinking of his next objective.

We grabbed breakfast that morning with Annalee Grant from the Whitehorse Star. She was going to ride up to Circle with us, and the Star was going to provide our ride from Dawson City to Whitehorse. I was expecting a woman in her 30s or older with the typical professional-woman look: conservatively styled hair, biz-cas dress, ect. That was not Annalee -- a 21-year-old with pink and blue hair and a Reptar hoodie. The surprise was welcome. I was mentally prepared to be the kid on the trip, and now I would be spending time with someone who wasn't only young, but even young by my standards.

Finally, race day! No more waiting! Well, not much. I showed up at the Borough Assembly parking lot-turned-dogyard at 8 a.m. to catch some of the first mushers to arrive. The starting time was 11 a.m. The rookies were the first to show up, eager and nervous. By 9 a.m., most had gotten their sleds and equipment ready, while the veterans were rolling in -- just in time to get ready while the rookies anxiously eyed their fully packed sleds for an hour.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

And then, we waited some more. At least there was the weather to keep everyone spirits high. A predicted -5 morning was actually around 10, and sure to rise by midday.

Sam and Annalee, also a photographer, set up in the starting chute on the Chena River -- where the mushers would begin the 1,000-mile journey. I strolled around the crowd, meeting folks and observing details for a feature story.

I noticed a plume of smoke coming from near the Quest office on the street above, so I climbed off the river to First Avenue, where I saw a van that had apparently been on fire. The AutoStart probably started it, a fireman told me. Firefighters were cutting the hood off of the van, sending sparks onto my legs. I would have stuck around for a short story, but the Quest was about to begin. I heel-slid down the riverbank in time to see Abbie West -- a bright-smiling, pleasantly round bartender from Two Rivers -- be the first Quest musher to head up the Chena.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Local boy Brent Sass got his standard raucous sendoff from a group of folks who are just crazy about the 30-year-old with Rivers Cuomo glasses. Sass is usually happy to talk to the media, and he's always got something interesting to say with his "dude, bro" accent that doesn't match his Minnesota background. Joshua Cadzow, a 22-year-old touted as the resurgence of Native Alaskan mushing, left to a chorus of whoops and cheers as well. Mackey got the loudest ovation, as expected, when he left in the 11th position.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

There was a solid line of people that stretched for about a quarter-mile from the staring gate. Because temperatures jumped into the teens, most of them stuck around until 19-year-old Brit Peter Fleck leave last at 12:09 p.m. Two years earlier, it was -40 when the Quest started, and people came for just 15-or-so minutes at a time.

After a quick toast at the Big I with some of Sass' crew and fellow News-Miner reporter Matias Saari, the Quest reporter for the four previous years, I took the company truck to the Two Rivers checkpoint to catch up with some of the mushers there. Annalee came along, and we had to stop at the Pleasant Valley Store to double-check where the campground/checkpoint was. The pull-off for the store crosses the Quest trail, and I was extremely cautious to make sure that no teams were anywhere nearby when I entered and exited. Hitting a dog team with a truck will get you strung up by your toenails without trial in Two Rivers.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We weren't expecting anyone to stop for long at Two Rivers, since it was just 45 miles from the starting line, but many did. Zack Steer was the first to show up and we talked about, um, not much. I had just seen him a few hours beforehand and -- guess what? -- not much had changed.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

I was basically there just in case something happened. Nothing did, except for a beautiful sunset and the confusingly late arrival of Ken Anderson. He camped out before reaching the checkpoint, which is an incredibly short distance for a dog team's first rest.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We headed back at dusk. I wrote three stories -- my expected workload -- by 11 p.m. I filed at the office and stayed until deadline, leaving at about 12:30 a.m. By the time I took care of all the last-minute chores (watering houseplants, cleaning dishes, ect.) it was 2 a.m. I was set to pick up Annalee in 2 1/2 hours and had no coffee in the house, so I picked up a few 5-Hour Energy drinks and killed time before the two-hour trip to Mile 101 Steese Highway.

This was going to get rough, I thought. I had no idea.

Check back on Tuesday, March 2, for Part II.

I think I know what I did last summer, Part I: Convergence

Snow again. Does it have to come every year?

The white stuff fell first in early September, but we got a reprieve with above-freezing temps until late October.

But winter was inevitable, and yesterday morning the chill of -4 caused my limbs to shudder.

Not that I mind winter in Fairbanks. Already, folks on the street are a little bit nicer (Hey, that young man in a Gators shirt might not be a tourist after all!) and there’s this underlying sense that this town’s been faking it for the sake of appearances the past four months.

Don’t get me wrong. I love summer here. But with so much to do in such few days, the freedom of light and warmth almost becomes a burden. You can’t put fun things off to take care of the important things. Both must be done immediately or not done at all. The best most of us can do is squeeze trips and hikes in among work, chores and whatever sleep you can get during the sunny night.

If you’re broke and tired at the end of a Fairbanks summer, my best guess is that you did something right. That’s my case, and I feel satisfactorily accomplished.

Yet, there’s that nagging itch. Everything you did only makes you think of something you didn’t do.

I floated the upper Chena River three times and the Clearwater Delta River, but I only had one round of fly fishing and missed out on a three-day float through Chicken.

I drove to Valdez and Manley Hot Springs with James, but another summer went by without a trip to Dawson City or the Kenai Peninsula.

I hiked the Angel Rocks to Chena Hot Springs Trail and Granite Tors, yet the trails in Delta Junction were once again out of reach.

Yeah, rough times, huh? Guess you can’t do it all.

The main thing I’m proud of in the past few months is the 10 days I spent with my parents. They visited for two weeks around the summer solstice in late June.

The trip started off quite mellow. I showed them around Fairbanks, which fairly impressed my folks. Apparently, this blog makes Fairbanks sound like a desolate wasteland. Maybe that’s because I post mostly during winter.




Either way, they liked it. Here’s the highlights:

* I played nine holes from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Fort Wainwright with my dad (the course was closed, and we played it for free). I forget the score. I remember landing a 3 wood shot 20 feet from the hole before three-putting for a bogey and the light of the sun setting over Birch Hill as we tried to find our drives from the No. 18 tee box.

* We went to the Midnight Sun Game. We found a baseball in the street (presumably from batting practice) as we approached the park, which we later marked with the date, game score and our signatures. We sat next to a middle-aged couple from Alabama and traded SEC barbs with them, though all five of us were united in telling the people standing on the dugout to sit down -- again and again.




* We drove to Chatanika and Angel Rocks and had drinks at the Big I (where dad played pull tabs, our version of scratch-off tickets) and the Boatel. We went to the Midnight Sun Festival and munched on kettle corn while watching a 3-on-3 basketball tournament.



The next morning, we hopped on a train to Denali National Park. The track cuts through the Nenana Gorge, one of my favorite sights from the Parks Highway that’s even more breathtaking from the train. This photo does it no justice.



At Denali, we met up with my friend Heidi, who won my folks over in about 3 seconds. Especially because she took us to see sled dogs.



A hiking guide at the park, she was awesome enough to give us a walking tour off the clock and tell me what plants were edible. I ate a lot during that walk.

The next day, we were up at the break of dawn (3:30 a.m.) to catch an eight-hour bus tour into the park. Luckily, we were on the right side of the bus, from where all the wildlife was easily visible. The people on the left were ticked.

It was a nice day, and Denali (aka Mount McKinley) was in clear sight the whole time. That’s rare, and we took advantage with loads of pictures. Most people who come to the park don’t get to see Denali, and if you’re one of the majority, feel free to cut and paste your head(s) over this:






We got better views of the mountains later, as we took a flying tour of the Alaska Range. I believe my initial reaction was mouthing the words “holy s---” to my mom as she snapped away with her telephoto lens.






We landed in Talkeetna and stayed there for two days. There’s not much in Talkeetna, but we found a startup brewery that served $3 pints of Alaska-made beers. That’s the best deal in the state. I can’t even get a Molson for less than $3.50 in Fairbanks.



Properly fueled, we tromped around the quaint little town, seeing some bald eagles as we strolled along a four-wheeler path along the railroad tracks.




The free time led mom and I to experiment with her tricked-out camera. We tried to find the best use for the wide-angle lens. This was my favorite:


We caught a train to Anchorage and grabbed a rental car to Girdwood, where we crashed at a nice little B&B and did some hiking.


The B&B owner told us of a nice, easy hike up Mount Alyeska. Her husband sometimes takes the hard way up, a path near the ski lift, which she called “completely crazy.” We wanted to take the easy way, but accidentally ended up being completely crazy. My legs were killing me, so I can’t imagine how my fiftysomething parents were faring.

There were many rests, including a conversation with a woman who casually talked about a black bear chasing tourists down the mountain a few days earlier; I’m glad we didn‘t know about that earlier.

Here we are at the top, tuckered and accomplished.




Later on, mom and I hoofed it to a hand-powered pulley bridge. I helped about five loads of people across before we went halfway out and back. It was a long way down to the river, and there was only metal grating between us and the drop. Freakin’ cool.



Dad’s got a bum leg, so he stayed behind after the uber-hike up Alyeska. He surprised us halfway back. “I figured I’d never get to see a hand bridge if I didn‘t do it now,” he said. Take note: That’s the spirit you should bring to Alaska.

On my final day, we drove to Whittier, where the only route is a one-way tunnel that is also used by trains. You have to enter and exit at scheduled times. We entered at 8:15 a.m.

From the docks at Whittier, we jumped aboard a six-person boat for Gerry Sanger’s Sound Eco Adventures, a daylong tour of wildlife and glaciers. It was a brisk, 60-degree day, and we got to see just about every checklist animal there was in Prince William Sound: otters, seals, humpback whales and bald eagles.



Gerry took us out to the terminal moraine of the Yale Glacier, a massive wall of ice that made violent noises as it receded in the summer sun. We saw several large, calving chunks crash into the water as we sipped coffee to combat the chill of the 36-degree water. We were a quarter-mile away from the glacier, but the moraine was so tall that it looked like we could touch it from the boat.



Hell yes.


I left that night on a flight from Anchorage. I could see Denali from the window. Still incredible.

Mom and dad continued, kayaking with an impromptu marriage proposal, bike riding with an impromptu moose, sampling more Alaska beer and other adventures. Ask them about it. It’s worth it.

The best part of my folks’ visit was that I got to combine both of my existences. For 10 days, my Florida life and my Alaska life were simply my life. Now, when I tell dad about how the greens stole 5 strokes from a nine-hole round, he can relate, and when I tell my mom that I’m heading north to Cleary Summit, she knows the way.