Newsletter
On the way to Rohn we went over Rainy Pass, which is not a good place to be in a windstorm. Well it was blowing. As you would expect in the Iditarod it was a head wind and the trail was blown shut. The dogs busted through and never looked back. After about three hours of this we reached the Dalzel Gorge. I was nervous about making the run at night but in retrospect it was much easier not seeing all of the potential hazards. The trail that the volunteer crew put in was immaculate. In Rohn they ate their first big meal and slept well. Two hours before I was planning to leave I offered another meal and they just kind of looked at it. When a few dogs do this it is not unusual. Because it was the whole team it was concerning. Well it was time to go and the dogs were up and ready. The trails out of Rohn are relatively flat but technically demanding. They include gravel bars, ice and sections of trail with no snow as well as tundra tunics and the infamous Buffalo Tunnels. After about 20 miles things began to change. My dogs were losing their enthusiasm and it was obvious that their stomachs were not happy. Each time a dog would vomit I stopped and checked to see if everything was ok. The original plan was to run to Nikolai with a short feeding break in the middle but instead we camped for six hours. I felt it could only help the situation. During our six hour break I was able to get them to drink but again they had little interest in the food.
On the way to Nikolai the two dogs who also got sick on the way to camp looked good until about two thirds of the way to Nikolai they both got sick again within a ½ hour of each other. Ultimately I decided to load them in the sled. A third dog was off his tug and although he did not vomit he was showing similar signs. In Nikolai I felt I needed to make a tough decision. I could take my 24-hour rest early even though I was not planning on taking it until Takotna. Or I could leave these three dogs here and stick with the schedule. I decided to leave the three dogs at the check point. The other 13 dogs looked great. Maybe our run/rest schedule was too difficult for the other three dogs. I either leave them here or at the next checkpoint so it would be best for them to stay behind. The other 13 dogs ate about half of what I was hoping to get in them but I was happy to see them eat period. They drank lots of water, they had solid stools and the urine color was good. Ok, I was feeling pretty good. The first mile out of a checkpoint has the nickname the brown mile. My team was no exception. Lots of potty breaks. It usually takes a team ½ hour to 45 minutes to digest all the food in their bellies and warm up. They never seemed to warm up. The back half of the team, except my two wheel dogs, were getting sick. Each time I would examine the dog. It was a long run to McGrath so I stopped to rest for a while about halfway. They were biting for snow heavily, which is like taking a sip of water. It was obvious that I had to take my 24-hour break in McGrath.
I needed to figure out what was going on and try to turn things around. During the break they drank lots but ate little. They liked the chicken skins but I did not have enough to sustain a dog team. At this point I was happy they had a lot of extra weight on them at the start. They were losing weight as dogs and humans do in these events but much faster than I would like.