As a youngster growing up in Wasilla I would look at the south face of Mount McKinley and wonder what was on the other side. As an adult I had a chance to find out. I began winter wilderness racing in 1985, after I became too old and slow for basketball, rugby and other team sports. The first multi-day Iditaski race started in 1983, inspired by Joe Redington, Sr., the father of the Iditarod. Most of the early races went from the Knik or Big Lake areas out to Skwentna on the Yentna River using winter trails and at times following along the Iditarod Trail. They required the racer to be able to carry or pull on a sled all of his or her survival gear for 200 miles through the wilderness on the south side of the Alaska Range. Bikers and runners were feeling a little left out so those categories were added a few years later, and various lengths and routes were made up to torture the racers. Eventually, the Iditasport 100 was formed in 1991, which combined all the divisions of bikers, runners, snowshoers and skiers into one race. In 1997, the Iditasport Extreme, a 350 mile race, was formed in conjunction with the Iditasport 100 and also welcomed racers from all categories. 

The race I will relate to you here is my first time participating in the Iditasport Extreme, in 1998. At age 58, I was the oldest competitor. I had successfully completed the 200 mile Iditaski, the 200 mile Iditabike, and ran, biked, and skied more times than I can count in the Iditasport 100, so it was time for my biggest challenge yet—350 miles, starting in Knik, going over the Alaska Range and ending in McGrath. This race gave me the chance I’d been waiting for—seeing a new side of North America’s tallest mountain. In this race I chose to bike, because if the snow conditions are right it’s the easiest way to go, and the fastest. The Iditasport has an interesting motto for entries, “Where The Cowards Won’t Show and The Weak Will Die,” which I guess is why the race has attracted adventurers from around the world.

For those who have never participated in an extreme sport, and who would never consider racing across a frozen wilderness in the middle of nowhere, the question they always seem to ask is, why? For some, it provides a sense of accomplishment. For me, I feel a connection to the people of the past who explored our world relying on only what was on their back or pulled by sled. It also gave me an opportunity to see parts of Alaska I had only read about in accounts of the Iditarod Trail.

This race is full of unforgettable landmarks that leave a lasting impression on a racer’s memory, either for its beauty, or, in most cases, because it was a hell of a place to get through. 

The race started at 5 P.M. in historic Knik, the original start of the Iditarod race. The rules allowed us to take any route we wanted to the required campsite on the Little Su River. Most racers followed the Iditarod Trail or back roads, but I knew a faster route along a lesser known snowmachine trail. Another racer, Gary Sweden, suspected I was up to something when I dropped to the back of the pack of racers who had chosen the road route, so he wisely stuck with me. We both used the shortcut to cover the 25 mile distance through forests of spruce, cottonwood, and birch to arrive early to the campsite. The younger competitors were certainly surprised to find me, the oldest racer, waiting for them at the camp. The racers are required to camp overnight because some of us would try to go without any survival gear to reduce the amount of weight we had to carry. So, for safety reasons, they make sure we have at least some gear. I spent a rather balmy night on spruce boughs in a hollow under a large spruce tree while the cheechakos froze their rear ends off laying on top of the snow in their bivy sacks.

We restarted at 8 the next morning, heading out over the frozen muskeg toward Flathorn Lake. In the middle of nowhere we passed a strange sign with an arrow pointing northwest that said, “Nome - 1,049 miles away.” I guess it was to let us know we were going in the right direction. After crossing Flathorn Lake we then crossed aptly named “Dismal Swamp”—a vast expanse of wind swept openness which over the years has caused me and other racers much grief. This race is full of unforgettable landmarks that leave a lasting impression on a racer’s memory, either for its beauty, or, in most cases, because it was a hell of a place to get through.                 

I had no trouble crossing “Dismal Swamp” in this race and soon dropped down the “Wall of Death” onto the Susitna River. The wall gets its name because it is almost a vertical drop of about 15 feet onto the river. I did not use my brakes so had no problems and headed north up the river looking for “Scary Tree” and the turn up the Yentna River.  

The wind blows out of the north and there is no protection from the cold as the racers head up another aptly named geographical feature, the “Big Su” (the Susitna River). This location brought back a vivid memory from my first wilderness race, many years before. It was late on a bitterly cold night and my feet had lost all their feeling hours before as I approached the checkpoint at the Susitna gage station. When I arrived I met four racers with some very ugly frostbite, black toes and all, so a National Guard helicopter had been called to evacuate them out. I was pretty excited because I thought I would get a free ride out too, but when I took my boots off, my feet were fine. Prolonged exertion and intense fatigue can really have a psychological effect on a person. It becomes obvious your mind has warped when you’re disappointed that you DON’T have frostbite. Hours of numbness wasn’t a good enough excuse for me to quit my first winter wilderness race, so I forced myself to continue up the frozen river. 

In this race it was still daylight when I started to ride some 50 miles up the Yentna River to Skwentna, the next checkpoint, where many racers would take advantage of Skwentna Lodge to rest for the night. I knew of a shortcut off of the Iditarod Trail to Shell Lake Lodge, which was 20 miles past Skwentna, where I had a heated cabin waiting, and by using the shortcut I hoped to catch the three front racers. I arrived at the Shell Lake cabin at 3 in the morning, slept for a few hours and then went to the main lodge to get water and head up the trail. I was surprised to see two sleeping forms on the floor. They turned out to be two other racers who had lost their way on the Iditarod Trail and had added a few extra miles by accidently turning off the trail, taking a side journey to the lodge, which they were very fortunate to find. My route to the lodge was a shortcut, while their sidetracking added miles to their journey. I was very quiet so as not to disturb their beauty sleep, because I knew from experience, “you snooze, you lose.”

It was a fine day and the trail was relatively firm as I made my way through Happy River Gorge heading for Rainy Pass where I would cross over the Alaska Range. It was on Rainy Pass the year before when the race almost had its first fatalities. Two racers got stuck in a heavy blizzard and were unable to move forward or backward. Fortunately, they were rescued by one of the volunteers out of Rainy Pass Lodge, one of our five checkpoints along the race. It was early evening as I headed over the pass, totally alone but confident that the weather would hold. The only people I saw that day were the checkers at the lodge. Soon I was making my way down Dalzell Gorge with its steep slopes and massive ice walls, which, as some of you know, is where many Iditarod sled dog racers have had serious accidents. I did not have any problems and in fact really enjoyed being able to ride downhill.

I arrived at Rohn late in the evening where we had a tent checkpoint and drop bags that had been brought in earlier. The three race leaders were still hours ahead of me but I needed my three hours of sleep. I gratefully got to sleep inside the tent checkpoint, since the checker was the only other person there. It was the next morning, after leaving Rohn, that my troubles began. I arrived at the Kuskokwim River at about 4 A.M. and discovered it was covered with flowing water. When rivers freeze the water underneath is still flowing and sometimes the water forces its way over the top of the ice, which in this case caused about a 50 foot expanse of water at an unknown depth. But, what the heck? I thought nonchalantly. I had a bike to ride. If I did not fall, and the water was not too deep, I would not get wet and have to build a fire to dry out. I made it across without incident and was soon heading for Farewell Burn. As daylight came it began to warm up causing the trail to soften, so I let air out of my tires so they would not sink as deeply into the snow and I could ride easier. I hit a bump and my tire went flat. The tube was ripped and when I replaced it I could not pump up the tube because I had packed an old tube that had a Presta valve, not the Schrader valve that my pump was designed for. One can imagine how hard it was to turn around and backtrack twenty-plus miles—but I did, and a few hours later was back at the Rohn checkpoint where I got a new tube from my drop bag. At least by the time I reached the Kuskokwim River crossing, again, it had refrozen and I did not have to deal with the possibility of getting wet for a second time.

Hours of numbness wasn’t a good enough excuse for me to quit my first winter wilderness race, so I forced myself to continue up the frozen river. 

As I was returning to the Rohn checkpoint I was passed by two racers, Mike Curiak and Dawes Wilson, who it turned out were the sleeping forms at Shell Lake. In short time my tire was fixed and back up the trail I went. I rode for several hours and came upon Mike and Dawes standing by a collapsed snow bridge, which had been made to get over a flooded area where the snow was run through with water. Anyone who tried to cross it would soon be neck deep in a slushy mix of water and snow. And so we were stuck. That is until Mike reached into his miracle vest and pulled out a cable saw. Hundreds of miles from civilization on an extreme endurance race, and the guy had a cable saw. It was proof that you can never be too prepared in Alaska. We spent the next several hours cutting down small trees and we built a nice bridge. At last we were off on our way across Farewell Burn, a straight stretch of trail 90 miles across a burnt forest. This region is also known as “Hallucination Alley” due to its weird shapes and how they play on the tired minds of those who venture across it. I was actually so out of it that I passed a buffalo hunter’s camp, where I was planning to get water, and I did not see the tents even though they were right on the trail. Later, after missing the camp, I tried to locate a forest service cabin by using my GPS—but the face froze as I held it out to search for satellites due to the fact that it was 20 or 30 below. I carried on and made it to Nikolai late in the evening soon followed by Mike and Dawes. We decided to get a few hours of sleep and then go the last 50 miles to McGrath, the finish line, together.

When we got up the temperature had dropped so low that when Mike went to get on his bike his seat post broke and there was no way to attach it. We took some extra clothes and duck taped them to the seat. This was not so he could sit down but so he would not get a rectal exam on the way to McGrath. Off we went, in the early wee hours of the morning, with Mike riding standing up and me falling asleep. I was not able to stay awake even an hour out of Nikolai and, after face planting in the snow several times, I had to reluctantly stop, get out my bivy sack, scoop out some snow, and settle down for a long winter’s nap.  Even at 30 or 40 below, if you bury yourself in the snow, the snow temperature is a nice cozy 32°F above.

When I awoke from my cozy slumber a few hours later, I made my way the last 40 or so miles to the finish line. I arrived in McGrath with no one there to witness the end of my 350 mile journey with a finish time of 5 days, 20 hours, and 10 minutes. Finally, some guy drove up in a school bus and told me where the other finishers were hanging out at a volunteer’s house. The lack of ceremony reminded me that we risk frostbite, hypothermia and plenty of suffering not for the glory, but because we are completely crazy. Oh, and by the way, after I got back to Anchorage, I realized that I had forgotten to look at the other side of Mount McKinley.