The 2020 Iditarod April 2, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

April 2, 2020

The 2020 Iditarod

Long time readers of this column will be aware of my obsession with dogsled racing and especially the Iditarod. It started fifteen years ago, when my wife and I had a memorable vacation in Alaska, during which we visited five different kennels.

This year, of course, the Iditarod was the last major sporting event before the corona virus chased us all into sequestration. When asked if he thought the event should be stopped in favor of “social distancing”, one musher suggested that camping out with a dozen dogs in sub-zero weather in the Alaska wilderness was probably the extreme of that concept.

This year’s winner was an apparent ringer, a Norwegian musher named Thomas Waerner. Although this only his second Iditarod, in retrospect we should have realized that he was a serious competitor. In 2015 he placed seventeenth. Since then he has observed the race closely while building up a powerful team.

In 2019 Waerner won Europe’s most prestigious dogsled race, the 1000 kilometers Finnmarkslopet, run in northern Norway, above the Arctic Circle. His team of carefully bred huskies took over control of the race at its midpoint, checkpoint Ruby on the Yukon River, and put everyone else in their rear-view mirrors. The dogs with which he finished had identical white faces with a dark stripe running down their muzzles to the tip of their noses.

Second place went to sexagenarian (barely) and three time Iditarod champion, Mitch Seavey. His team also came on strong once they reached the Yukon. Seavey attributed this to the fact that he needed longer rests than his younger competitors, and that his team benefitted from the additional thirty minutes each time they stopped.

Jessie Royer repeated her strong 2019 third place finish, once again the fastest female musher. She was first into Ruby, winning her a gourmet catered five course meal, which she promptly shared with her nearest competitors at the time – Waerner, Brent Sass (ended in fourth place), and Aaron Burmeister (fifth). More evidence that the mushers’ close friendships take precedence over their being competitors.

A month earlier Sass had won the Yukon Quest; its one thousand miles are probably even more demanding than the Iditarod. He and his team have logged two thousand miles in the past two months. The same is true of Michelle Phillips and her team. She was second in the Quest and gained her second thirteenth place in the Iditarod this year.

Sass was the first musher to reach Cripple (milepost 425). This earned him his choice of two prizes -- $3,000 in gold nuggets (actually one the size of a sugar cube) or an equal value in cell phone service from GCI, the local provider. He said it was an easy choice, since there was no cell phone service where he lived, but did thank GCI sincerely for its sponsorship. He will get the nugget(s?) at the banquet in Nome.

Paige Drobny was the second woman to finish, placing seventh with a team her husband Cody Strathe had driven to third place in the Quest. Similarly Ally Zirkle came in eighteenth with the team that brought her husband Allan Moore in fourth in the Quest.

This was Burmeister’s twenty-sixth Iditarod; his highest finish was third in 2015. He lives in Nome, close to the finish line, where he is a teacher and part owner of a construction firm. Probably had no difficulty motivating his team when they got close to the finish.

Last year’s winner, Peter Kaiser, came in fourteenth; 2018 Champion Joar Ulsom (another Norwegian) placed sixth. Neither appeared disappointed at not repeating; the general attitude of all the mushers is that the important reward is participating and that winning is just “icing on the cake”.

Laura Neese is the youngest musher in this year’s race, at twenty-three. Jim Lanier, 79!, is the oldest. Originally his application was rejected because of his age. He proceeded to run two 300 miles qualifying races to show them he was still capable. Unfortunately he changed his mind about competing when he reached the top of the Alaska Range at Rainy Pass, and scratched.

Another interesting scratch was Jeremy Keller, at Nikolai, 263 miles into the race. Rather than being airlifted back to civilization, he just turned around and mushed back to Willow, the starting point, about twenty miles from his home in Knit. It was interesting following him on the GPS map, apparently going backwards.

Coverage of the Iditarod was excellent for the “Insiders”, those of us willing to pay a modest fee. Lots of videos of mushers at the checkpoints. My favorite is one of Mitch Seavey trying to answer a question about sleep deprivation and being drowned out by his entire team howling at the top of their voices.

I am disappointed that our sports media ignores the Iditarod. Especially this year, when there is literally nothing happening in sports, it would have been interesting for someone to pick up on the Iditarod and take advantage of its drama and all the intriguing individual stories.

Alaska has had heavier snow and colder temperatures than normal this year. The race started in Willow, in a blizzard and encountered deep snow and thirty below temperatures all the way to the Yukon. A couple of days later it was above freezing and many of the teams were resting in the afternoon to avoid the heat.

Without exception, whenever a musher was asked to comment on the difficult trail conditions or the severe weather, the answer, invariably, was “It is what it is.” This expression is famous for being the only two-time winner in Gene Collier’s annual competition for the year’s most overused sports trite expression. The Alaskans are just a little slow catching up.

The magnificent scenery certainly adds to my appreciation of the event. Aaron Burmeister reported that his biggest thrill was coming out of an “ice fog” into a crystal clear night and the brightest Northern Lights he had ever seen. Similarly, Michelle Phillips was thrilled by four consecutive moonrises.

Comments like these remind me that part of my fascination with the Iditarod is the fact that the competitors are simple, down-to-earth folks, completely unlike the prima donnas in other sports. It would be hard not to root for each one of them.

The analysts talked a lot about the strategy associated with the decision regarding timing of the mandatory twenty-four-hour rest stop. The two most popular spots were Takotna (milepost 329) and Cripple (milepost 425). At what point in the race is it best to give your dogs a long rest?

Six of the top nine finishers rested at Takotna; three (finishers 2, 4, and 7) elected to push on to Cripple. Difficult to draw any conclusions from that data. The same can be said about the other arbitrary rest stop – eight hours at one of the checkpoints on the Yukon. Waerner (first) and Burmeister (fifth) stopped at the first opportunity, Ruby; Royer (third) and Sass (fourth) at Kaltag, the last possibility. Three others chose intermediate stops.

This was the third year we had a prognostication competition for our family and close friends. We each predicted the first five finishers, not very successfully. None of us had Waerner or Burmeiseter, and only one had Seavey. My son John edged me out by one point. We both had Royer in third, but he beat me on Sass being closer to his prediction than Seavey was to mine. Sic Transit Gloria!

Once again, the 2020 Iditarod was a pleasure to follow. Where else does a twenty-three-year-old woman compete on an equal basis with a sixty-year-old man in a major event? Where else does weather play such a significant role? Where else do a group of superb four legged athletes have the chance to display their speed and stamina?