Little Delving
Beyond Here There Be Dragons
Three Cheers For Salem!
Mar 14, 2006 07:22 PM Filed in:
Fun &
Interesting
Luck Saves King's Perfect Run
By Kevin Klott
Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 14, 2006
WHITE MOUNTAIN -- Just an hour before starting a Tuesday march toward what promised to be a long-awaited fourth victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, musher Jeff King sprawled in the straw next to beloved lead dog Salem with arms spread wide.
He had time to kill during the mandatory eight-hour rest all mushers take here. He plugged in the ear pieces on his iPod and flipped through some favorite country songs. He was looking, he said, to find the perfect tune to match what's been a practically perfect race -- despite bitter cold, dog-pounding winds and some silly circumstances.
"None of that new country," King said as the sunshine beat on his leathery, fatigued face. "I like the old (stuff), the classic country."
King now qualifies as something of a classic himself. The Denali Park dog driver turned 50 in February and, barring disaster on the last 80 miles of trail to Nome, he will celebrate early today by becoming the oldest dog driver ever to claim victory in the 1,100-mile marathon.
Four-time champ Doug Swingley from Lincoln,Mont., had earlier Tuesday backed off from his pursuit of King. Deciding that his dogs couldn't hope to close the gap King had opened, Swingley opted to give them more rest and settle for hanging on to second.
Once that happened, King knew that about all he had to do to claim the fourth victory he has coveted since last winning in 1998 was walk the team to the finish line.
"We'll run the team at the slowest dog's pace," he said. "We've got a three-hour lead, and I have a very fast dog team. I just have to avoid problems, keep my sled from getting hooked on a piece of driftwood that yanks the runner off."
He joked about become the oldest winner.
People, he said, had been telling him before the race that "you've won the Kusko, the (Kobuk) 440 and the Iditarod, but still, you're getting too old."
And here he was about to show them that although he might be getting on in years, neither he nor his kennel were past their prime.
At the start "in Anchorage, I was confident that I started with the best team I've ever had," he said.
"They've been great: No lameness, no dogs that were more tired than the others," he said. "They were very well matched. It's been like a magic carpet since we left. I appreciate my good fortune."
He appreciated his good dogs, though, even more.
"This is 20 years of doing (Iditarod)," he said. "So there's a certain amount of calculation of what time it will be, where and when we will get there," but in the end everything comes down to what the dogs are willing to do.
It
was early Sunday morning when the race made its pivotal turn toward
the Bering Sea Coast, when King checked out of Kaltag 11 minutes
behind Swingley. The forecast reported strong winds blowing snow
over the Kaltag Portage.
King harnessed his team, knowing it might be tough going but unaware he was about to confront an epic 90-mile adventure over a windblown, drifted trail to Unalakleet. Five-year-old Salem was alone in lead.
"You could see the moon up through the spin drift," he said. "Basically the world was a cloud of blowing snow at our back."
Outside of Kaltag, King found the trail crossed with snowdrifts as tall as the length of his sled and hard as ice. They dropped steeply in waves, and King had to maneuver his sled though dozens of them over a 7-mile stretch. It was tough going.
"One of my dogs lost his footing," King said. "Between maneuvering the sled and trying to see through the snow, I wanted to make sure I saw a marker first."
Snow pelted his face in the swirling wind as he tried to confirm he was still on the trail.
"I don't remember seeing it, but I remember sensing there still was something wrong," he said.
Suddenly, he said, he realized he was looking ahead at two dogs running in lead instead of one. Somehow, he decided, one of his black females in heat must have gotten loose and was looking to run along with Salem.
King braked his sled, put in his snow hook and screamed the dog's name. She ran 20 yards away.
"The wind actually makes dogs nervous," he said. "Wind was blowing in their faces, in their ears, in their fur."
Racing dogs don't like running loose, King said, especially when it's dark and cold.
"Dogs like organization, confinement and want to be a team member," he said. "Getting loose can be disorienting to the point where they don't come rushing over to you."
King finally figured out the loose dog wasn't one of the females, but Angus, one of his wheel dogs who'd somehow broken his harness.
With the wind blowing at his back at nearly 35 mph, King was stalled on the trail, yelling, "Come here, come here, come here."
Finally, Angus came, but just as King grabbed Angus' harness, the rest of the team went past.
King freaked.
He yelled again, "Come here, come here, come here."
But the sled was pulling away.
"Oh my God," King said. He tried to chase the sled, but he struggled with Angus and kept post-holing in the drift. Meanwhile, the wind blew the sled out of reach. Instinctively, the dogs went forward with it.
"My hand never got 10 feet from the sled," he said. "I yelled, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' They wanted to get the hell out of there.
"I thought, 'If I let (Angus) loose, they're going to chase him.' So I didn't want to let go of him. But I did.
"(Then) I watched my sled disappear into a moonlit cloud of swirl like something out of Harry Potter. It just disappeared."
King knew Swingley would be arriving soon, but didn't know when.
"Who's in lead?" King thought. "Salem!"
Before the team was out of earshot, he yelled, "Salem! Whoa, Salem! Whoa!" He didn't know whether Salem heard or not, but he started punching trail, hoping he was going the right way, praying that maybe his snow hook would catch again and anchor the team.
"I didn't go more than 100 feet. Then, in the moonlit fog, is this silhouette of my sled," he said. He yelled, "I can't believe it!"
King walked up to the sled. Found Angus had stayed there with the team. Snapped the dog into the gangline. And hugged them all, maybe Salem the longest.
The snowhook "was dragging along, but it didn't appear to be making a lot of friction," King said. "So I'm willing to give a significant amount of credit to my leader."
Salem,
as King describes him, is an ugly gray dog who loves his master and
running. He's athletic and "very macho," King said.
And if Salem hadn't stopped at "whoa," King said he believes he might have lost this race. The whole incident took about three minutes, he said, but it could have cost him hours.
"It could have cost me the race," he said. "It certainly should have cost me more than three minutes, and I will absolutely take luck as part of what happened. But it isn't just luck. That dog loves me, and he knew that I wasn't on the sled.
"If he didn't love me, he wouldn't have done that because they wanted to get out of the wind."
The weather that nearly cost King his team ended up emotionally crushing Swingley's team.
"It was tiring for them," he said. "They never really recovered from that."
Both Swingley and his dogs looked beaten when they arrived at the Unalakleet checkpoint. After that, they were never able to fully regroup to engage in the chase after King.
By Kevin Klott
Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 14, 2006
WHITE MOUNTAIN -- Just an hour before starting a Tuesday march toward what promised to be a long-awaited fourth victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, musher Jeff King sprawled in the straw next to beloved lead dog Salem with arms spread wide.
He had time to kill during the mandatory eight-hour rest all mushers take here. He plugged in the ear pieces on his iPod and flipped through some favorite country songs. He was looking, he said, to find the perfect tune to match what's been a practically perfect race -- despite bitter cold, dog-pounding winds and some silly circumstances.
"None of that new country," King said as the sunshine beat on his leathery, fatigued face. "I like the old (stuff), the classic country."
King now qualifies as something of a classic himself. The Denali Park dog driver turned 50 in February and, barring disaster on the last 80 miles of trail to Nome, he will celebrate early today by becoming the oldest dog driver ever to claim victory in the 1,100-mile marathon.
Four-time champ Doug Swingley from Lincoln,Mont., had earlier Tuesday backed off from his pursuit of King. Deciding that his dogs couldn't hope to close the gap King had opened, Swingley opted to give them more rest and settle for hanging on to second.
Once that happened, King knew that about all he had to do to claim the fourth victory he has coveted since last winning in 1998 was walk the team to the finish line.
"We'll run the team at the slowest dog's pace," he said. "We've got a three-hour lead, and I have a very fast dog team. I just have to avoid problems, keep my sled from getting hooked on a piece of driftwood that yanks the runner off."
He joked about become the oldest winner.
People, he said, had been telling him before the race that "you've won the Kusko, the (Kobuk) 440 and the Iditarod, but still, you're getting too old."
And here he was about to show them that although he might be getting on in years, neither he nor his kennel were past their prime.
At the start "in Anchorage, I was confident that I started with the best team I've ever had," he said.
"They've been great: No lameness, no dogs that were more tired than the others," he said. "They were very well matched. It's been like a magic carpet since we left. I appreciate my good fortune."
He appreciated his good dogs, though, even more.
"This is 20 years of doing (Iditarod)," he said. "So there's a certain amount of calculation of what time it will be, where and when we will get there," but in the end everything comes down to what the dogs are willing to do.
King harnessed his team, knowing it might be tough going but unaware he was about to confront an epic 90-mile adventure over a windblown, drifted trail to Unalakleet. Five-year-old Salem was alone in lead.
"You could see the moon up through the spin drift," he said. "Basically the world was a cloud of blowing snow at our back."
Outside of Kaltag, King found the trail crossed with snowdrifts as tall as the length of his sled and hard as ice. They dropped steeply in waves, and King had to maneuver his sled though dozens of them over a 7-mile stretch. It was tough going.
"One of my dogs lost his footing," King said. "Between maneuvering the sled and trying to see through the snow, I wanted to make sure I saw a marker first."
Snow pelted his face in the swirling wind as he tried to confirm he was still on the trail.
"I don't remember seeing it, but I remember sensing there still was something wrong," he said.
Suddenly, he said, he realized he was looking ahead at two dogs running in lead instead of one. Somehow, he decided, one of his black females in heat must have gotten loose and was looking to run along with Salem.
King braked his sled, put in his snow hook and screamed the dog's name. She ran 20 yards away.
"The wind actually makes dogs nervous," he said. "Wind was blowing in their faces, in their ears, in their fur."
Racing dogs don't like running loose, King said, especially when it's dark and cold.
"Dogs like organization, confinement and want to be a team member," he said. "Getting loose can be disorienting to the point where they don't come rushing over to you."
King finally figured out the loose dog wasn't one of the females, but Angus, one of his wheel dogs who'd somehow broken his harness.
With the wind blowing at his back at nearly 35 mph, King was stalled on the trail, yelling, "Come here, come here, come here."
Finally, Angus came, but just as King grabbed Angus' harness, the rest of the team went past.
King freaked.
He yelled again, "Come here, come here, come here."
But the sled was pulling away.
"Oh my God," King said. He tried to chase the sled, but he struggled with Angus and kept post-holing in the drift. Meanwhile, the wind blew the sled out of reach. Instinctively, the dogs went forward with it.
"My hand never got 10 feet from the sled," he said. "I yelled, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' They wanted to get the hell out of there.
"I thought, 'If I let (Angus) loose, they're going to chase him.' So I didn't want to let go of him. But I did.
"(Then) I watched my sled disappear into a moonlit cloud of swirl like something out of Harry Potter. It just disappeared."
King knew Swingley would be arriving soon, but didn't know when.
"Who's in lead?" King thought. "Salem!"
Before the team was out of earshot, he yelled, "Salem! Whoa, Salem! Whoa!" He didn't know whether Salem heard or not, but he started punching trail, hoping he was going the right way, praying that maybe his snow hook would catch again and anchor the team.
"I didn't go more than 100 feet. Then, in the moonlit fog, is this silhouette of my sled," he said. He yelled, "I can't believe it!"
King walked up to the sled. Found Angus had stayed there with the team. Snapped the dog into the gangline. And hugged them all, maybe Salem the longest.
The snowhook "was dragging along, but it didn't appear to be making a lot of friction," King said. "So I'm willing to give a significant amount of credit to my leader."
And if Salem hadn't stopped at "whoa," King said he believes he might have lost this race. The whole incident took about three minutes, he said, but it could have cost him hours.
"It could have cost me the race," he said. "It certainly should have cost me more than three minutes, and I will absolutely take luck as part of what happened. But it isn't just luck. That dog loves me, and he knew that I wasn't on the sled.
"If he didn't love me, he wouldn't have done that because they wanted to get out of the wind."
The weather that nearly cost King his team ended up emotionally crushing Swingley's team.
"It was tiring for them," he said. "They never really recovered from that."
Both Swingley and his dogs looked beaten when they arrived at the Unalakleet checkpoint. After that, they were never able to fully regroup to engage in the chase after King.