8+ days on the Iditarod Trail: Part One

Knik Lake, Alaska. Starting line of the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Preface:

On March 10th, 2020 I completed a journey that was over 20 years in the making; I finished the 350 mile Iditarod Trail Invitational. When I began ultra-running back in the mid 1990s I soon learned about winter ultra-marathons from reading current and back issues of Ultrarunning Magazine. In the magazine were advertised events such as the Susitna 100 in Alaska and something I remember thinking was totally bonkers. Something called the Iditasport Extreme and Impossible.

The seed that started it all. From an issue of Ultrarunning Magazine ~2000.

The Extreme was a 350 mile race on the Iditarod Trail from Knick Lake to McGrath, Alaska; the Impossible was what you might have already guessed, yes a race along the entire Iditarod Trail all the way to Nome. Just like the sled dogs but without the luxury of having a dog team to pull one along the trail. Instead athletes had to decide by the race start what mode of human powered transportation to use; bike, ski or foot. Depending on the year and the crazily unpredictable trail conditions and weather, one mode might be more efficient than the other. Historically the bike racers have proved to be the fastest on the trail any given year but there have definitely been years when foot racers or skiers have fared much better than the bikers.

Regardless of the mode of transportation, racers have to determine what gear to pack with them as there is no list of required gear nor any gear check before the race start. Let me back up a bit. The Iditarod Trail Invitational is considered a “post-graduate” winter ultra-marathon. Even to just apply for an official invite one must have demonstrated significant winter ultra skills; typically involving a number of finishes of qualifying events such as the Susitna 100, Arrowhead 135, Tuscobia 160, Actif Epica 100, White Mountains 100, among many others including several overseas. These events all have some form of required emergency gear and other gear that is strongly advised to be carried for the duration of the event. The kind of gear I’m talking about are items you’d need to survive outside in possibly -40°F or colder weather such as extreme cold rated sleeping bag, water-proof bivy sack or tent, insulating ground pad, stove, fuel and various fire starters. The stove is so athletes can melt snow for water or to cook dehydrated meals. Athletes also must typically carry emergency calorie rations; enough to survive a day or two in the extreme cold. Also, because most of these winter ultra routes share trail with other trail users such as fast-moving snow mobiles, athletes are also required to wear a certain minimum amount of hi-vis and reflective material as well as carry red blinky lights and have a headlamp with minimum amount of light output (lumens). So far this is just the required gear one must carry; there is also the list of highly recommended gear which you can probably guess includes various layers of clothing from base layers to insulating layers to hard-shell outer layers that are waterproof and windproof. These layers include all body parts, hands, feet, legs, arms, face and head. You really are outfitting yourself to survive in a cold and hostile place! It’s about as close as most of us can hope to come to being an astronaut landing on a new planet!

Did I mention that winter ultras are the undisputed champions of minimal or almost non-existent race support? Basically you can’t expect much out there on the trail. No crew, no pacers and virtually no aid stations or shelters. So, an athlete must plan to carry all the food and water they plan to need between checkpoints and possibly for the duration of the event! In summary, all this required, suggested and necessary gear adds up not only in cost but weight! Good quality winter gear does cost good money but do you really want to be caught out in freezing rain in cheap, shoddy gear? I know I don’t! Luckily in this day and age deals can be found online at the right times of year to acquire good gear as long as one is patient and persistent; two extremely useful qualities to have to be a successful winter ultra athlete! Along with acquiring good quality gear, it’s often advisable to seek out light weight gear as one has to lug around all this stuff for the duration of the event. Even with the lightest equipment available, one can expect to have to haul anywhere from 25-45 lbs of gear. For foot racers it’s mostly impractical to carry it all in a back pack and hope to make it very far down the trail which can often be deep snow or the weight so unbearable on one’s back that it becomes an arduous task. In addition, back packs can be impractical because not only does one need to be able to haul all that gear, they need to also be able to access items relatively quickly (often when it’s really cold or wet) without having to dump out the entire load! So, most foot racers choose to haul their gear using what is called a pulk. A pulk is simply a sled that is pulled with a harness (waist or back) the two of which are connected via rope or poles. My personal preference is to use a back pack with shock-corded length of webbing made by RM-Gear as I like to access my sled frequently for water, food, etc… rather than carry a lot on my body.

Modified Black River sled and custom backpack and RM-Gear tether system used at both the Tuscobia 160.

RM-Gear sled used at the ITI.

The cool thing about winter ultra athletes is that everybody’s pulk setups are as unique as these individuals; so many solutions and approaches to the same problems.

I mentioned that the ITI is a post-graduate winter ultra event.  Indeed it stands apart from any other winter ultra I've attended or know about in that there is NO REQUIRED GEAR except for a GPS tracking device we are assigned and expected to have with us for the duration of the event. In fact there is NO GEAR CHECK at all! The race directors expect that by the time we've done all it takes to be accepted into this event, we *should* be wise enough to know what gear we need, how much food, how much water, etc... ITI racers are completely on their own even before the race start!

Anyhow, once I saw that advertisement for the Iditasport Extreme and Impossible I was very intrigued. I soon began to follow this race vicariously, year after year, back when bikers were tackling the trail with practically off the rack mountain bikes with skinny tires or constructed their own “fat bikes” by welding together rims and tires and heavily modifying frames.

Blurry pic (sorry!) but this bike has two rims and tires welded together side by side.

However, despite a deep seated desire to one day travel along the famed Iditarod Trail I figured it would never happen. I was far too timid and something like this extreme event way out of my league; after all I come from a “winter challenged” state (Alabama) so how would I even begin to prepare myself? Well, I was struck by something I read on the Susitna 100 website many years ago. There was a section discussing how to train and prepare for the race. Basically said the obvious, get outside in the deep cold and test your gear and figure out what layering system works best for you at certain speeds. But the last bit of the discussion really sunk in with me. Said that if you don't have access to deep cold and snow, train in the worst weather conditions you can; learn to grow comfortable or at least tolerate being uncomfortable for long periods of time. That bit of advice I've carried with me and practiced all my long years of running and ultra-running since I read that. And it's true. It is enough to read about and study what kind of gear you need for winter ultras but what's made the biggest difference with my preparation was the ability to endure hardship and being uncomfortable for long periods of time. It's taking pleasure getting outside and running in driving rain when the temperature is just above freezing. Or even running at the hottest time of day in the middle of July in more layers than necessary for heat training. All these things help and they are all things we can all do to prepare no matter where we live! It's all about getting out of your perceived comfort zone and tackling something difficult; something you're intimidated by or scared of.

So, after years of "embracing the suck" at so many difficult events and solo training runs, I felt I was finally ready to take on the ITI. I wasn't getting any younger and who knows what tomorrow would bring right? Far better to regret making the attempt and failing than failing to ever make an attempt? So after a couple of failed winter ultra attempts that you can read about in my Tuscobia Winter Ultra race report, I finally began to grow my winter ultra experience and confidence culminating with earning ITI qualifiers at the Actif Epica 162km and by finishing the 160 mile distance at Tuscobia (sorry, no race write up). And shortly after I submitted my entry for the 2020 ITI I received notification of my acceptance and received my invitation. Holy cow, it was finally going to happen!

Knik Lake to near the Susitna River, ~27 miles and ~11 hours

View from my hotel in Anchorage, 24 hours before the race start it began to snow...

I was surprisingly calm at the 2 p.m. start.  About ten minutes before we began the long journey (some much longer than others) I stepped outside the crowded road house and mentally steeled myself for what was ahead. I puttered around with my sled harness and moved around various bits of gear, but really I was just chomping at the bit to FINALLY get going. It's the waiting and fear of the unknown before the event that's always been the worst for me. I'd been a basket of nerves and on a short fuze in the weeks leading up to the start. But now, with the inevitable about to occur I was no longer nervous. Weird. Part of that was the inevitability in what was to come. Over the past 24 hours it had been snowing, heavily at times, dumping 2 feet of snow (or more) on the trails we were about to travel. So that automatically meant we'd be slow going and, for the foot racers at least, likely to be in snow shoes.  It was also relatively warm out, in the 20s Fahrenheit, and likely to not cool all that much overnight. So that made gear choice relatively easy. Base layers and a breathable shell and keep the snow shoes ready at hand.

A walk to breakfast and a bit of self reflection.

Knik Road House before the race start.

Cloudy skies but the snow had stopped (for a brief time). Bikers preparing their steeds.

Foot "soldiers" nervously packing, re-packing and re-arranging gear.

View from the starting line, where's the trail?

With just a couple of minutes to the start I put on my back pack harness system and carefully pull my sled to somewhere near the back of the pack of racers that included mostly bikers, then hikers and a handful of skiers. I was in no shape to even think about "racing" this beast. I also knew now I was in way over my head! My mantra for the duration would be: Make Smart Decisions; Help Is Not Coming. This is the big leagues of winter ultras here. Extremely minimal race support and if we got into trouble Out There we were expected to self-rescue and pay the fees for either emergency evacuation or chartered flight out from some extremely remote location. What support we'd have should be considered a bonus. If there's anything we needed, we'd better have packed it with us or packed it in two, 5 lb maximum drop bags that would be awaiting us (hopefully) at Finger Lake (~130 miles) and Rohn (~200 miles).

With a load shotgun clap, we were finally off. For the past couple of hours it had stopped snowing completely. A know a lot of us wistfully thought that perhaps the forecast was wrong and that there would be no more snow forthcoming... But as long time ITI race veteran Jill Homer has often said, "Weather forecasts are usually wrong, unless they're bad. Then they're probably right." At any rate it was completely out of our control so why worry about it? We were all "loaded for bear" so we ought to be prepared for just about anything the Alaska Wilderness and Mother Nature could throw at us right? Ah, so naive I was! Thus began the slow walk toward the distant, tiny village of McGrath; my goal.

The bikes all drifted away relatively quickly, even in the soft snow. Being a well used trailhead of the Iditarod, even with several inches of fresh snow, the trail base was still relatively firm because of frequent snow machine or dog sled team traffic. But, being relatively warm out the trail was definitely not fast. It was rather sticky so I had an immediate rude awakening to the fact that dragging my 50lb sled was going to be very difficult. Nothing I hadn't endured before I thought. After all I'd dragged near as much weight for 160 miles at the 2018 Tuscobia Winter Ultra. It was rough and we had similar conditions then; soft trail and continuing snow. The difference was during the 160 at Tuscobia, it eventually got a lot colder after a day and that soft and wet trail firmed up and was a pleasure to run the back half of. At the ITI though, it wasn't expected to get very cold any time soon. No, a big blizzard was in the works and that was all I was thinking about. The fear had returned. Will the storm hit? When will it happen? And how far do I want to try and go before I sleep?

Despite the first few miles being somewhat crowded on the trail, soon I found myself pretty much alone on the trail as the first snow flakes of the race began to fall. I'm not sure why I was moving so slow. It just felt like I had an anchor back there instead of a sled; it was taking A LOT of energy to pull and I could feel my heart rate ratchet up when I tried to force it. Earlier I tried to keep up with fellow foot racers but it just wasn't happening. I couldn't do it and keep my heart rate or internal thermometer cool enough. No, we each have to run our own race and pace ourselves accordingly. The loneliness of the long distance runner; no where was this more true than at the ITI. It's nearly impossible for one's pace, energy highs and energy lows to match another athlete. But, that's a huge part of what winter ultras are about and can be summarized by the logo found on my 2013 Arrowhead 135 t-shirt: Strength + Endurance + Solitude + Survival. This is the draw of this special winter niche of ultra-marathoning; an adventure where you totally have to depend on yourself and your own decisions to make it through. For me, it's as close as I'll ever get to being an astronaut exploring an exotic frozen and potentially dangerous new world. We all sure can look the part; wrapped up from head to toe in several protective layers complete with face masks, goggles and huge over-sized mittens and boots designed to keep us warm enough and alive in the unforgiving winter wilderness.

The first several miles meandered through some beautiful woodlands and navigation was easy. For the most part; reflective rounded triangles or squares were nailed into trees frequently enough that even in the dark one could spot the trail markers from a long distance away. This year in particular one didn't even need markers to find ones way as there was so much snow that the trail itself was trench at least a couple feet deep and often 4 feet or more in places. Just stay in the trench and you're probably on course! However there are a few places during the first day where one does have some navigational choices to make. For me, like many other racers, I followed Lars Danner's GPX track from a previous year that he thankfully shared with the rest of the athletes. I tried to stick to it religiously even though there were a few spots I had my doubts. Turns out there are often ways that the bikes will go that may add overall distance but at least allow the rider to ride and not have to slog through deep snow pushing their heavy bike and gear. About 6 or 7 miles in, it really started to snow heavily. Thick wet flakes fell in earnest as I did my best to get out of the way of several junior Iditarod dog teams. I don't know how folks feel about dog sledding but I can attest that every dog I saw on those teams looked like they were grinning from ear to ear as they ran along nearly silent! They were in their element doing what they love! I earnestly believe that! A short time later I encountered a guy on a snow mobile who was trying to urge me to follow his snow mobile track to the Susitna River. That his was the only safe and broken in trail left to get there; that the traditional route would soon be buried in fresh snow or drifted in (did I mention the wind was picking up too?). Not that I didn't trust the guy, I just had no idea how far out of the way his track might be and I was not interested in travelling any further than I had too. I had no problem donning my snowshoes and grind away through deep snow if it got me to my destination in fewer miles. Anyhow, I thanked the guy and continued on strictly following Lars's track.


At a road crossing the obvious trail kept going forward but the GPX track turned right. I went right after first blowing right across the road and downhill a short way. Something didn't feel right and sure enough I was off track. I back tracked and proceeded along the road. By now it was nearly dark and the snow was coming down harder than ever. I was lightly layered as it'd been a warm afternoon and not snowing. Now I was getting wet and worried about soaking through. So I stopped and swapped layers for a more serious Goretex shell with hood. The zippers were tricky and I struggled a bit to get the jacket on and secure. During this delay an Italian walker caught up to me. Massi. He said he'd finished the 120 mile race the previous year and understood the route fairly well although it looked a bit different. Probably because of all the snow this year and that just made us slower so the time line was far different.

So, Massi and I slowly trekked on, utterly alone into the fading twilight. I'll admit I was having some doubts. Where was everybody (anybody?) else? Surely we should've seen somebody else ahead or behind us? Nothing. Nobody. However, we were solidly on the GPX track and I was seeing frequent enough Iditarod trail markers. Another clue was that we were seeing ski tracks in front of us; sure they were rapidly disappearing in the falling snow, but they were there. Massi seemed more concerned than I was but I just felt like it was a right way. I was carrying a Garmin InReach Explorer+ that was loaded with relatively detailed topo maps to complement the GPX track. This device also would allow me to two-way text message to anybody in the world from practically anywhere; this would come in handy later... So I could look ahead on the map and see that although nobody was around, we were definitely heading the right direction toward our first major navigational weigh point, the Susitna River. As darkness finally fell enough to cut on our lights we were moving along an extremely straight cut through the woods, a seismic line I think it's called. It was far from flat. The pattern for the this first day was a series of rolling hills, then cross a flat frozen swamp then rinse and repeat. Massi was moving too slowly for my eager pace; for some reason I felt the need to try and catch up to somebody, anybody to confirm our navigation was correct. This, despite so many cues that we were just fine. So I gradually built distance from the Italian and soon I could no longer see his headlamp behind me.

I'd traveled over 10 miles and managed to avoid having to stop to strap on my snow shoes. But my luck was about to change. I left the woods and entered the Dismal Swamp. Yes, this is the swamp that inspired and is the namesake of the locally infamous Dismal 50km. This swamp was about to live up to its reputation! I managed to make it another 10 minutes into the swamp until I found myself post-holing up to my crotch over and over again. Enough! So I reluctantly stopped and secured my snow shoes onto my feet. It took a bit more time than I liked, snow shoeing isn't something I get to do very frequently (never) in Alabama! So I got a bit chilled stopping. So once back and going I moved with a real purpose trying to warm back up. Did I mention I hate snow shoeing? Well, at least I could now mostly float where I was sinking dangerously into the quick sand like snow. So there's that. But it's such a slow grind once one commits to snow shoes. Two miles per hour is as fast as I could hope to go with the damn things on, but at least I could make progress and not burn energy slipping and sliding or sinking. So I marched on into my first night and eventually emerged back onto a connecting trail on the far side of the swamp. Here the going was much easier, firmer snow, and I considered for a moment removing my snow shoes but soon I was back into areas of deeper; accumulating snow. Ugh! It was getting pretty late by this point, getting towards midnight and I was surprisingly exhausted! I'd only been going 10 hours but I was ready to bivy! However, that was kinda my plan from the beginning. I'd been going back and forth on how to approach the first "day" at ITI. With the cruel and twisted 2 p.m. race start it meant having to decide how far one wanted to go before resting. While this is always true, with such a late start and relatively fresh body one might be tempted to just plow right on through the first night without stopping in the hopes of reaching one the early check points before sleeping. Not me. I wanted to "flip the script" early on so that I would hopefully only travel during the daylight hours and get in a few hours of rest each night during the super tough "witching hours". As fellow ITI racer (Nome skier) Asbjorn Bruun was overheard saying, "Night time is for sleeping." I agree. While I'll happily go through the night, or two at other races, this time it was different. Remember what my mantra was? Well, that meant trying to get enough rest and not becoming a stupid sleep zombie who makes poor choices! However, stopping early pre-supposed the weather would be agreeable to stopping, i.e. not snowing heavily! And, as I looked on either side of the trough I was marching in, the snow pack looked very deep and soft; not ideal bivy sites! Just when I'd given up hope of finding a spot to bivy, the heavy snow fall abated and I found a reasonable spot between a couple of alder trees where the snow wasn't quite so deep. I stomped down a flat and packed rectangle and quickly deployed my bivy sack and sleeping bag. When I'm extremely tired it doesn't take me long to fall asleep and sleep I did for nearly three hours. It wasn't good sleep but it was restful enough.

But then I recall being startled awake to the feeling of snow flakes landing softly on my exposed face. Ugh! The snow storm had cranked up again and I was getting buried in it! It was around 5 a.m., still many hours before the sun would show itself over the gray horizon enough to emit it's meager light. I was getting wet, my gear was getting wet and I had many miles to go before I'd have an opportunity to dry gear out. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was feeling some real fear at this point. I silently cursed myself for deciding to bivy in a snow storm rather than do the sensible thing and continue marching through the night. Nothing to do but embrace the suck...