Nikolai to McGrath: ~300 miles, ~8 days 11 hours 8 minutes
Final moving time: 5 days 7 hours 8 minutes
Final stopped Time: 3 days 3 hours 55 minutes
Before 6 a.m. the next morning I was already out the door and on my way to McGrath. I'd actually had a few hours of relatively restorative sleep under that broken down pool table (I truly wish I'd taken a photo!). I don't recall there being a real bustle of activity that early morning leaving. A lot of racers were still pretty much passed out or beginning to wrestle about. This was the last leg to the finish (for most of us) so I don't think anybody was in a real hurry to move on; it was going to be a long slow slog to McGrath no matter what, so what's the rush? Greg the skier had just headed out, probably about 30 minutes before me, and the Kiwi's looked to be getting ready to go as well.
On paper McGrath was supposed to be about 50 miles away. A lot of that quoted distance depended on which route I decided to take. About 19 miles overland from Nikolai I'd arrive at the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River. There I had to choose which route to take to McGrath. I could continue to follow the serpentine path along the river or continue overland. I don't believe there was an appreciable difference in distance between either route; trail conditions would be the dominant concern in my book. The way that looked like I could get out of snowshoes would be the winner! Typically, in most years, athletes stick to the overland route unless there's a pretty good reason not to. Ironically though, the dog teams usually follow the river downstream to McGrath. Anyhow, I'd not think too much about it, but wait to decide when I had to.
I had a little difficulty finding my way out of town that morning. For some reason I thought I had to get right back on the river where I'd left the night before. But the ITI markers were clearly taking me out of town a different direction than expected. I was still following Lars's GPX track so was determined to treat it as gospel as it'd been very accurate for days now (well, over a week!). However just as I was leaving town on a road to the West (apparently towards the landfill) I spotted several reflective markers leaving the road and heading down toward the river. I also noticed a profusion of tracks heading that way, and coming back up?? I decided to check it out and dropped down towards the river as well. I knew Greg was ahead of me that morning on skis so I wanted to see which way he went. Despite my GPX track clearly telling me to follow the road, I had to check; the trail could easily have been re-routed as it often does year to year. Once down into the the little slough it was clear Greg reconsidered and back tracked back up to the road. So I did as well and kept on following the road a little ways further until the trail veered away and dropped down to the river.
The route would now follow the South Fork of the Kuskokwim river for a few oxbow bends before heading overland for a long while. After rounding the first, nearly 180 degree, bend I could see a light ahead of me in the distance; Greg. Phew! We either both were on course or off it! I needn't have been too concern, there was now an abundance of reflective lathing to follow here so the way was pretty obvious; this was a big checkpoint for the dog teams. Speaking of the dog race, it had started and they were well on their way now. With any luck I might be able to see the front runners in McGrath in a day or two. Heck, they might catch me before I made it town if I didn't pick up the pace!
Not long later I noticed some bouncing lights behind me. I expected it would've been the Kiwis but I was wrong. It was the race volunteer who was touring the Iditarod trail and helping out along the way. I guess with the Nikolai checkpoint about to close he'd packed up and headed out. He sailed by me with a wave and was quickly fading away in the flat light of near dawn. This was one of the most difficult periods of time to be on an open expanse like the river. With the lighting so diffuse it was difficult to make out the three dimensions of the river surface. It looked completely smooth and level, but it was most assuredly not. I kept kicking divots in the ground and getting tripped up. It was very cold and breezy this morning and my lights, even with fresh batteries (stupidly alkaline) were already fading and so provided no real lightening benefit; but it was worse without them. I tried to keep on Greg's ski tracks as best as possible, but they were often hard to discern. A bit later, the Kiwis did finally overtake me along with the Italian trio Roberto Gazzoli, and Willy and Tiziano Mulonia. The first two would end up, along with the Kiwis as part of the Unalakleet 8 (that's a whole different story). After the swarm of cyclists had past (I hadn't had this much action on the trail since the trail breaker team had passed me by a couple days ago) it finally got light enough from the dawn light to see a bit more clearly and I didn't need my atrocious lights any more.
Greg and I were pretty much averaging the same pace. I seemed to not get any closer for several hours as we left the South Fork of the Kuskokwim behind and headed overland across never ending swamps and forested strips toward the main branch of the Kuskokwim. Eventually, towards mid-day I got REALLY hungry. I still had a high caloric backpacking meal with me and hopefully enough fuel for my stove for one last good meal. So I started to look around for a good spot to take a lunch break. I think Greg must've been thinking the same thing because he'd paused in the trail and I quickly caught up (even on skis he'd only been a couple of minutes ahead for a very long time, that just proves how tough the conditions were; not great for anybody!). I think Greg might've been peeling off layers or putting some on, can't remember exactly. It was a blue bird day and the wind would frequently gust pretty hard. Clear and cold basically. I'd not be surprised if it was 20F below 0 at least, not counting the wind-chill. I'd been out in the wild so long I no longer was phased by the deep cold or the huge temperature swings. All I knew was I either added another layer or removed one. Hid deep in my hood under a balaclava and fuzzy buff or else was stripped down to base layers with no gloves; often over the course of just an hour or two. That's the Iditarod for you. Anyhow, I wasn't quite ready to stop just yet so I continued on ahead of Greg, but as luck would have it, only a short ways as I found a good spot to take a break. As had been the case, all the overland routes were through extremely deep snow. We literally were traveling along a deep trench most of the time, so finding a spot "off trail" was extremely difficult most of the time as it could involve having to stomp down a spot firm enough to hold your weight. What I found was the next best thing, apparently out in the middle of the flat swamp expanse a snow mobile or two had diverted off the main trail to either play around in the deep snow or else also take a break. In so doing they'd carved out some good spots off the main trail that provided a firm enough place to take a break and provide a bit of shelter from the wind. Perfect.
I got to work quickly; as being stopped you can get cold fast. I was prepared. I immediately threw on my "nuclear option" heavy down jacket with hood right over everything else I'd already been wearing (which was extensive). I dug out my stove and prepped it for the warm-up pre-burn. I sure didn't have a whole lot of fuel left, but I was determined to get enough water to boil for my meal and perhaps a bit more for some instant coffee. As I was working in my "kitchen" Greg arrived and asked if he could join me. I told him I'd like the company. So he stepped out of his ski bindings and took a breather with me. I continued to go through the motions of preparing my meal (boiling water and pouring it into the bag of freeze dried contents) and of all things he wanted to talk about the Barkley Marathons. Ha! Here we were, in the Alaskian interior, the adventure of a life time for me and even here I couldn't escape the long arm of that other adventure! Stupid Netflix! :) Both Greg and Lars (and I'm sure probably a lot of the other ITI athletes) had seen the Barkley Movie and seen my very small part in it. I just picked a really good day to have a good race there. My dumb luck! After 13 years (not contiguous) of failed attempts I'd finally eked out a "Fun Run" there the very year a successful documentary team decided to cover the event. Anyhow, it was actually a good distraction; took my mind off what was going to be a very LONG day (and night) as I was determined to make it McGrath without bivying again. I knew, given the conditions and my average pace, it could take me 24 hours or more to hike from Nikolai to McGrath; more if I ended up stopping to sleep some.
I continued to eat my meal as we spoke; hurrying to consume it before it got cold. I was lucky enough to have enough fuel to last to make some instant coffee as well. That was a nice treat! Finished with my meal and coffee I quickly repacked my stove and gear; anxious to get going. I was, even with all the layers on, getting a bit chilled from stopping so long. Mostly my hands. To have enough dexterity to cook I'd pretty much stripped down to just light liner gloves. At first it was no problem as I was so warm from moving and the bomber down jacket on that it felt good to dump heat via my exposed hands. But now even my hands were getting cold; time to go! As I finished packing up, Greg also made preparations to head out. I was a touch quicker, probably because I was colder, and headed out just ahead of him, probably getting a few minutes ahead before I spotted him keeping pace with behind me.
The cold, clear and breezy day stretched on as I dragged my way slowly (2 1/2 miles per hour) towards McGrath. Just a few miles after my lunch break I dropped onto the Middle Fork of the Kuskokwim River. Now I had to decide which way to go. The heavy flagging for the dog race headed to the right, down river to join the Kuskokwim proper not far away. However, the majority of the tracks seemed to be going the opposite direction, upriver heading towards the overland route to town. It was really a no-brainer. While the Iditarod lathing to the right looked enticing to follow; the trail conditions looked a bit better to the left. The majority of the snow mobile traffic seemed to agree and where the snow mobiles go, so would (hopefully) be the better packed down route. But, it was with a bit of heavy heart that I turned my back on the very markers I'd been following over a week! Felt almost wrong!
So, after a brief walk along the middle of the frozen river, I was back overland for the duration of the journey to McGrath. Endless frozen swamp after endless frozen swamp. Somewhere along the way I remember being passed by a couple different groups of snow mobiles that obliterated the good track I'd been following. It was another snow shoes on again / off again kind of day. Typically it was just easier to leave them on for fear of Murphy's law being invoked. It also made it easier to deal with the crushing disappointed that occurred whenever the semi-firm path became mashed potatoes after the snow mobiles blew through. At any rate, while I wasn't in any true hurry to finish, I did feel like I was a bit under the gun. I was getting extremely tired mentally. My body was holding up, but I could really start to feel that I was truly burning A LOT more calories than I'd been taking in since forever ago. When was the last time I actually felt full from a meal? My own densely caloric trail mix concoction was still going down well, as I packed a few different random varieties to keep me guessing; but I'm not sure I could stomach another day or two of the stuff. But, quite literally, I would be finishing with just crumbs left of my onboard food supply. Scary stuff. I think I still had some emergency calories if the stuff hit the fan so to speak, but I didn't want to go there unless I truly had no other choice. I was still a good marathon or so out from McGrath and the sun was already low in the sky. Anything could happen, overflow, step through a soft section of frozen swamp and get drenched. Who knew? In a nutshell I could still be out there a long time before making it to civilization even though it seemed like I was so close to being done. No time to be complacent. So I trudged on, trying not to think about what little food I had left. My mind was really beginning to wander, I felt so sleepy! So strange. I'd eaten a pretty filling meal not crazy long ago but still felt so tired! All I wanted to do was take another break.
As I moved on, the shadows of the sparse trees grew very longer and longer. The sun was nearing the horizon and along with it came a wicked wind and the temperature seemed to plummet. It was like somebody flipped a switch. I'd been sleepily hiking along and all of a sudden I was chilled to the bone. I had to react. As quickly as I could I paused to add an additional thermal layer under my long red hooded coat. I think around this time one of the zippers on my sled bag busted and so I had to immediately shuffle EVERYTHING around in my bag so that I could access the most important things. This was a headache and not something I wanted to deal with at all! The double zipper made bag access a breeze, but breaking a zipper suddenly changed everything. So, too slowly, I pretty much dumped out my bag right there on the trail in order to find the bits I knew I'd want later; calories, water, extra thermal layers for face, head and hands. But it felt like I was moving so slow! I was also getting cold just crouching there all exposed! Why hadn't I chosen a better spot to do this! Why now? It was now getting dark and my crummy lights weren't worth anything. I didn't have a dedicated head lamp, just these magnetic clip on lights that seemed like a good idea. You could clip then on your waist belt, pack straps, etc... which was fine MOST of the time, but in camp or fiddling around in my sled bag they sucked. I'd resorted to cutting up one of my buffs at the Bear Creek cabin a couple days ago in order to use it all folded up with one of the clip on lights as a make shift headlamp. It worked ok but was too tight on my head; especially with all the other gear I was already wearing on my head. And the cold was still killing my batteries! But finally I had stuff mostly re-packed correctly enough. I'd gotten thoroughly chilled by this point so decided to walk with my nuclear down jacket for a while. That helped. Soon I was super warm and so quickly paused to stow the jacket on top of my sled.
Greg was still just behind me, I think he'd also stopped to add some layers and fiddle with his gear. It seemed like in all things we moved in conjunction and he'd stayed the same distance behind me for the most part. It was truly night now and the terrain began to change subtly. The swamps had given way to more rolling country. So, hills. Ugh! I don't recall anything super difficult but there were rollers a plenty. The upside was in the folds of some of the hills we were protected from the growing wind gusts. I was consuming trail mix like a champ; it was the only thing keeping me awake despite the extreme cold. I could feel my eyelashes starting to freeze intermittently. Crazy stuff. I don't know how long I kept hiking up and down rolling hills. Seemed like an eternity. Somewhere along the way I do remember Greg and I finally passing each other back and forth repeatedly. Like clock work we'd come to an uphill and both have to peel a layer off because it was warm climbing and we were behind a wind block; then on the downhill side or in a little frozen meadow between hills it'd get wicked cold super fast and we'd have to re-don that layer or two. I think he was moving faster at the moment on the skis but I was able to adjust layers a bit quicker; so back and forth we went for the next hour or so.
At one point I vividly recall a bright light coming up behind me. I swore it was a snow mobile and was just about to stop and get off the trail when I realized it was the most beautiful FULL moon I'd ever witnessed. On that cold and clear night the moon was ENORMOUS and BRIGHT! It didn't even matter that my lights were crap, I had the moon! It was honestly like having a truck's high beams on behind me. My moon shadow was long. The hills and woods were lit up practically like daytime. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life that I can still picture in my mind these many months later as I write this. Unreal. Perhaps that brahma bull was looking after me that night? I'll never know. But just as I was becoming so sleepy and frustrated with my lights again, all of a sudden nature's flashlight appeared over the Eastern horizon to light my way the rest of the way to McGrath. Unbelievable! I wish I could have captured the moment on my phone camera but didn't dare pull it out as every time I did, it'd brick up. Once again I kicked myself for not bringing a truly hardy camera along.
So things got a bit better after that. Being able to see the trail much better, real shadows and three dimensions just makes progress easier. I was still moving slowly, but at least I wasn't constantly tripping over the trail inconsistences. I think I finally got ahead of Greg just before the last uphill push to the "road" into McGrath. Vanderpool Road according to the map. It was the first firm surface I'd honestly encountered since before the Happy Steps and Happy River where I went off course those many days ago. It was almost surreal to emerge onto a road that had clearly been plowed at least semi-recently. At this point I still had close to 14 miles to go. It would be a long, lonely rolling road march to the finish. It was a bit after 9 p.m. I think. I'm still not sure, this would be the night the time would change. All I remember was that I was very, very sleepy by the time I got to the road. I wasn't getting in near enough calories or fluids; it was too damn cold by now to want to stop hardly at all. Temps were probably getting into the -30F range by now, it'd get to -40F before I'd finish. I was doing the math at that point. There was no way I'd be able to stay awake for seven more hours of road march. No way! I'd have to bivy! NOPE! I was so ready to be done and couldn't stand the thought of trying to dig out my bivy system from my wrecked sled bag to try and sleep in that kind of deep cold. That sounded like a one way ticket to becoming a meat popsicle. Nope. So I honestly started to panic a bit. I thought I'd read that one of the experiences of freezing to death was getting really sleepy and feeling comfortably warm or hot. F-no. Not me. So I did what the runner in me had been longing to do for so many days now. I ran! The road was actually fairly firm; from being somewhat maintained and from the deep cold the surface had really firmed up.
It was glorious! I'd tucked away the snow shoes not long after I'd reached the road and was in my Neos over boots once again as it was too much of a pain to not have them on; really nowhere left to pack them in my sled. I reasoned that by running, even at a slow jog I could cut my remaining time to the finish by half at least. Perhaps I'd get lucky and be able to get on a real roll. As it was, I was suddenly moving at closer to 5 mph, even pulling my sled. However, it wasn't all easy. There were still plenty of rough sections of road where the snow and blown in burying it completely! Also what went down went up just as frequently; it was a rolling road after all. So I forced myself to walk the uphills and move easy through the blown in bits of road and save the running for the flats and downhills. It was still a relief to finally be able to run again after so many agonizingly slow days stuck in snowshoes. I'd run most of the way down from Rainy Pass to the river, but outside that I hadn't run at all during this race but for perhaps a short stretch or two on the first day before the blizzard hit.
The adrenaline rush of running began to wear off after an hour or so and I began to get sleepy again. Worse, I was getting stupid. It was really cold now and I could still feel myself sweating under my many layers. Dumb. The right thing to do would've been to slow down to avoid perspiring so much; possibly even stop and swap a layer out. But no, in my mind I had no choice but to keep running as much as I could just to stay warm and to finish as soon as possible. So I kept pushing; making things worse by barely consuming any more liquids or food. I simply was through stopping! But I had to do something to keep my focused and awake. So I dug through one of my jacket pockets for my headphones and with some hand warmers folded inside the waterproof bag for my phone, I put on an audiobook I'd started listening to earlier that day. "The Three-Body Problem" by Cixin Liu which had only semi-recently been published in English and even more recently released in audiobook form. I'm a huge sci-fi geek and this has been one of the most amazing trilogies I'd ever listened to. Bit of a slow start with this book, but by the second book, The Dark Forest, my mind was completely blown. But that would come later. At the moment I didn't know a ton about the work, just that it was suggested to me based on my diet of other sci-fi audio books. Suffice it to say it was trippy stuff at a time when my mind was probably on the verge of hallucination!
So I rolled along down the long lonely road all by myself. I kept searching for signs of civilization, a light or anything to signify I was getting close to the end. No such luck. The audio book was helping though and I could smell the barn. I estimated I now was down to single digit miles remaining. And right about that time I did start seeing signs of life. First it was just a red blinking light from a radio tower. A bit later I saw a home lit up in the woods. Before I knew it I was really getting into the true outskirts of McGrath. The road surface vastly improved. What had been a soft layer of snow turned to packed hard ice. The running then became even easier and faster. I couldn't even feel the tug of the heavy sled behind me; I could've been out for an late evening run I shuffled along so effortlessly. I couldn't believe it. Well, really I could. I'd been moving so frustratingly (and necessarily) slow for so long it was just a huge relief to be able to run again.
Still, after over 300 tedious and excruciating miles; miles I had to work harder than I ever thought possible, I was nearly finished. It is difficult to describe what this journey was like. How relentlessly patient one must be. If I could describe a simple simulation of what it was like to travel like that for days on end I'd suggest the following. One training session I did to prepare for ITI was to drag a car tire behind me using the pack and harness system I'd use at the race. You've probably heard or seen folks pull a tire behind them as part of some strength training exercise. Well, this training session was quite different. At the time we lived in a private neighborhood that had a private trail system that almost nobody used. In fact if you didn't know where the trails were you'd be hard pressed to find them after the leaves had fallen. For this training session I hiked the local trails pulling my tire behind me. Also, these trails were not flat but packed in some pretty healthy elevation changes. It was brutally slow! The tire kept getting hung up on roots, rocks or stuck behind a tree or bush. I also had to stop frequently to clear out the mass of leaves that had accumulated inside and around the tire as I dragged it. At some point it was taking me 30 minutes or more to cover a mile. Now imagine doing this for days and days and you can begin to understand the kind of difficulty and stingy rate of progress. But that is only one dimension of the challenge. Another dimension were the cycles of heavy snow and almost balmy conditions (above freezing) to deep cold and strong head wind gusts. An additional dimension is the constant knowledge that you're mostly completely on your own! A mistake could be fatal or at least life threatening. Help would not be coming any time soon. But the essence of these combined dimensions, and several more that are difficult to describe is what some of us are searching for in the first place. It's why we were there. It's why I was there. It's also why I'll definitely return one day to find my way to Nome.
Well, there really isn't much more to say. I finally came rolling into town and had less than a mile to go. I was extremely careful to check my GPX track constantly because I really had no idea where I would be finishing. It was technically close to 2 a.m. (1 a.m. after the time change) so it'd be possible nobody would be awake at the home of Peter and Tracy Schneiderheinze, the host family who has graciously surrendered control over there home to tired and spent racers every year since the existence of the ITI. My only real concern was not running by the finish and getting inside quickly as my base layers were now irresponsibly deeply soaked with sweat. It was foolish to push so hard to finish but the knowledge that I'd be safe inside a warm place soon enough seemed to outweigh the risks of sweating out. I'd definitely not done that if I wasn't closing in on the finish! I needn't have worried about finding the finish. Right at the end of the GPX track I arrived at the end of the driveway of the Schneiderheinze home. How did I know for sure? There was a large Iditarod Trail Invitational banner there. I was done! I could hardly believe it was all over. Very anticlimactic. But I wouldn't have had it any other way. This entire "race" had the same theme throughout; the norm was to arrive at any checkpoint with little or no fanfare. I wouldn't want it any other way. This is not a spectator sport! Well, not quite true. I'm sure there were a lot of folks tracking our blue dots on Trackleaders throughout the event. I'm guilty of doing that every year. Living vicariously through many years of racer's GPS trackers. Now I was one them and now a veteran of the ITI! Pretty cool!
Well, after all that, I stumbled inside and as quickly as I could changed out of my wet clothes and tried to find a spot to dry the wet stuff out. No easy task as there were racers and gear strewn out EVERYWHERE. I wanted to sleep but knew I had some chores yet to do. Out of my wet layers I took a quick shower. A REAL SHOWER with HOT water! It was glorious. I would have loved to stay in there longer but didn't want to impose. A kindly race volunteer was there on the night shift to help me with my immediate needs. She cooked up some delicious food and provided some hot drinks. I ate hungrily and drank like a fish. After, I found some space for my damp gear to dry out on the backside of a huge sectional sofa nearest the massive wood burning stove. Then I squeezed onto an unoccupied part of the sectional and instantly passed out.
The next morning, after sleeping perhaps 4 or 5 hours, the other racers started to stir. Soon the host family was awake and Peter was cooking up a massive pile of his famous "man cakes". I must've eaten a half dozen of the thick, dinner plate sized pancakes! Afterwards, Tracy helped us all figure out how to get out of McGrath and back to Anchorage. No mean feat apparently. I'd been warned to not attempt to make travel arrangements out of McGrath ahead of time or on my own. With the uncertainty of my arrival to McGrath, weather conditions (pilots only flew by sight in Alaska) it would be impossible to predict when I could fly out. Now, since we were all a lot slower getting to McGrath, we had to compete with the dog sled race for room on the commuter planes. Just about every plane was being pressed into service to shuttle the dog sled race gear and officials up the course. However, the way the little flights work in small towns like McGrath is practically word of mouth. While the planes might be loaded heading into McGrath, there were a few heading back to Anchorage nearly empty. So Tracy called around and found a pilot who was willing to shuttle our group back to the big city. So, one by one, we passed Tracy's phone around the living room so we could provide our name and credit card payment! It was kind of hilarious! After that, we had a few hours to kill before we'd fly out, so me and Ryan Wanless decided to stretch our legs by walking into town a bit to see the sights. Before we left the Schneiderheinze home we repacked our sled bags and sleds and put them in a pickup truck that the others were going to ride to the airport. We ended up checking out a local library/museum that unfortunately was closed to prepare for the arrival of the dog sled teams; a charity banquet was in the works. It wouldn't have been quite as disappointing had the proprietor not talked about all the awesome stuff that was in there that we COULDN'T go see! Hilarious! Ryan and I ended up at a local tavern across from the "airport" just to take in a local perspective. Sadly our time was soon up and we walked across the street to the airport.
And just like that this adventure was over and another one was about to begin. But that is another story for another time. I want to thank you, the reader, if you've made it this far and endured this extremely long race writeup. I'm sorry I didn't complete it much sooner. Really no excuses. Just difficult to muster the motivation in a year turned upside down by COVID-19. But here we are!
So what's next? I have no doubt I'll be back to Alaska sooner than later. However, dedicating a full MONTH on the Iditarod is difficult to stomach or imagine right now. No way do I have the time or freedom to do that anytime soon. Eventually yes. It is my dream to hike the entire Iditarod Trail one day. However, I do want to return to do the 350 at least one more time. Now that I'm a veteran and experienced one of the more difficult years I'd like to return to do the route to McGrath again taking what I've learned this time and making some corrections next time. Make some new mistakes and hopefully not repeat the ones made during this journey. But, I probably won't go back to Alaska for a couple of years at least although I'd love to go sooner. Until then, I'll try and seek out "winter" from where I live as best I can. And if I can't, I'll get out and train in the worst conditions I can, because I'm proof that it does help to do so. It's also the most interesting time to train when conditions are far from ideal. As far as the immediate future, my next B.H.A.G. (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) will be to FINALLY complete the 314 mile Vol State Road Race this summer after two past failures! Should be another epic experience for sure. Stay tuned...
