Preface
My dream goal is to one day participate in the Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) in Alaska; the oldest and arguably most challenging
winter ultra in the world. The
“shortest” race is a 350 mile trek on the famed Iditarod Trail from Knik Lake
to the town of McGrath; the longer event stretches all way to Nome. This is the human powered Iditarod where
participants must decide before the race to either ski, bike or hike. Depending on the year one mode of travel is
favored over another.
In order to be eligible to participate in the ITI
applicants must first have finished at least three different qualifying winter
ultras. A finish of the Actif Epica
162km would earn me my first qualifier.
My winter ultra-experience has been a mixed bag. I dropped out of my first two winter
ultras.
The first was at the Susitna 100 mile in Alaska; a warm
winter meant a major course re-route due to the various river crossings, lakes
and swamps not being frozen over.
Unfortunately the alternate course was a series of out and backs along
some very chewed up snow mobile trail with a lot of exposed dirt and rocks and
frankly just quite boring and difficult to drag our sleds full of required
survival gear through. So my wife Kathy
and I decided to stop after 40 miles as this was not the wild Alaskian winter
experience we’d expected.
The second was years later at the Arrowhead 135 mile in
Minnesota; yet again a warm spell meant soft snow surface that made it
difficult to pull our sleds efficiently and to avoid overheating. We decided to stop after 35 miles at the
Gateway Store checkpoint. This turned
out to be an excellent decision because shortly after we got a ride back to
International Falls it dumped almost a foot of wet snow creating a chaos on the
course with rescues and drop outs; only a hand full of very experienced foot
races finished the race!
However, at my third attempt at a winter ultra, I finally
finished! The race was the Tuscobia 80
mile in Wisconsin. While it was not an
ITI qualifier (the 160 mile version is) it was a wonderful and challenging
experience and did instill in me a lot more self-confidence that I could safely
continue doing winter ultras successfully.
So now it was time to finally finish my first ITI
qualifier; the Actif Epica 162km!
