In the first couple days of racing, Iditarod dog teams are running along some of the roughest parts of trail reported on this year’s Iditarod. But the actual trail may not be the challenge. A handful of mushers are sick and others are making an effort to keep their dogs race ready.
When he arrived in Skwentna, Allen Moore says he could barely talk. By the time he arrived in Rainy Pass, 70 miles later, his voice had recovered, but he wasn’t feeling too healthy.
“At least I don’t have a fever,” said Moore. “One year I had a 104 fever. That was bad.”
Reporter: “How do you mush when you’re that sick?”
“I don’t know that. This is manageable. It’s not debilitating. One year I had to take ibuprofen until it was 101 and then I could leave and that was for 300 miles,” said Moore.
The Two Rivers musher was parked next to Jeff King in the Rainy Pass dog yard.
“I tried to get Jeff to come over and hug me, but he’s keeping his distance,” said Moore.
Moore says Dallas Seavey also has a cold.
“Me and Seavey gonna come jump him. Me and Dallas can hold him down. Dallas was a wrestler.”
Joking aside, there are a handful of other mushers rumored to have what Moore refers to as the crud.’ As for their sled dogs, musher says some are dealing with sore wrists.
Out on the trail, a glaring midday sun was trying to burn off thick clouds. Lance Mackey’s team basked in the sun, as the four-time champion wrestled dog booties onto their feet.
“As usual, a couple of dogs with sore wrists for no apparent reasons. We train all year, make it to this far and 50 mile run, they look like they’ve just done a [Yukon] Quest and an Iditarod or something,” said Mackey.
Mackey’s team had just come off the Happy River Steps.
“I’ve been down the steps 14 times, it’s beautiful right now,” said Mackey.
Mackey seemed surprised, but that may have had more to do with his little brother’s dog team than trail conditions. Jason Mackey was parked only a few feet away.
“There’s ten of my veteran dogs right there I should be driving,” said Lance Mackey.
Had a reporter and a microphone not been present, they might have hurled empty insults at one another – as brothers are wont to do. They did manage find some humor in the rumors they’d both heard about an ice bridge through the Dalzell Gorge.
“I heard when we first started that it collapsed and they had like twenty guys out there trying to reroute it.,” said Lance Mackey.
“How the hell do you reroute the gorge?,” asked Jason Mackey.
‘Right down the middle’ joked Jason Mackey, and Lance agreed.
Both Mackeys know they won’t really know what the trail is like until they actually get there. That’s how Cim Smyth feels too. A seasoned veteran, Smyth was among the majority of mushers who said so far the trail has been pretty good.
“The trail coming here was great. They worked on the trail pretty good and drug it pretty nice. I mean there’s a couple spots. We bounced off a couple trees, but for this section of the trail, that’s nothing,” said Smyth.
Smyth was wrapping the front left wrist of his wheel dog, Smog.
“Well, he had earlier sore wrists, but it doesn’t seem to be sore anymore,” said Smyth.
Smyth wanted to make sure it didn’t swell up. It seems Smyth’s main concern is not the gorge, or the trail ahead, but what reported open water might do to his dogs’ paws.
“If they get real wet then it’s a problem for continuing. You don’t really want to have booties on when you go across water if you can help it, but I’m not exactly sure where it is,” said Smyth.
But Smyth and the rest of the field will get there soon enough.
