2014 Iditarod- A report from the field

Iditarod 2014

 -A report from the field.

   “Do you want a hot dog?”  He was one of the last.  The grind of the snow-brake brought him to a tidy halt.  

   “Is there any pork in there mon?”  The follow-up questions along with the Jamaican accent was unmistakable.  Newton Marshal.  For the second year in a row he was taking-up-the-rear and gently refusing our offerings.  

   At this point we knew that at least with him, our efforts were futile.  We want them all to take a dog.  It serves as humble validation of what we do.  We wished him well. He thanked us as he pulled the hook and his dogs took him down the trail into the darkness.  I wondered how many pork offerings he would have to turn down before passing under the burled arch in Nome.  Note-to-self: bring one boca-dog next year.

     It was late.  Our party of 15 was disintegrating rapidly.  Supplies were being packed up under the starry night.  Kids were fading.  Hazelee was fast asleep under her mom’s beaver hat in a lawn chair by the fire.  She would protest her exit from the scene but sometimes moms know best.  

     The giant standing spruce tree had bucked up nicely and by now was a burning juggernaut of light and heat.  The bottom four foot section had a big burl and it had served well as a counter-top table and perennial conversation piece.  

Are these big enough?

    Earlier we all watched the Aurora Borealis belt across the sky adding to the already impressive light show put-on by the stars.  The big dipper was easy to pick out along with Orion and Venus then something else caught our attention;  a big owl flew over head.  We had heard the owl the night before. It was hooting in the woods around the cabin.  Maybe like us, he couldn't resist all the activity.  Maybe he wanted a hot dog or two.  I’ll bet that pork would be okay by him.

     Newton Marshal was one of only two nay-sayers this year.  The other was the illustrious Aliy Zirkle. Everyone else took a dog.   Some friends of mine have cabins ten miles down river and they are huge Aliy fans.   Like us, they also build a snow block wall and maintain a bonfire presence each year but in addition to our efforts, they also fly an Aliy Zirkle banner and tend to an unofficial Aliy Zirkle fan club page on Facebook as well.  They always pack-in a big crowd and are notorious for their carryings-on.  The good news is that after overcoming early years’ misunderstandings of intention, Aliy is no longer leary of this crew, who, as a side-note, sometimes come dressed in costume; astronauts, cowboys etc, like the Yentna River’s version of the Village People. I was willing to bet that the Village People fed her.

      As for our camp- we are well and good.  Posting the highest percentage of hot dog handouts ever, this year’s efforts were perfunctory.  So perfunctory in fact that extra time was afforded to shooting-the-breeze, howling at the moon and stoking-the fire (not necesarily in that order).  Perhaps most of the affirmation though comes not from the patting of one’s own back as I am doing here, but rather from the musher’s themselves who make-a-point of thanking us for our efforts.  “ I was so looking forward to this!”, or “ Oh, good you guys are still doing this, thanks!”, or “ I look forward to this every year!”

  Note to the galley:  Martin Buser took a dog from us this year for the first time ever!  He must have read my blog entry from last year’s race.  We would find out later that he would lead the race all the way to Nicoli before taking his 24 hour rest.  Powered by pork.  Best of luck to him.

Amanda Harrison making the handoff

   Adding to the depth and scale of our efforts, we once again conducted our beloved Fantasy Iditarod Drawing.  The “Draw” pits contestants knowledge of mushers along with their ten bucks in a guessing game of Iditarod finishes.   Last year’s winner was my wife Tamra who was proud-as-punch. She used her winnings to purchase a propane-fired camp oven.  Her selfless act brought our operation to a new level.   Keeping the buns warm is now a cinch.  We even baked cookies this year.   Bless her heart, the year I won I think I blew it all on a giant foam cowboy hat and seven cases of cheap beer.

    Alas, another Iditarod has come and gone for us signalling the end of our winter.  I always want it to last longer than it does and feelings of melancholy crop up but are soon dampened by the allure of the springtime sun.  For the Harrison's, traditions such as this one are all part of the rhythm of life and are looked forward-to, planned-for and celebrated.

Hotdog anyone?

Fantasy Iditarod 2014

 Winner’s report:  Last year’s winner Tamra Jo reports that winning was “good.”  

Treasurers report:   100 bucks in the pot from last year.  The other 100 was spent by Tamra. on the following:

 1)$7.50 went to the United way

2) $7.50 went to the “She’s the first” program that raises funds for girls education in Uganda

3) $7.50 went to a bottle of cheap champagne that she drank by herself in the tub.

4) The remainder went to a BRAND NEW OVEN for the hotdogs! ( pause for cheering, hugs, and high fives.  Chest bumping is decidedly out this year. Man hugs are ok.

Rule Changes:

     There are no rule changes from last year.  Below is a recap.

1)     The point value for the winning musher earns ten additional bonus points. 

2)    Rookies’ scores will earn 1.5 times their point value finish. 

3) Red lantern musher earns the same point  value as the winner minus the ten bonus points.

4) A scratched musher earns zero.

5) Dead dog rule:  minus 50….loser!!!!

                       

Butternut B.S. and the Sundance Kid

        Butternut Bullshit and the Sundance Kid  

 

    Regrettably I found myself in one of my least favorite places.  It’s a place where mega store pricing dances the tango with sour-note politics like Hee-haw on meth.  That’s right, I was in the check-out line at the Wasilla Walmart.  Yeeeeeee haw!

    I had been content to wait this one out in the truck while the wife went in but I realized that as long as I was there, I should scuttle inside and pick up a sundry item so as to not necessitate another stoppage on the gettin-home train.

  Low-and-behold who shall I spy pushing a shopping cart amongst the Roma tomatoes and butternut squash?  It was none other than the Sundance Kid!  

Howdie Walmart shoppers

   There, not forty feet from me was a true cowboy of old.  Leather banded Stetson, tight Lee Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots (of course) and perhaps the most definitive characteristic held high by the standards of Americans near and far, his six-shooter.  There it was in all its glory; His pistol was strapped to his hip held snug by a brown leather holster.

     Had he just flown in from the set of Josey Wales?  Where were his spurs?  I had a sudden urge to hear the metallic ching ching resonating off the Walmart tile. I had questions.

    Well thank God he was here today.  My heart rest at-ease knowing that the Sundance Kid was there for me, right here at my local Walmart in case of any malfeasance, or misdirected miscreants. I considered myself lucky.  I  should walk up and shake his hand.   But, like every other time I've been in that store, I was in a hurry to get the hell out of there and wouldn't get that chance.

  Keeping my smart-ass undertones in-check,  I left the Wasilla Walmart and resumed my perch in the parking lot to wait for my wife.  The wife, being a much better person than I, is decidedly unaffected by the redneck hootenanny that is the lifeblood of the Walmart machine. 

Somehow she is able to forge-on with focus, diligence and purpose.  Hurricane Katrina herself couldn't sway her from the aisles of deals and roll-back pricing with or without armed cowboys in-tow.

    “Did you see the cowboy in there?” I asked when she returned to the truck, which was more than a few minutes later.

  “No.”

   “Yeah, there’s a guy in there with a revolver holstered to his hip.  I couldn’t see his face because it was cast in the shadow of his black stetson hat, but I’m pretty sure it was the Sundance Kid himself.... he was picking out butternut squash!”

   My feeble attempt at humor and overactive imagination failed to pierce her armor as far I could tell, but she played along.

   “Okay honey.”

     As we drove home I found myself thinking about Sundance.  I wanted to know more.  Aside from the whereabouts of Butch Cassidy,  I wanted to know how this guy, this relic of the American West thought that bringing a loaded pistol into Walmart was a good idea.

    Maybe he was a true American bad ass that didn’t give a shit one-way-or-another what anyone thought.  Carrying a loaded firearm in public was his God given right by-way-of the second amendment.  He would know that there would be be skeptics but he also knew that he would be praised to high-heaven by these same people should he have the opportunity to subdue a crazed interloper that might happen to appear in the teen-miss, electronics, or dairy sections; It would be worth it.

    Maybe I’m being too harsh.  Maybe his ivory handled Colt was simply worn as a deterrent.  Like a garlic necklace to a vampire, crooks and evil-doers would be warded off.  Without it, the common criminal might view Sundance as a push-over.  If there’s one thing a cowboy hates it’s being bullied.  He might be mugged as he’s picking out chips.

    If any of these scenarios are true then it’s a wonder how the other 114 unarmed customers in the store were expecting to survive their shopping experience on that early Sunday afternoon.   If this was a typical representation of the demographics of the Mat Su valley then most of them would be proud gun owners themselves (myself included.)  Why on earth did the rest of us leave our guns at home?  We must be fools!    

     Maybe Sundance was a cop. Maybe instead of Hawaiian shirt Tuesday, or flip-flop Friday, maybe it was Cowboy Sunday.  

   As my guessings came to the end of their trail I realized that I didn't really care what the real story was. All I could hope for was that Sundance was a rational and reasonable fellow but it was hard for me to tell.  A rational and reasonable fellow, I decided might know a ripe butternut squash when he saw one.  A good one is known by its golden tan, with no green striping and an intact stem.  I’m sure he would know the difference.

    But if there was any chance he was the kind of guy that seems to be turning up at shopping malls, movie theaters, and schools around the country in increasing regularity,  like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia tech then I would no longer be sitting here typing and speculating.  Truth is no one knows why the Sundance Kid was ‘packin heat that day at the Walmart accept Sundance himself.  The problem is that unlike butternut squash I can’t tell a good cowboy from a bad one just by looking.

Two can play at this game.

Moose Club report 2014

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.  Teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. -Chinese Proverb   

 “Oooh gross!” she said.  

    “No, no, no, you can’t use the ‘G word in here.”  I said.   It was a SuValley Moose Club session.  This was our second moose of the year and thirteenth overall since we started three years ago.   

    There were five kids working today.  The six of us had made arrangements to stay after school to volunteer our time butchering a roadkill moose.  Some of the meat would be donated to charity, some would go to the kids that were helping, and some would go to the school for special events like a chili feed for open-house, taco night for visiting basketball teams,  and meat for the culinary arts program.

   The little girl was thirteen years old and was standing in front of a huge chunk of moose flesh that weighed over half her bodyweight.  There was a small pool of blood on the table with a few blood clots from where the moose had been hit.

   “Is this okay?”  She said.  She was stuck on a questionable piece.

   “Not quite, remove all that hair and if you turn your knife-blade flat you can cut that blood right off.”  I reached over and demonstrated how to trim it.

    “Do you know what is really gross?” I asked the group.  I didn’t pause too long for a response.  Who knows what they would have come up with with such a baited question.  I had already endured conversations of alien-bow hunting, cannibalism, and the culinary delicacies of ostrich and alligator meat.  Who knew how cultured and diverse junior high students’ conversations could be?  I figured that just maybe, it was time for me to steer the conversation a bit as we hacked away.   My crew was as green as grass and I realized that it was up to me to shed light upon their understanding of the bigger picture.

    “If you knew how beef is produced you might re-think your definition of gross.  Most commercial beef is produced in large factories called AFOs where cows are fed food they weren’t meant to eat; namely corn.  Since their guts were never meant to digest corn they become prone to infections.  As a fix, they are fed antibiotics to ward-off infection and to fatten them up for the slaughter.  In the meantime they are often ankle deep in their own manure and penned in enclosures barely large enough to hold them.   Our moose here, on the other hand, has been grazing on willow bushes its whole life and is a lean healthy and cheap alternative to beef.”  

    “My mom just got off the anti-bionics.”  

     “My dog ate his own manure once.”

    “I never eat beef ramen, I like the chicken.”

    I quickly realized that I had a long way to go with this group.  That’s okay, I was whittling them down.  Eventually they would see the light through the foggy existence of adolescence.    

   The AFO or animal feed operation and its big brother the CAFO, concentrated animal feed operations are an interesting manifestation of America's insatiable need for cheap meat.  It is estimated that over fifty percent of all U.S. produced beef comes from these mega factories. An exact number is hard to pin down because those who own and operate these CAFO's aren't exactly advertising their existance and would be quite happy for their CAFO meat to keep its low profile. It's all quite secretive. The most recent example of the beef industries lack of transparency is called the Farmer's Privacy Act of 2012 which, if passed by congress, would disallow the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from flying over to check on CAFO's. The term mystery meat comes to mind.
According to the EPA, on its website, AFOs are agricultural operations where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. AFOs congregate animals, feed, manure, urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland.

    To meet the definition of an AFO animals must be confined for at least 45 days in a 12-month period, where's there is no grass or other vegetation in the confinement area during the normal growing season.

  Let’s see, no grass or vegetation, just urine, manure, and dead animals. Sounds delicious.  What about the issue of antibiotics?  I found this on the Union of Concerned Scientists webpage:

“...While some uses of antibiotics in livestock operations are a matter of animal health, other uses have an economic motive. Especially troubling is their use not to cure sick animals but to promote "feed efficiency," that is, to increase the animal's weight gain per unit of feed.  These drugs are also regularly added to the feed and water of animals that are not sick in order to prevent diseases caused by overcrowded and unsanitary CAFO conditions. These nontherapeutic uses translate into relatively cheap meat prices at the grocery store.”

    Additionally in a thesis called Understanding CAFOs and Their Impact on Communities, author Carrie Hribar MA writes this:

  “There is strong evidence that the use of antibiotics in animal feed is contributing to an increase in antibiotic-resistant microbes and causing antibiotics to be less effective for humans.  Resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria in animals, which can be transferred to humans through the handling or eating of meat, have increased recently. This is a serious threat to human health because fewer options exist to help people overcome disease when infected with antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The antibiotics often are not fully metabolized by animals, and can be present in their manure. If manure pollutes a water supply, antibiotics can also leach into groundwater or surface water.”

CAFO cows grazing

    Unlike the secretive process of making beef, the production of moose meat is quite plain. I don’t need to do any research to find out what’s in my moose meat. I am part of the entire process post-mortem and I know the moose’s diet. There are no questions left unanswered.  No mad moose disease, no antibiotics, no pink slime, no salmonella, no campylobacter, no E-coli. Just moose.

Moose grazing

     The more I learn about mass production of meat in the U.S. the more I value what we have right here in our own backyard.  We are so fortunate to have access to such healthy untainted food sources.  From the wild salmon rich in omega 3 fatty acids to the antioxidant rich berries and all the abundant lean wild game, we are truly surrounded by some of the healthiest food sources in the world.  It’s tasty too.  

    For those willing to learn the skills involved in the harvest and who aren’t afraid of the hard work involved the abundance of the land is a true windfall.  The students that have been working in the Moose Club are in the process of gaining some of these valuable skills and will hopefully have the confidence to someday do this on their own, for the benefit of their own.  

       Work was slowing.  The kids were spinning tangents again;  Zombie warfare, drunken uncles, tidal waves.  There was a sense of one-ups-manship going on. “Ok guys” I had to step in again.  “ Let’s not forget the Moose Club motto;  If you can’t talk and work, then just work.”  several of them refocused and got back to the work at hand.  We had to finish this last hind-quarter before we could quit.  There was a lot of work left to be done and it was up to me to keep them on-task.  I wanted them to learn as much as possible about the process but one thing I knew for sure: When the dust settled and kids had all been swept away with their rides home, I didn’t want to be the lone soldier left standing there to finish up and clean.

      

     SuValley's Moose Club would not have been possible without the generous startup support from the community councils of both Talkeetna and Sunshine along with many other private donations including an annual one from the Talkeetna Bachelors Society. Moose Club is alive and well.  My partner Bryan Kirby and I wait by the phone with baited anticipation for the next midnight call.  Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we’ll go get it anyway and do it all over again.

Gross? You decide. Check out our sweet trailer set-up.  We winch the moose onto the black sled then right up onto the tilt trailer.  Thanks to the Talkeetna Bachelors Society we now have awesome new LED rechargable road flares for safety.

River Salvage

   River Salvage

                            An Unexpected Journey

      “Still warm.” I lifted my hand off of the gut pile.  “ It was shot today.” We had tracked this moose-kill to a familiar field near our cabin up the Yentna River.  The tier 2 winter moose hunt was in season.  Someone had gotten lucky and although we were just passers-by this time, we wanted to check it out.  

     The gut pile and two small chunks of moose hide were all that remained.  Nice job. The hunters had taken the whole thing with a sled and were gone.   A good plastic tow-behind sled is easily loaded by rolling the moose directly into it.  From there it can be driven right onto a snowmachine trailer and then into a heated garage for processing all with minimal effort.  Winter hunting on snowmachines is by far the easiest way to hunt moose.

    I inspected the chunks of hide and threw one of them onto the back of my snowmachine.  “Let’s go.”  We made our way back to the cabin but my snowmachine wasn't well.  The voltage regulator was going out and among other things would make the engine quit running all together.  First the lights would dim then disappear entirely, then kaput...dead.  It would start back up and would run for another few minutes then...kaput.  We limped back to the cabin in the light of day.

     For the rest of the day we were on a short leash.  We were tethered to my dying steed.  I can’t say that I was too surprised though, we were riding the most fickle of mechanical contraptions- the snowmachine.  Upon joining the ranks of snowmachine ownership one is always faced with the question.  This question is not  if the snowmachine will breakdown but rather when it will breakdown and maybe more importantly where will it break down. I supposed it’s no different than anything else mechanical but it seems that the snowmobile wears the crown jewel in the Royal Kingdom of Mechanical Conundrums often leaving its rider stranded far from the comforts and warmth of the civilized world.  You haven’t lived until you've towed a dead snowmachine out of the woods at 20 below, or through miles of overflow.   I've seen it all:  Slipped tracks, fouled plugs, worn or broken belts, bent spindles, broken chains, bad CDI boxes, broken pull-cords and a partridge-in-a-pear-tree.

     Such is life in the Last Frontier and one quickly learns to fix ones own,  or even better yet have someone else fix it for you.  My talent as a mechanic is easily summed up with a quote: “ I can take apart anything.”  Apparently this isn’t adequate requisite for fixing stuff.  That’s where Kirby comes into play.  Luckily he’s good at putting stuff back together.  We make a pretty good team.

   He held the chunk of moose hide down against the porch rail as I worked my knife on the flesh side.  There was some meat there.  Flank meat.  Thin, tough-as-nails, grizzled, flank meat.  I made a small pile on the railing and by the time I was done had a pound or more of the stuff.   I picked off all the hairs and took it inside leaving the moose hide to the curious beaks of the Gray-Jays.  

    Once inside I cut the meat into strips and seared them in a saucepan with olive oil.  For fun I added some Madrid Curry powder.   I filled the saucepan halfway with water and put it on top of the wood stove and forgot about it on purpose.  

    The next morning we had our coffee and pondered our situation.  In its current state, my snowmachine was a loser.   I needed it to be a winner to get me home.  After making several cell phone calls and scratching our heads we settled on a plan of action.  Before long we took-off downriver initiating part-one of our master plan. We would meet up with Gornick and his girlfriend Naomi at their cabin.  Although only ten miles down river, my snowmachine died 15 times en route.  Fun.

    We had arranged to meet them there but we beat them to their own cabin because apparently they were dealing with mechanical problems of their own.  See paragraph four.

   “ I think we are going to make a run to Deshka.”  I told Gornick after he generously offered up what ever he could to help.  My dad had volunteered to drive into Wasilla to buy a new voltage regulator and drop it off at Deshka Landing for us to pick up.  It was a forty mile ride one way to fetch it but we were game and we had enough gas.

  I abandoned my defunct snowmachine and traded up to Gornick’s sweet new 600 RMK. It did not die every half mile and was quite zippy and full of wonder. I knew right away that it would be a while before this particular snowmachine would enter the realm of the Royal Kingdom.

   “Are you going to join us for dinner?” He asked as we saddled up. “I’m making pizza.”

   “ Wow that sounds great thanks.   Yeah we’ll see you in a few hours.”

   We knew it would be a long ride but off we went darting down the Yentna River.   Eventually, after thirty or so minutes,  we rounded the corner and sped onto the mighty Susitna River.  Big sweeping channels braiding themselves together mingled and twisted along and revealed a familiarity to me that comes easily with a hundred or so trips under my belt.  It got me thinking.  

     There has been a lot of talk these days about the Susitna Watana Hydroelectric project. The proposed 700 foot tall dam built at the headwaters of the Susitna River is riddled with controversy.  Most of the debate has centered around the inevitable destruction of the wild salmon runs but there has also been talk about the effects this dam would have on winter travel on the Susitna itself.

    It is well known that with the dam in place,  river flow rates would be turned upside down.  The low water in summer and high water in winter scenario is the polar opposite of its natural patterns.  When energy demand along the rail belt is at its highest in the wintertime the flood gates of the dam would open. ( I envision the black gates of Mordor*)  

How could the Susitna possibly freeze and be stable enough for winter travel with such diverse fluctuation and high volume of water?  The logical answer is that it wouldn’t.  It’s actually hard to imagine how it would or wouldn’t freeze but one thing is clear; Winter activity on the river would never be the same.  

     What about the Yentna where my cabin is?  One would think that the winter trail conditions on the Yentna River would remain intact post-dam but how would the thousands that recreate there annually get to it?  No one accesses the Yentna from its Western shores.  Access to the Yentna river comes solely from the East, from the population centers of Anchorage and the Matsu and every single one of them must traverse the Susitna River one way or the other to get there.  I’m thinking jet skis.

    Hands down, the height of winter activity on the Yentna is Iditarod weekend.  There are literally thousands of snowmachines that whiz up and down the river all jockeying for position to watch the race.  With the Dam in place that could all change and if snowmachines can’t cross the Su what about the dog teams themselves?

     I’ve got it!  Maybe at long last we could put into commission the 80 million dollar Mat-Su Ferry to shuttle everyone safely across.  It’s named the Susitna after all.  If we are going to force-feed one bad idea into fruition, let’s at least marry it to another. Yee Haw!....  or not.

The fact is the money train has slowed a bit for the dam project and monies needed to complete the studies required by the permitting process have greatly diminished but the state claims that it's as committed as ever.*

    Like I said, it was a long ride.

     For now I was safely riding on top of the river as opposed to water-skipping or swimming in it and I was grateful. We turned off the river and headed up the ramp at the landing completing the second leg of our unexpected journey. We pulled up to the gas pump to refuel and stretch our right thumbs.  I grabbed the new voltage regulator out of the cab of Gornicks truck (thanks dad!) and we headed back to the river with thoughts of Brian’s pizza dancing in our heads.  We zipped up river without incident and pulled up to the cabin just as the sun was setting.

    “ Is this where I sign up for the Iron Dog?” I announced as I came into Gornick's warm cozy cabin.

   “ Sure.” said Naomi.

  “ Good, but you’ll have to sign for me because I can’t feel my right thumb.” We had 110 miles on the day so far and my soft teacher-hands had taking a lickin and gotten numb.  

    We settled in to the hospitality of Gornick's cabin playing dice games and catching up.  After an appetizer of chorizo stuffed jalapeno peppers we were treated to a fantastic Chicago-style deep dish pan pizza.  It was well worth the ride and the wait.  

    After Kirby replaced the voltage regulator on my machine, we bid them farewell and once again hit the trail to face the last leg of our journey which was the ten miles back to the cabin.

      My snowmachine didn't quit the whole way back and of all our riding throughout the day it was the most enjoyable stretch of all.  The light snow couldn't make up its mind and finally opted out as we lifted our goggles and rode through the last swamp without them.  

    The cabin was toasty warm when we walked in.  We were immediately hit with the aromatic waft of curry. “ Oh yeah the meat is probably done.”  The medium saucepan was steaming all around its lid.  I realized that it had been on the stove for a full day and a half.  We took off our wet snowy gear, put on our camp shoes and ate tender juicy strips of salvaged curried flank meat.

Thawing out and paying homage to Gornick and his beloved Packets.  The look of seriousness here can only be replicated in the Kingdom of Mechanical Conundrums.

* Evil in the SouthEast still stirs. A lid-less eye wreathed in flame and residing at the governors mansion still watches and waits hoping to begin construction as soon as possible on the flood-gates of Mordor. What are we to do? We are all but hobbits with hairy shoeless feet. We must join the fellowship. The fellowship of the Susitna River Coalition is a committed one and it is you JoeBlow Baggins who shall bear the ring. susitnarivercoalition.org

2013 Willow Winter Solstice Race

2013 Willow Winter Solstice Race    

    When I woke up there was five inches of new snow with an icy crust.  The fine snowflakes falling from the sky were pretty wet. They were riding the fence between snow and rain.  30 degrees.

    I had told myself that I would do it if the weather was reasonable.  I wasn’t interested in running thirteen miles in forty below temperatures nor through a foot of fresh snow.  It’s worth a look I told myself as the alarm went off at 6:00 A.M.  I packed up my gym bag with all my running gear, warmed up the truck and left.  

    I was surprised to discover that Willow did not get as much accumulation as Talkeetna overnight and I was optimistic that this might be a good run.

   “Ooh this is soft” I heard from one of my fellow runners within fifty feet of leaving the start line.  I chuckled to myself.  This could be awful.  We were running on loosely packed snow machine trails and each step would sink three to six inches deep.  It was like running through sand.  We all had headlamps that illuminated the snow pack in front of us like our own personal spotlights  

     Eighty beams of bouncing light in a big wave moved across Willow Lake straight into the darkest and shortest of days.  From there we would access the only road-running of the whole race which was plowed and hard packed.  It lasted about a quarter of a mile and it was sweet.  Everyone’s pace picked up along with our spirits.  I moved to the left to pass a couple of kids who were running the 5K portion of the race. “ Hey guys, nice job!” I told them as I ran by.  The kid closest to me who was probably ten years old and 120 pounds sped up to catch me and then decided it would be a good idea to try to shoulder me off the trail.  “Hey there buddy , you shouldn’t do that.”  He kept up his antics.  “ It’s bad form and bad sportsmanship.”  I reasoned.  Eventually after several additional pushes, his buddy called him off.  
"Josh, knock it off." 
I was proud of the way I handled it because my first instinct was to grab his arm and fling him over the snowbank ass-over-tea kettle. Rest assured, I was able to restrain myself and harness my inner teacher. Who knew that I would have to overcome a race bully?

     With the trail harassment behind me I crossed over to Long lake where the trail softened back up again like warm butter.  I tried to find a key to success.  Maybe I should make my own tracks.  Maybe I should try to run in the line created by the snowmachine’s skis.  Maybe I should try to run in other’s footprints.  It turned out to be a combination of all three techniques changing as the miles slowly ticked off.  Twelve minute miles never felt so tough.  

    Finally I found a rhythm and settled into a good pace that I could live with.  The trail, maintained by the Willow Trails Committee ( WTC) was excellent.  They have designed and maintained the trails in Willow for years and seemed to have found the perfect balance between user groups.  Snowmachiners, mushers, and skiers all know what to expect thanks to the comprehensive signage.  Well organized and with plenty of volunteers The WTC is a model for other recreational trail systems around the state.  

    Slowly I made my way up the bank of Long lake, to an airstrip and across some ponds and onto Boot lake.  From there Vera lake took us to its Western outlet to an informational kiosk where I tagged-out at the halfway- checkpoint and briefly chatted with race organizer Dave Johnston.  “ You’re doing great." He said. " You’re in fourth place.”  

    I looked up and saw a group coming up the trail.  “See ya Dave.”  Fourth place, really?  The last race I ran was the Kasugi Ridge Traverse and I didn't finish fourth. I earned the equivalent of the red-lantern.  Last place.  Fourth sounded pretty good to me.   

    I boogied back down the trail and caught up with some familiar faces.  My folks had trailered their snow machines from their house and unloaded at the Crystal Lake parking lot.  They wanted to watch this event unfold but mostly wanted to support me.

    They had some treats for me none of which I could stomach except for a red bull.  Hopefully I wouldn't be DQ'ed for using performance enhancing drugs. I chugged as much as I could and bid them farewell.  “Thanks.” I told them as I took off back down the trail I’d come.

  When I made it back out to Vera lake I noticed that there was someone about a quarter mile behind me.  Was he closing in on me? I couldn’t tell.  On the straight stretches I would look back and see a black figure with sparkly headlamp.  I buckled down and tried to quicken my pace.  I still had five miles to the finish but I wanted that fourth place bad.  In the Olympics that’s almost a bronze medal!  Finally I made my way across Willow Lake with no one in sight.  I ran up the hill to the finish line where Mom and Dad were waiting for me.  In a few minutes I would meet the runner in black.  She thanked me for my steps apparently she had been running in them.  We went inside the community center I ate some soup, changed clothes, and went home.

My support team.