2016 Iditarod Update

2016 Iditarod Update

                                   or.......The Legend of Burle Haggard

When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that's the best

When I lay me down to die

Goin' up to the spirit in the sky-Norman Greenbaum

It was the mushing mortician that came through first; Scott Jansson.  Someone started singing the song. We were waiting there with baited breath.  All the work was done and it was about time.  Some of us had peeled a fiver on who would be the first through.  “Hey that’s Jordan’s musher.” 45 bucks.

..........................................................................................................

“One, two, three!”  we lifted up on the bottom edge of the burl.  It took a trying effort to get it to move but eventually it rolled over the edge of the fire pit and into the dancing flames.  The damn thing weighed about three hundred pounds and fit rather nicely next to its smaller brother that I named Burle jr.  Junior had been on fire for about thirty minutes and was sporting a good shine-on.  Before long they were both were on-fire despite the quiet protests of my darling mother, who is a self-admitted burl fanatic.

Pete

    Due to poor snow conditions last year’s Iditarod restart was moved to Fairbanks.  Rumor has it that the fine folks at Pike’s landing in Fairbanks have been making a strong lobby to keep it there for good.  I don’t blame them. I like owner Jay Ramras.  His free ice cream tokens, and his efforts to power the place with solar are commendable but you don’t mess with tradition.  The Iditarod trail has snaked its way over the Alaska range from day one and to nix the most challenging section of the trail would be akin to lopping off the top 6,000 vertical feet of Denali.

     As it turns out the snow cover wasn’t that great this year either but according to the Iditarod Trail Committee it was “good enough”, and so I knew that it wouldn’t be long before it would be time to cut some block. Build it and they will come.

Levi and Pete working over time.

    This year we made short work of the snow-block wall and with the addition of Tom and Levi Rollman, placement of the high blocks was a cinch.  They are both well over six feet tall.  I’m not above bringing in ringers.              

    Speaking of ringers Paul (Uncle Paulie) Johnson returned this year after a three year hiatus.  To say that Paul has the gift-of-gab would be like saying that Dallas Seavey is an average musher.  Paul, having just returned from Argentina with his brother Dennis was full of incredible fishing stories.  Come to think of it, Paul was full of a lot of stuff;  mainly B.S, a few hot dogs,  and several brewskis.  

Bryan Kirby staying warm

Roughing it

    Pete and his whole family made a strong showing along with my sister Trish and the whole Miller clan.  Bryan Kirby and his family rounded out the crowd roughing-it in their Arctic Oven tent.

New vinyl sign this year.

    Luckily this year the hot dogs were, one again,“really good”  just like it says on the sign.  Although they were indeed good they paled in comparison to dad’s Jambalaya.  Dad brought out his big propane cooking rig with two burners and set-up shop inside the snow wall shelter. The spicy rice played-nice with the shrimp and okra.  It was right about then that I looked up and noticed the stars.  Wow, I should stay up late more often!

     “Hun, do you want me to make you a Bloody Mary?”, I snapped out of my celestial trance and looked over at my wife.

     Tamra was her normal workhorse-self prepping dogs, buns, and apparently bloody mary’s .  “Sure, that would be great!”  Who doesn’t want a Bloody Mary with their jambalaya?  

    She was finishing the next hot dog by slathering-on our own special sauce known locally as ketch-tard.  Good luck figuring out both the ingredients.  Hint:  It’s orange.  It wasn’t long before I was sipping a Bloody Mary next to Burle Haggard and the gang.

Jordan Starr, number 9 in your programs, number 1 in our hearts.

     Jordan Starr was in rare form this year.  His Iron Dog team, known to some as “team 9” finished 7th place this year.  Not bad. More impressive though was that he was able to find time afterwords for one more ride up to our camp.  He was an integral part of the action this year.   Jordan decided to let-loose with us well into the night despite the fact that he had to be at work early the next morning......in Anchorage.  

    Normally his folks Bill and Jacque are part of the festivities too but this year Bill was having issues with his Super-cub.  Ironically, Jordan, who has become one heck of an airplane mechanic was unavailable to show up at the drop of a hat to help the old man.  “I’ve got a job now dad.” he was reported to have said.

     We missed Bill.  This year no one fell into the Yentna.   Chalking-it-up to “testing the waters”, Bill was one chuckle away from calamity back in ‘02.  Luckily I was there to lend a hand,  only one though, the other was clutching a beer.  A guy has to have priorities. Good ol’ Bill.  

Check out Brooklyn Harrison running in the background.

    Pete brought out a keg of local craft beer.  The boys at OMR in Eagle River have been out-doing themselves and currently have eleven beers on tap.  We figured that we’d snap a few good pics with the keg.  Look where OMR beer has been kind-of-a-deal, but all we could find to make it interesting were a pile of slimy pike.  Here have a delicious IPA along with a nice frozen Northern Pike!  

This curious Gray Jay was interested in our fishing efforts.

Brenton "B-Tod" Harrison

Three floppers

All in a day's work

The sun even shines on a dog's ass every now and again.

    On Monday after some had left we focused our efforts on fishing for Pike.  The fishing was stellar.  After a slow start using tip-ups and herring, we switched to jigging with big flashy spoons.  Fish on, hell yeah!  Brenton earned top honors for his tireless efforts which brought in four or five big slabs.  In all we roped in eleven in just over two hours.  Dad and Paul cleaned them all on the deck and probably still smell like fish, but in some countries far-far- away that smell is considered an aphrodisiac.  Who knew?

   Since we were fishing nearby our party spot on the Yentna, I decided to ride out there and check out the after-math.  As I pulled around the corner I couldn’t help but notice the prolific smoke stack.  As I got closer I couldn’t believe my eyes, although it had been over sixteen hours since ignition, Burle Haggard was still on fire!  

     

This burl is on fire!

A Quest for a Lake

A Quest For a Lake

    “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”- Vince Lombardi

    I pulled up next to Bryan.  He was peeling off his seal skin hat and he revealed a bead of sweat on his brow.  I was hot too and he had picked the perfect spot to take a break.  We had just topped-out on a snowy ridge.  We were somewhere in the Western foothills of Beluga Mountain.  The hill fell away from us too steeply and spilled into a deep-cut some 200 vertical feet below us.  Was this a dead end? Beyond, and up again was the way but it appeared that we had come to a reckoning.  We had been riding for five hours and were coming up on 100 miles on the odometer.  

    Up to that point, the paper birch forest had been delightful.  We had picked our way through the seemingly uniform white trees feeling our way along the base of the mountain.  I secretly hoped that these friendly rolling hills would continue up and over the ridge.  From there we could pick our way down to Hiline lake to visit my friend Wendy.  But I wasn’t born yesterday and I wasn’t surprised at all that suddenly before us was this giant obstacle; it was effectively giving us the finger.

      These slap-in-the face moments in the mountains are nothing new for me.  Sometimes it’s an indication that I’m in over my head.  Other times it’s a reminder that sometimes you’ve got to try-out many options before finding the right way.  Mountains can be puzzling but one thing I know for sure is that if you’re lucky enough to be in the mountains, then you’re lucky enough. I was enjoying this puzzle.

    Bryan was impressed with our spot. “I’m pretty sure that no one has ever been here before.”  He could be right but even if he wasn’t, it’s a pretty powerful feeling to be in such a remote, wild place.  In fact, it’s that very feeling that pulls me into the wilderness to begin with.  As we studied our place and surroundings I had to agree; the expanse before us appeared to be as untouched as any spot that I’ve been and it made me happy.  

     My friend Wendy is all-about this sentiment as well.  She is well connected to her spirituality and her place in the universe.  I wouldn’t find out until I got back home but as we were exploring the West side of Beluga Mountain, she had ventured into the mountains with her dog Luzy on the other side somewhere near Hayes pass.  

     There is no doubt that Wendy is a free spirit and so it was no surprise to me when several months ago she told me that she wanted to skijor from her house in Talkeetna to her cabin at Hiline, a journey of 85 miles as the crow flies.  This is nothing new for Wendy.  She has skijored along the Iditarod trail and is an experienced adventurer.   She asked me for help putting in a trail.  I said yes.

Wendy Battino and Luzy heading to
Hiline Lake.

           

    Bryan was using his Gaia GPS app on his phone to keep track of our whereabouts.  Using the Google Earth overlay allowed him to find an old seismic line that cut straight to the base of the mountain.  From there we picked our way over creeks and beaver dams.  We snaked our way along windy swaths of swamp where thick stands of spruce pinned us in before we cut over through several small lakes and then finally we got up into the hills.

    “Maybe we can find a way down this thing.  If we can just get over to there, I think we’ll be home free.”  I was pointing to a snowy hill in the distance.  The trees were sparse and if we could just get there we should be able to pick our way over the ridge and down to the lake.

    “Ok, let’s go.”  It didn’t take long to find a small cut to ride down.  It was obvious to both of us that although we knew we could make it down, there was no way we would be able to make it back up.  At that point we had just committed ourselves to finding a different way back.  Adventure is as adventure does.

    One at a time we pointed our sled's noses over the edge of the shoot and slid down the hill braking and leaning.  The late afternoon temperatures had softened the snow into a deep mess of sticky mash potatoes and at the bottom of the ravine I quickly managed to bury my sled.  I was trying to pop over a bundle of covered alders.  Bryan, choosing a different way got himself stuck too. This pattern continued as we skirted around the hill trying to find a way up to the aforementioned sparsely treed hillside.  Finally after another particularly grueling extrication that involved using my winch and shovel, we decided to call it a day.  We still had to find a new way back and doing so in the dark wasn’t appealing or smart.

    In the end we didn’t make it to the lake to see Wendy.  We were about six miles shy of the lake.  We are confident that we will be able to make it next time.  Exploring new territory takes lots of time.

Stuck

Stuck

Hiline lake on the lower left.  Our track is orange. Each square is one mile...so close.

World imagery.  Hiline lake lower left.  Our track is orange.

Of Pike and Men

Of Pike and Men

“A fisherman is a jerk on one end of the line, waiting for a jerk on the other”-Unknown

Jerk#1 and #2 in no particular order.

    Corey was clutching the two foot ice fishing pole as it was bending and twitching violently towards the hole.  It was a battle I wasn’t sure he would win.  Unfortunately I had neglected to change line and I had our poles rigged with four-pound test from a prior trip and he had already broken one off.  Corey had been jigging while the rest of us were busy re-baiting all of our tip ups.  I hustled down to him in time to take some video. “Nice job Bubba!”

    For reasons that are beyond me, the fish were able to strip us of our bait on all of the tip-ups and the only way to catch them was to jig.  We had at least 20 flags on the tip-ups; bait gone on them all and no fish.  Huh?  

    “Maybe something else is getting the bait.” Tom surmised.  I had caught up with him on Monday at work and was interested in his opinion on the matter.  Tom was probably nursing sore arms from reeling-in scads of giant Pike on his own weekend trip.   Apparently he had found the “honey-hole” and told me that maybe he wouldn’t ever have to fish for pike anymore because he could never hope to top the fishing he had just experienced.  Asshole.

    Maybe he’s right, maybe a voracious school of whitefish are pecking our bait to death.  I think next weekend I’ll gear-down and see if I can catch some of these interloper bait thieves.

    The creek had frozen high this winter and there was enough water to punch-in some holes and fish.  Years ago we drilled a few holes and literally “drew mud” indicating insufficient water depth and honestly the thought of ice fishing in the creek after that hadn’t even crossed my mind.  Maybe this will be the year, I thought.

I was right.

    

Dad caught a burbot.

Corey the fish slayer hauling his load back to the cabin.

Mount Susitna bathing in the morning sun.

The sun even shines on a dogs ass every now and then.

Flag up!.......bait gone.....shit.

Ten minute snow storm.

Corey

Corey and friend.

Guest author Tamra Jo Harrison

Trouble with the TSA

     “Next!” The friendly TSA agent waved us over.  I was feeling pretty confident as we made our way through the security line at SEA-TAC.  After all, this was our fourth and final checkpoint on our way home after an amazing family trip to Mexico.  We had made it through customs twice, managed to have all our paperwork and passports in order, and been searched in Cancun all without any major issues.  This final checkpoint should be nothing special.  The passports had been put away; all we needed were our tickets and IDs.  All of which I had neatly clutched in my hand ready to go as we approached the checkpoint.

     The agent took the pile of boarding passes.  Mine was the first to be scanned.  There was an audible, but nothing special, “beep” made and the agent got on her walkie-talkie, “We need a security manager at checkpoint five.”  She quickly scanned everyone else’s ticket, and then asked Hazelee how old she was.  “Eleven.”  The woman repeated her request for a security manager.

     She asked if I had ever gone through extra security screening, and I kind of laughed because I was the one who randomly got checked in Cancun.  Hazelee asked what was going on, and I explained that sometimes people get chosen randomly to go through extra screening.  No big deal.  I looked to the woman for reassurance, “Right?” “I really can’t comment on that ma’am.” Oh Shit.

    The security manager showed up and she showed him my boarding pass with a code written on it.  “Oh,” he said and physically took a step back.  Then the woman, who I had previously misjudged as friendly said, “and she is traveling with an eleven year old.” I could see the demeanor of the security guard change.  He began moving and talking more quickly.  It was as if adrenaline had kicked in.  He wiped his brow and got on his walkie-talkie and requested another officer.  I decided to name him Twitchy.

     From around the corner came the second security officer and he looked exactly like Brad Garret.  I found this amusing because Brad plays Raymond’s cop brother on the T.V. show Everybody Loves Raymond.  I was anxiously waiting for him to speak, maybe this was Brad Garret and we were on some hidden camera comedy show.  The woman looked at him and said, “Here is her ticket,” and then sort of quieter and leaning in she continued “…and she is traveling with an eleven year old.”  What is with all this “eleven-year-old” stuff?  Is that code for something?  Are eleven-year-olds a security risk all the sudden?  I looked down at Hazelee.  She was wearing a Puerto Morelos t-shirt, her pink backpack with a giant monkey face on it, and a giraffe airplane pillow wrapped around her neck.  Yeah, she looked like trouble.  

     Brad Garret looked at Steve and Corey, “You two are going to have to go to your gate.” Then he turned to Hazelee and me, “You two, come with us.”

     I told the boys to go ahead and kept a smile on my face trying not to worry anyone in the family further.  Twitchy took us through the checkpoint and had us unload all of our items into bins.  “All of your electronics must be able to be powered up.  Are they all charged?”  Hazelee tugged on my shirt, “My laptop isn’t charged.”  Brad Garret looked at me sternly and said, “If your electronics cannot be powered up you will not get past this checkpoint.”  What?  We are going to miss our plane because Hazelee’s cheap-ass Wal-Mart laptop isn’t charged?

  This laptop has been a pain in the neck from the beginning.  We have had to return it twice for a new one.  Sometimes it turns on, sometimes it doesn’t and it never holds a charge.  The only reason it made the trip was to placate Hazelee and her obsession with the damn thing.

    We found the charger and put it in the bin with the rest of the electronics.  In the meantime, Twitchy was anxiously waiting for us at the entrance to the x-ray machine.  His forehead now had a fresh sheen of sweat, and he kept asking Brad about protocol and which machines we needed to walk through.  This guy was clearly nervous, or excited, I couldn’t really tell which.

    At that moment it occurred to me that this guy thought he was about to save the day and stop some major terrorist attack.  There would be interviews, praise from his superiors, and maybe even a big promotion in his future.  Whatever secret code came up when they scanned my ticket must have been a good one.

     Hazelee and I were asked to go through three different full body x-ray machines before moving into another location where a female officer was waiting for us.  We were about to experience what Hazelee would later call “A firm Christmas pat down.”  The officer explained exactly what she was going to do and I saw Hazelee’s eyes get a little wider.  I told her I would go first and that there was nothing to worry about.  Luckily, our groping security guard had a nice smile and a sense of humor.  Her laugh put both of us at ease while Brad and Twitchy, along with a back-up squad of six additional officers, rubbed swabs all over every inch of our belongings.  

     I looked at the image produced by the x-ray machine and saw a tangle of various wires from our kindle and phone chargers.  I had them all plugged into a charging block.  The image on the screen looked remarkably like a ticking time bomb inside my backpack.  The next image was of my cell phone and the intricate circuits and wires within.  The security guys had circled everywhere the wires came together and Brad was examining the details with scrutiny.  In the meantime, the Mod Squad kept bringing back results from the swabs while Twitchy anxiously took notes.

Just then Brad got on his radio, “Are the dogs still here?”  Dogs?  Seriously?  In the back of my mind I kept picturing the scene from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when the guy mockingly taps his watch and tells Steve Martin, “You’ll never make the six.”

     All the sudden, Brad looks at me and says, “You can go.”  What?  Really? I saw Twitchy’s shoulders slump a little.  There goes that promotion.  I didn’t ask any questions.  I quickly started to repack our belongings as Hazelee put her shoes back on. As we hustled through SEA-TAC, feeling confident we were going to make our flight, I wondered what Hazelee must have thought of our experience.  She suddenly looked up and me and asked, “Were they able to get my laptop working?”  

Scuba Steve

    Scuba Steve

    Brian had asked me if I wanted to go scuba diving with him several times during the trip and I had shown interest.  He told me all about it and convinced me that it would be safe and easy to learn.  “We’ll only be in less than fifteen feet of water so if you are in trouble you simply swim to the surface.” Okay.  Finally on the last night we decided to do more than talk about it.  “Let’s go tomorrow.” I said. It was decided.

     But Corey got sick in the middle of the night and none of us slept very well so the next morning was a slow mover indeed and I decided that I wouldn’t push the issue; we still had to pack. We were leaving today and the shuttle van would be picking us up at 3:00 P.M. to take us to the airport.

      At a quarter to two while sipping an incredible mango margarita, he came at me again.  “We could still make this happen Steve.”  I had been willing to let it go.  I had thought that if we were going to go we should have gone much earlier.  “We could do it in thirty, forty minutes tops.”  All the bags were packed, Corey was feeling a little better; what the hell.   Mango margaritas have a funny way of changing one’s mind.

    “Okay, let’s go.”  

   One of the two tanks was low on oxygen so Brian hustled down to the neighbor’s house to fill it up.  Brian’s dad Gary and his old friend and neighbor Matt went in together to buy a compressor years ago so filling up was never too big of a deal and they had all the dive time they wanted.  

    While Brian was gone Brent gave me the quick lesson.  He showed me a tethered gauge that had two displays;  one dial showed your depth in feet and the other showed you how much oxygen you have left.  Handy info.

       “Once you get in the water you are going to want to dial in your buoyancy.” He grabbed a different tube.  The end of this one had buttons on it.  “If you are sinking too much push this button.” he pointed to the red button.  He demonstrated and when he pushed it I heard a hiss.  “This will fill up your vest with oxygen and make you float.  The white button is the one you want to push if you are too buoyant and are having trouble diving down.”  He lifted the tube with the two buttons up above my head, “but to make the white button work you have to hold it up here or the bubbles won’t escape.”

     It all made enough sense to me so I strapped on the diving vest that was strapped to the tank of oxygen.  My guess was sixty pounds; pretty heavy.  I’ll have to admit it was a little unnerving to think about slinking into the water strapped to such a heavy object but I was willing to try and I always had that lovely red button to push that would shoot me to the top.  It reminded me of those life jackets with the CO2 cartridges.  When you pull the red cord it quickly inflates the vest and up you go.

       We walked down the beach a couple hundred meters. “We’ll put-in by that boat there and the current will take us back down the beach to the house.”  The first step in rigging-up was to strap a weighted belt on my waist.  It contained about ten large lead weights and it probably weighed another 20 pounds. Next I tightened the straps on the vest and put on the fins.  “Since we are putting the fins on the beach we’ll have to walk backwards into the water.”  Once I had back peddled into the water waist deep I put the mask tightly on my face and sucked in with my nose to seat the mask as tightly as I could on my face.  

    I have only snorkeled a handful of times and I must have a weird shaped face because I always have trouble with water leaking into the mask.  I did not want that to happen today with everything else I was trying to keep track of.  

    Next I put the mouth piece in my mouth and practiced breathing.  As every good snorkeler (and diver) must know, breathing through the mouth is the only option.  It may sound easy but breathing solely through one’s mouth is not normal or natural and although it’s easy to do for a minute or two I found that any little distraction would temp my nose to breath.  Reflexively trying to suck-in through the nose when there is no air to breath is to invite a sense of panic if not panic itself.

      I was planning to be mindful of this idea the whole time.  My mantra was “mouth breath, mouth breath, mouth breath” I knew I could drum-up enough presence-of-mind to be able to control it. Even if I lost my way Brian would be there to navigate.  It was my job to simply breath out of my mouth. Even if a moray eel decided to swim figure-eights around my legs, Brian would take care of it.  It was my job to breath…..through my mouth.

         After I was comfortable with mouth-breathing out of water I was ready to stick my face in it. No problem and no leaks from the mask.   I pushed out deeper using my fins to maneuver.  The plan was to feel this thing out and stay in fairly close to shore.  I was doing it, I was scuba diving!  Kiss my ass Jacques Cousteau there’s a new sheriff in town….Scuba Steve!

     Just then I noticed a few small fish swim right in front of my face.  I realized that I was still pretty close to the surface to I tried to use the white button so I could go deeper but it didn’t seem to do anything.  I dolphin-kicked my way to the bottom which was only ten feet or so and felt the familiar head pressure.  I remember from my younger days trying to dive to the deep end of the pool.  Some of my friends could swim right down there without issues, but I always got these awful head pains from the pressure.  This tiny distraction took me off my mantra and I did a nose/ mouth dose-e-doe. Mouth breath, mouth breath.

      I was able to avoid the dreaded panic and got the breathing under control but I decided that I wanted to go back in shallow, take a minute and collect myself.  As promised, Brian was right there and pulled up beside me.

    “How’s it going? Are you doing all right?”

    “Yeah, I just need to reflect on what I just learned, I want to go back out.”  We compared notes and decided that I needed some more weight so Brian gave me a couple of his lead bricks and put them into some pockets on the vest.  “Okay, lets go.”

      I was starting to feel more comfortable and we went out a little deeper.  The current was sweeping us along and we were able to get down to the bottom.  I saw something below me and sure enough it was a barracuda! Three passed right in front of us and Brian whipped out his camera.  There were a bunch of smaller fish too that were unfazed by our presence and swam quite close.  I looked above me and saw a needle fish scooting by and below me were some much larger fish that I couldn’t identify.

     “Wow, Brian that was an incredible experience, thank you!”  Brian shrugged it off as if were nothing but I was pretty impressed.

     We hauled the equipment back up to the house.  I grabbed a quick shower, we said our goodbyes, and we were off to the airport.  Back to Alaska.  Nice ending to a great trip.

Who would have thought that I could look so good in yellow?

Brian Mason and his son Sterling.