Young Dallas Seavey was among the first out of Shaktoolik this morning, accoring to the green blip that shows his movements on the Iditarod’s GPS tracker. My wife, Brandi, quickly guessed that Dallas, the dutiful son,  was selflessly bringing food, straw and supplies to his father, Mitch, and to Aaron Burmeister, who’ve been parked almost 24 hours at the shelter cabin just 12 miles beyond Shaktoolik. She called Danny Seavey to find out. Danny laughed.

“Nah, he’s just crazy enough to think he can finish in fourth place,” said Dallas’ older brother. But he quickly added that he had no doubt that Dallas was loaded with extra stuff for both his father and Burmeister, but that Dallas’ main mission was the competition.

Mushers were told there were supplies at the cabin, such as firewood. Turns out there wasn’t. But a snowmachiner from Shaktoolik took straw and firewood out to Seavey and Burmeister yesterday, Danny Seavey reported. He said King and Gatt didn’t bring enough food for a long campout, but Seavey and Burmeister had enough dog food to last through noon today.

Wish you were here

Someone commented on my last blog, asking if I wished I was out on the trail reporting on it even with the cold and wind. I was just asking myself this morning, “Do I wish I was out there actually racing it?” Not sure on that one. I know I’d be hating it hours at a time. As far as reporting on the scene, no problem. You spend the lion’s share of your day inside checkpoints, heading out to talk to mushers as they’re checking in and feeding their teams. Don’t for a minute feel sympathy for the media during this ground storm.

As far as dogs are concerned, this is a massive test of the leaders. Various snippets coming out of the Iditarod Insider indicate how sketchy it is finding dogs willing to drive headlong into these cold winds. The only way to find out if you’ve leaders for this kind of ground storm some 750 miles into the race, is to actually be there testing them out. Even John Baker, who trains in windy, coastal Kotzebue, experienced difficulties. He had to drop three dogs at Koyuk, then he and Sebastian Schnuelle embarked on the run over to Elim together, taking turns breaking trail. Good move for those two, and there will be a race to see who finishes second. Possibly first. This one ain’t over till it’s over. It’s too wild.

Lance Mackey isn’t taking chances, taking off on what could be a difficult run over to White Mountain long before those two showed up. If the coastal ice is bad, he will have to do some serious hill climbing just to reach Little McKinley, then he’ll be going into the wind again over that treeless summit. That could be a severe test of mental stamina for the dogs, and the cold will be filtering through every crack in Mackey’s clothing. Once over the top, there’s a steep decline back to the sea ice, which can be a little dicey in itself, some sidehilling and clattering over hardened, wind-packed snow. Then it is a flat northward grind, into the wind all the while, into Golovin. Then he has to ask his dogs to run right out the back side of that village onto the ice again, which sometimes can make dogs feel sour.

All this running on sea ice from Shaktoolik through Golovin is technically easy. But mentally it is severely taxing. I’ve heard it reported on Husky Homestead’s blog by Donna, Jeff King’s wife, that the cold is tough on the mushers.

Just like ’85

Tim Moerlein called this morning to say that this storm is just like the one he endured during his rookie Iditarod in 1985. That is the year Libby Riddles forged out of Shaktoolik alone into temperatures of 20 below with 20 to 40 mph headwinds. Rick Swenson told Moerlein that Riddles was going to die out there, and all the front-runners holed up at Shaktoolik for a day and a half, waiting on word from the other side, Koyuk. (There was no Internet then. )Turned out that she only went 12 miles to shelter point before crawling into her sled bag for a very uncomfortable night, then she got going again. When they heard reports that she was about at Koyuk, the rest of the teams gave chase, only to run into the teeth of the same storm. They holed up at the same location and spent a miserable night, a full day behind Riddles, who was on her way to Nome by that point. Moerlein unhooked his dogs, tipped over his sled and crawled into the bag with them. Mushers ran big tobaggans then, roomy enough to crawl in.

That episode is one of the main reasons they built a plywood shack in that exact location.

Moerlein followed the other teams over to Koyuk, rested long again there, taking off in 20th place, but wound up finishing 11th that year, taking rookie of the year honors. He certainly earned it.