As the world's longest, toughest snowmachine race revved up for its start in Big Lake Sunday, the report from the far side of the Alaska Range 350 miles to the north was that the Iditarod Trail is rough, but entirely passable.
"It just needs snow," said Brian Webb, one of 26 riders in the Iron Dog's trail class -- which runs an abbreviated, non-competitive race to Nome -- who left civilization Friday and were in McGrath, a tiny community on the Kuskokwim River Sunday morning.
Rebecca Charles, the 33-year-old owner of Susitna Valley snowmobile tour operation, and Rachel Kidwell, a 27-year-old engineer and former University of Alaska Anchorage volleyball player, paced the trail riders into riverside outpost at an average speed of 37 mph from Big Lake, which was considered pretty fast for a pair of rookie riders following a twisting, turning, sled-banging trail.
Racers reported the worst of it came between the old, regrown Farewell Burn and Sullivan Creek outside the village of Nikolai. The country is largely open there, and the ground is littered with frozen tussocks. With no snow to cover them this year, Webb said, sleds bounced and banged from one frozen mound to another.
"They could only do 8 to 10 mph through there," said Todd Gage at the Iditarod Cafe, where most of the trail riders had breakfast before heading off toward Ruby on the Yukon River Sunday morning. "Right before the Burn, they were having trouble, too."
That would be in the new burn. The old burn is still often referred to as the Farewell Burn even though the forest has grown back enough that the trees help shelter the snow on the Iditarod Trail. It comes after the new, 100,000-acre Turquoise Lake burn that sprawls along about 27 miles of the Iditarod Trail in the Post River country, where there is seldom much snow, even in a normal year.
This has not been a normal year. The snow summary so far in 2014 can be reduced to one word: None.
That makes the trail a lousy place to ride a snowmachine, but Jim Vanderpool at the McGrath Hotel said it is a testament to the technology of today's snowmobiles that everyone appeared to have come through without any of the serious breakdowns common in the past.
"I didn't hear any problems about machines breaking down, or anybody needing parts," he said, and none of the trail riders who started the race had yet dropped out of the ride to Nome.
The professional race to Nome, however, which continues from there to Fairbanks for a total course distance of 2,000 miles, is expected to be a different matter. When a rough and rutted trail grabs the ski at the front of snowmachine and pitches the sled off the trail into a tree at 20 mph, it's not a big deal. The machine might get bent a little, but generally bounces off and keeps going.
If the same thing happens at 60 or 70 mph, it can be a disaster. It's the difference between a fender bender in your car and a high-speed crash at Daytona Speedway.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com