THE START OF THE DON BOWERS MEMORIAL RACE

Well, again this year, my start was every musher's nightmare. Would I get the nick name "Wrong Way Jan"? I thought that nothing would top last year...WRONG !

Dogs will be dogs and when my team was brought down to the start it was not pretty. I had Paula as my only handler. Had I known that I would have had Kathy's handler help, as he was available. (For the Klondike I will have extra help lined up.) I have learned to never assume anything. On the start of the first day of the Alaskan Excursion, I only had Paula and she couldn't handle it on her own. I made arrangements for two extra handlers for the next day's start. What a difference. Well, getting back to the Bowers start...Paula couldn't keep up with the dogs and she was not even leading my leaders...she was mid team. Normally you will have someone with your leaders taking them right up to the start line and holding them. You will also have a couple of more handlers holding your team mid team. You will have them held until seconds before the start. The handlers will keep the excited chewers from chewing through their neck lines. They will also keep dogs on their side of the gangline. As a result of not having handlers and my lead dogs taken to where they should have lined up, my team was far off to the right of the start.

Well, it was a helpless feeling for me knowing that my dogs should have been over to the left and when we took off, they followed a sprint trail to the right. I was on my brake and screaming "HAW..HAW..HAW...and it was more like a HA HA HA as in front of cameras and all the start spectators, I couldn't stop my team and we ended up in deep snow. They looked nice...but they had no idea where to go. (I also found out that my brake teeth should have been replaced...it was amazing that I later made it down the hills on incredibly steep hills and ran the entire race on nubs.) At one point my team was trying to head back up the start. At that point, my leads were grabbed and turned in the direction of the trail and finally we were on our way. Thank goodness I have a very strong heart as I am amazed that I didn't drop dead of a heart attack from overwhelming embarrassment. I did feel bad for my dogs as you could tell they were quite confused and there were so many people.

Well, we headed out across the lake and all looked good. As we went up off the lake and onto the infamous road I was praying that we wouldn't have a repeat of last year. I was also wondering if this was the way I would be starting every race...well, the 3 day starts on the Cascade Quest were great and the dogs did great on the 2 day starts of the Alaskan Excursion...perhaps it is just a Don Bowers thing. Last year on the Klondike the dogs did great, however, I dumped my sled on the turn right out of the start. That was rather embarrassing and I drug about a quarter of a mile. I was able to console myself with the fact that others had dumped their sled there as well and I did quite a spectacular drag. The photographers were so nice as when they later posted the start pictures they posted ones only of me still standing on the runners before the turn.

For those of you who don't know what happened last year on the Bowers...as we came up off of the lake, you continue about a mile down a road. Well, stopping on a road is next to impossible unless their is good compact snow...last year it was ice going down the road and there was no chance of stopping. As we got to the end of the road where you would turn left onto the trail, my leader ignored my " HAW" and she took the team right off the end of the road. I wasn't able to stop my team until my sled had gone off the road as well. I was then able to set a snow hook and turn my team...the next thing I know is that we are heading back down the road and I am mortified as I am doing oncoming passes with other teams on the race...I have visions of my team going back across the lake and up the starting chute. I make the decision that the only way that I will be able to stop the team on this road is to slam my sled over...so over we go and I do it right before I reach the crossing guard that I earlier passed. My team did stop and she unhooked my dogs tug lines and then we turn the team around. I am standing on my sled as she hooks the tugs and off I go back down the road. The whole while I am wondering if my lead is going to do a repeat. Instead, she takes a beautiful left turn and we are on our way. But, she clearly let me know who was boss and it wasn't me.

Well, as we continued down the road this year we fast approached the turn and I guess my leaders figured that they had already put me through enough and they took a beautiful turn to the left. We were truly on our way !


To be continued....

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this...but here goes...

Well, the first leg of the race, the snow was soft and a bit slow. I was worried about injuries with the dogs as this isn't the greatest condition. We were actually falling into holes. The plan that Kathy and I had was to travel out about 50 miles and we would camp. Pretty soon I began seeing many different teams camping along the trail. It was dark and hard to tell who was who...I would get reports that she passed by about a half hour before.

Well, it was interesting passing the camping teams, as my dogs wanted to join them...they were ready to camp and the smells of freshly cooked food was more than they could take...it too encouraging to get them past the teams. But away we went...it only to the next camping team. Well, I was sooo glad that I finally came across Kathy. She had just fed her team as they had been there for an hour. She helped me park my team and I immediately got my cooker going. Soon my team was fed and put to bed on their straw. They were very happy to be resting. I had snacked them three times getting to our 50 mile point. I think that it was 7:30 when I got there.

Kathy had decided that she was going to leave after a 4 hour camp. She ended up leaving at 10:30. A four hour camp would have me leaving at 11:30. When 11:30 came, my team was not eager to get going so I camped them another hour. This time when I got them up, they were barking and ready to go....with the exception of Thornton. Within 5 minutes on the trail she didn't want to go...so I put her in the sled bag and when I reached Morgan's cabin (3:15 am) I dropped her. She protested at being left behind, but I thought that it would be better for her. When I got back on the trail, the team actually improved...they are only as good as the slowest dog.

Well, I pulled into May's cabin (the half way point) at 7 am. It was a great experience ! I knew what I was doing and the dogs were great. I had a vet come and check my wheel dogs, even though I saw nothing that concerned me. I was just wanting a more experienced person to check them out as the first part of the trail I thought was hard on them. Every one was fine ! I got the dogs fed and to bed and then I got to have some hot soup and it was sooo good. I also drank cranberry juice and no coffee, as I wanted to get right to sleep when I could.

I hauled my personal stuff to the loft where we could sleep. While I was feeding the dogs, I heated up another cooker full of water and had more meat thawing for the morning. That is quite a time saver when you can do that. I placed that cooler in the dog handler's room, where it wouldn't freeze and it would be there for me in the morning. I also hung my parka and mitts to dry.

Well, I laid down to get to sleep and I laid there for 2 hours and watched others sleep, much to my frustration. The last time that I looked at my watch was 11:30 and I had to wake up at 1 am. So at best, I got a 1 1/2 hour sleep.

To be continued....

First thing I did after getting up was to feed and water my dogs. It was great to have the meal ready to serve.

Then I set about repairing my sled and it went quite well. One of my runners lost a strip of metal that held the running board tread on. As a result, it allowed snow to get under it and I had to run for miles on a big lump. I knew that running another 100 miles on a lump would not be very comfortable. I removed every other screw from my good runner and used those on my runner that needed repairing. I figured out how to make washers out of one of my dog food bowls so that the screw wouldn't rip through the tire tread. You are limited to what you have with you for repairing your sled and you can not get outside help. Ted was there and just had to watch me. But I had it all figured out.

Next I started repacking my sled and also packing up my drop bag for returning with Ted. I decided to lighten my load a bit as I was like most rookies...I packed the kitchen sink. I left at my scheduled time which was 6 minutes after Kathy.

At 33 miles out, I decided to camp my dogs. Walt was not doing well and I had put him in the sled bag. In a while I was experiencing leader problems and it was quite frustrating. I also knew that I was the last one on the trail as the two mushers who were behind me both scratched. As I looked for a place to camp the dogs, I found myself searching for moose tracks. I really didn't want to camp where a moose was roaming. It was a beautiful full moon and also the temps were dropping. I pulled out my sleeping bag and climbed in to it. I sure regretted sending my thermal rest back with Ted. In no time, my butt was freezing. I had decided that I would join Amber and Chad on their straw pile...hoping that I wouldn't awaken to Chad peeing on me ! Amber was such a sweetie as she nosed into my sleeping bag and gave me kisses.

After 3 hours of camping, I packed up my sled and got the dogs up. Again, it was frustrating as Otter and Ned were just not cooperating in lead. We were making terrible progress and then I decided to try Tok in single lead. I had never ran my team with a single leader and I was to later find out that Ted had never run Tok in single lead. Well, it was the answer to my problems and Tok was amazing. Tok picked the pace up to 11 miles/hour. Walt was really dragging Soon, I came upon Kathy on the trail. I told her that I wouldn't be stopping, as I had camped my dogs earlier. I came across another team who was experiencing dog issues.