Monday, January 26, 2015

Iditarod considers Fairbanks start if snow conditions don't improve

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Posted: Monday, January 19, 2015 11:26 pm | Updated: 8:50 pm, Wed Jan 21, 2015.
By Casey Grove, cgrove@newsminer.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — With about a month of unpredictable Alaska weather to go before Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officials must make a decision, they and dog mushers are again thinking about the possibility of moving the race’s restart from Willow to Fairbanks.
Snow is on everyone’s mind. The 1,000-mile race kicks off with the ceremonial start in Anchorage on March 7.
After that, the race usually restarts farther north in Willow and heads over the Alaska Range, down the Yukon River, up the Bering Sea coast and finishes in Nome. But in 2003, the Iditarod Trail Committee voted to restart in Fairbanks, on the other side of the mountains, because of low snow and poor trail conditions. When they decided to stay on the traditional route in 2014 facing similar concerns, some mushers criticized the call, with some of the hardiest veterans saying it was the most dangerous trail they’d ever seen.
In 2015, record warm weather and thin snowpack in some areas have again combined to cause concern about the trail. Mark Nordman — who, as the race’s marshal watches the trail conditions closely — described the crux of the discussion with one word: “Snow.”
“And of course, all it takes is one big storm. I look at the weather daily, making calls daily,” Nordman said. “Plan A is going over the Alaska Range. That’s still what we’re working on. And with the reception we had in 2003, we would hope Fairbanks would be excited if Plan B would need to happen.”
Nordman relies on all sorts of trail users and pilots to feed him information. There had been some worry early on about rivers and creeks not freezing in the Rohn area, but reports now are that the ice is thick enough, Nordman said. Notorious sections like the Dalzell Gorge and the Farewell Burn need more snow, though, he said.
There also may be open water on the Yukon River above Galena that hopefully will freeze before March, Nordman said. From Unalakleet up the coast is likely a very thin snowpack, too, he said.
The bad spots seem to have more snow this year than last, Nordman said, but it is still not enough. Everything depends on what happens in the next month, he said.
“But the majority of the trail in the Interior is fine,” Nordman said.
The committee, with information from Nordman and others, must decide in mid-February whether the race will follow its normal route or restart in Fairbanks, he said. That’s because mushers need to have food drops sent to particular checkpoints and the race officials need to have logistics planned by then, Nordman said.
When the 2003 Iditarod restarted in Fairbanks, mushers left from in front of Pike’s Waterfront Lodge on the Chena River. The trail then went to Nenana, Manley and Tanana before reconnecting with the traditional route in Ruby. It was equally long but did not include the steep sections of the Alaska Range.
Robert Sorlie, the Norwegian musher who won that year and again in 2005, returned after a seven-year absence in 2014. After a harrowing, bumpy ride through the Dalzell Gorge and Farewell Burn, Sorlie and others openly criticized the decision to stay on the traditional route.
“They should not send people out there. It’s not safe,” said Sorlie, a firefighter, while in Nikolai during the 2014 race. “I’ve never been so scared before in my life.”
Nordman acknowledged taking flak from mushers last year, and he blamed a warm-up between decision time and when teams reached the Gorge. In 2015, the race marshal said the pressure would again be on him.
“Sure, there’s people that would like to go to Fairbanks right now, for all different kinds of reasons,” Nordman said. “This organization has been based on putting on a quality race from Anchorage to Nome that goes over that traditional trail. That’s how it’s marketed. That’s how people train.”
Still, there are many different viewpoints, Nordman said.
“I’ve had rookies this year already say, ‘I don’t want to go over the Alaska Range if it was unsafe, but also, ‘I’ve been dreaming about this forever, and boy, I’d sure like to run the traditional trail,’” he said.
There are also the supporters in communities along the trail that would miss out if the restart moved to Fairbanks, Nordman said, not to mention commercial ventures. One, for example, is the Rainy Pass Lodge, which buys extra supplies in anticipation of the race and plays host to many more people than usual during the Iditarod.
Nordman said he feels for the small communities that rely on an influx of visitors paying for a place to stay, or shopping at stores and putting money into fundraisers.
“When we don’t come through a village, it’ll be a big hit,” he said. “But they all realize. They see it every day. Their travel is harder because of the lack of snow in some places.”
There was a lot of pressure against the move in 2003, but Nordman said his ultimate responsibility is to the dogs and mushers.
Even Fairbanks businessman Jay Ramras, the former state representative who owns Pike’s, said he would rather see the Iditarod stay on its traditional route. A restart in Fairbanks would be good for the city but bad for the race, Ramras said. The small communities need the economic boost it brings, he said.
“For a lot of them, that’s the highlight of their year, to host the Iditarod,” Ramras said. “The right thing to do is be a fan of the race, and the race has an established course. It’s good sportsmanship.”
“You never wish for something bad to befall your neighbor,” he said. “Fairbanks is the sprinkler alarm system. You don’t trigger it until something’s on fire.”
If Fairbanks is needed, though, it surely will come through as a good backup, Ramras said.
“We’re ready, willing and able,” said Deb Hickok, president of Explore Fairbanks, the city’s marketing group. “Anything could happen. There’s been a couple years where it looked iffy and they ended up getting snow.”
From a Fairbanks perspective, the 2003 restart was a great success, Hickok said. Mostly, it was a fun event for the community, especially kids, who came in busloads to see the restart, she said.
“The neat thing for here is that it went through Nenana, which was on the original serum run route,” Hickok said. “I remember talk that we were going back to the historical legacy of this race.”
Having the ceremonial start in Anchorage and the usual restart in Willow results in a slight increase of visitors to Fairbanks, just because it means more people are coming to Alaska in winter and they want to see more of the state, Hickok said.
Because the decision on where to restart the race will happen so soon before the restart, it is difficult for people to book lodging in Fairbanks to see the race, she said.
“It was great for the community. I think that was really the value of it,” Hickok said. “It doesn’t do much to move the tourism needle.”
And in 2003, the restart did not do much to spread the name “Fairbanks” outside the state, Hickok said. She said Lower 48 news outlets reporting on the race kept calling the restart location “a city north of Anchorage” without referring to it by name.
“It just drove us crazy,” Hickok said.
Defending champ Dallas Seavey said he expected the 43rd running of the Iditarod to be a great race either way.
“We have obviously no control over the weather, but it’s strange. It’s definitely changing how and where we train dogs,” Seavey said. “I suppose we have to expect this for the Iditarod, but we’ve also seen the years where it bluffed like this and then it dumped snow on us.”
Seavey said he had faith in Nordman and the rest of the Iditarod decision-makers.
“I do not feel that he would knowingly put us in a dangerous position, you know, us being the mushers and the dogs,” Seavey said. “Last year, there were a lot of decisions that were made and circumstances that changed. I think people are going to be more ready to jump at a Fairbanks start.”
It would be interesting to restart there, as it would change the race a bit, Seavey said.
Some have speculated that a restart in Fairbanks removes the advantages experienced mushers gain after years on the traditional route. Norwegian musher Joar Leifseth Ulsom, who won the Rookie of the Year award in 2013 with a 7th place finish and earned 4th place in 2014, has been mentioned as a contender to win in 2015.
Seavey, who has six consecutive top-10 finishes and wins in 2012 and 2014, echoes his father, two-time champion Mitch Seavey, in preaching the importance of having a well-rounded team. That way, a musher and his or her team can be as prepared as possible, no matter where the race goes, the younger Seavey said.
“You try to be as ready for as many scenarios as possible and hope that the race runs in a favorable manner to your team. Sometime it will and sometimes it won’t,” Seavey said. “We’re going to look on the bright side either way.”
Staff writer Casey Grove is the News-Miner’s Anchorage reporter.  follow on Twitter: @kcgrove.

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Iditarod considers Fairbanks start if snow conditions don't improve

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