02/04/2024
T-Dog 110 Recap (part 4)
A big thank you to Whitney McLaren Photography for capturing some incredible photos of our team leaving the Nenana checkpoint through the challenging overflow conditions on the Tanana River!
I am so proud of how the dogs excelled in the challenging trail conditions we experienced during this race! They have never even seen obstacles of this magnitude in training, let alone a race, and they never hesitated a second! Even Honey, who absolutely HATES water and ice, really surprised me with how happily and confidently she charged through miles of ice and overflow.
On the 59 mile run from Nenana back to Fairbanks, we took an overland route after the first couple of very wet miles on the River. Mike and his team were the first to leave the checkpoint, in the lead for the race. The trail was primarily water, ice, and a little bit of sandbar for the first 2 miles at most until we turned off the river and north towards Minto Flats. This was a challenge for the dogs as the trail is not obvious in the water and is marked by just the scratches from snowmachines in the ice. Being the first team, they also did not have the advantage of being able to follow a scent trail left by previous dogs. My team was able to leave the checkpoint just 4 minutes after, so as long as Mike went the right way I knew my dogs could follow where they had gone by smell.
We were still on top of thick frozen ice on the river, but all the water (varying from just an inch deep to some spots a foot or more deep) was due to a common phenomenon called “overflow” where there is a layer of water above the frozen ice. This can be extremely dangerous when it’s subzero, as getting your clothing soaked in those temperatures is a bad combination. Fortunately, one positive of the warm temperatures during the race meant that we were most likely not going to freeze even if (when) we did get wet.
A precaution we did take because of the overflow was having our sleeping bags, extra boots/socks/clothes, dog bo**ies, matches, and electronics in either water-tight cases or dry-bags. This meant that if we were to get soaked and get cold/chilled, we would have warm and dry clothes and sleeping bags as well as dry matches to light a fire. Mike’s new over boots kept his feet dry, where mine seem to have lost some of their waterproofing over the past decade of use… lucky for me it was warm and I didn’t have to stop and change my boots!
Once off the river we had a fairly tame run over flat marshes and lakes as the afternoon sun started to set. I caught up to Mike by this point and we resumed traveling close together like we had in the first half. The views were beautiful and we took it easy, enjoying the scenery and still stoping quite frequently to let the dogs eat and roll in the snow as well as give them the small frozen meat snacks like we had in the first half of the race.
The last 30 or so miles of the route back to Fairbanks was much more exciting than the first half with rolling hills, twists and turns through the forest, narrow log bridges over creeks, more overflow and ice, and multiple Alaska Railroad Track crossings. We were warned to “stop, look, and listen” when coming upon the active railway crossings, which we did so an didn’t it see any trains. I was a little bummed we didn’t see a train as that would have been pretty cool. It brought back memories of 10 years ago in the Beargrease Marathon where I had to stop and wait for a train to pass before crossing.
Silly me was thinking there were tiny little train crossings where the trail crossed similar to what they have for cars to drive over for train crossings. I was very wrong… the trail just crossed straight over the bare track rails making for an interesting ride on the sled similar to “grinding the rail” on a skateboard in a skate park! The dogs didn’t mind as they hoped right over the rails, but the sleds slid sideways down the rails each time we crossed! It was kind of fun but also kind of wild because those rails are a lot taller than one would think! We also couldn’t use our brakes that might get caught on the tracks, so we really did fly off the rails!
Night fell and we could see the glow of the city lights of Fairbanks nearing ahead of us as we twisted and turned through the trees, occasionally crossing or running alongside the railroad. Up until this point, Mike and I had been traveling together alone in the lead and had not seen any sign of the chasing teams behind us… but about 15 miles from the finish, that was about to change and things were going to get exciting!
