March 12, 2003

Well, Karen should be on the trail all day today, so I'm not expecting any phone calls. I would think that she will camp on the trail during the heat of the day, and be in to Kaltag and off the river around midnight tonight. She will probably get into the checkpoint just in time to hear that Sorlie has won. In 2001, Karen was in Kaltag when Swingley won.

Loki and Squeaky are home and working on their tans.

So as usual I will take this slow time to answer a question or two. 

• Karen does bootie her dogs when the snow or lack of snow conditions warrant it. A lot of times during the Iditarod Karen will bootie dogs as a precautionary procedure, it is over 1100 miles after all.  
  
  
• Karen does have jackets for her dogs, my Mom made them in 2000. I've never seen Karen run her dogs with jackets on. At a checkpoint after the straw has been put down and the dogs have been fed Karen will cover the dogs up with blankets. When some dogs fuss they uncover themselves, so Karen had the jackets made because they stay on. Oreo used to like being completely covered by a big blanket, and she wouldn't move until it was time to go. The blankets are used to help the dogs muscles recover faster, its easier to regenerate when your warm.

This will be my last diary entry, unless I can find a computer on the trail. Tomorrow morning I leave for Unalakleet. I will wait for Karen there, then take the next flight to Nome. I guess you guys will just have to talk amongst yourselves until you hear from Karen.

Later,
Mark

March 12, 2003

These photos are from the Eagle Island Checkpoint webcam. (Many thanks to Robert Bibber for capturing some of these images and alerting us to the timing of Karen's entry into the checkpoint so we could capture the other few.)

This photo was taken by an amateur lucky enough to be in Anchorage. (Many thanks to Patricia Ford for sharing with us!)

Karen's dog Nik waiting in Anchorage after being dropped

March 11, 2003

Hello and welcome to day nine of the Iditarod rollercoaster.

I talked to Karen last night, not the happy happy person she was a few days earlier. Her team is being plagued with little injuries caused by punchy trail conditions and shear ice. Anyway dropped dog number four is Loki and dropped dog number 5 is Squeaky. Same old story, wrists and shoulders. Neither one of them is home yet.

Karen also called this morning, she was back to her cheerful yappy self again. It seems that the two back to back 18 mile runs improved her attitude. She gave me the latest revision of the race plan (of course I thought that it was "perfect"). In fact, it was the most impressive strategy that I have heard since Libby Riddles won the race in 1985. However I'm not going to tell you.

One of the perks of this year's race for Karen is that the front runners and the back of the packers, are having to intermingle at checkpoints and on the trail. Karen was running down the river when she saw a team coming towards her, it was Robert Sorlie. Shortly afterwards another team, that of Ramy Brooks. 

Later on, now in the dark, Karen could see what she could only describe as "a traveling disco show". This team coming towards her was covered in flashing red lights and had music blaring out of speakers mounted on the sled, it was Jeff King. I guess Jeff doesn't like earphones and the lights are so snowmobilers can see him. Karen said that all of the head on passes were with out incident. 

We try and practice head on passing as much as possible at home, but I'm pretty sure that this is the first time that Karen has done it with someone who is about to win the Iditarod. When Karen got into the next checkpoint, Rick Swenson approached her to ask her about trail conditions and other teams positions, again pretty cool.

It's not only the dogs that are racking up the injuries. Karen burnt one of her hands on her cooker, that now has a broken handle, and had to have one of the vets lance the blister with a needle. It must have been bad, because Karen HATES needles. The race is hard on equipment as well. Besides a broken handle on the cooker, Karen for the first time ever tried a ski pole to help her out this year. It broke with in the first 5 minutes.

Well stay tuned, who knows what tomorrow will be like?

Later
Mark

March 10, 2003

Hello:

First of all, Yes that is a picture of Karen's dogs on the front page of the Iditarod home page.

Dropped dog number three is Olena. She had two strikes against her, sore shoulders and she is in heat. She was coming into heat before the race started, and it wouldn't be the first time that a dog in heat ran in Karen's Iditarod team. Sissy was bred buy Butch in the 2000 Iditarod. Karen tied Sissy to the sled so no one could get to her, but Butch manage to drag the team around while Karen wasn't paying attention. I don't know who dog number four is.

Don't worry too much about Karen's team shrinking. We train all Fall having 10 or 12 dog teams pull 600 pound four wheelers for 50 to 60 mile runs. So this should be a walk in the park. You only have to have five dogs to cross the finish line. As Karen's team gets smaller, she will get rid of the sections of gangline that are no longer required, giving her a smaller more compact team to work with. Also all the food and snacks that were sent out along the trail are sized for a 16 dog team, so now Karen has 25% more food then she needs. Less feet to take care of, less straw to haul around, less food to dish out all means more time for Karen to sleep.

Here's a tip on how to read the update sheet. You may have noticed that the column labeled "SPEED" has a musher running one sections at 4 miles an hour and others at 12 miles an hour. This is because in the longer sections the teams rest on the trail and the clock keeps running. The rest time gets figured into the speed and you don't know how fast the teams is actually moving. Okay here's the tip part. Take the teams speeds between Grayling and Anvik on the way down and between Anvik and Grayling on the way back, average them and this should give you a pretty good idea of the speed that the teams are traveling. The trip is only 18 miles both ways so no one will be stopping along the trail.

Also when you post a note on the "Root for your Musher" section on the Cabela's page, make sure that you make the title fairly obvious that it's for Karen. She not the only musher out there.

Later
Mark

March 9, 2003

It's been a slow couple of days around here at Howling Dog Farms, the home of Earl & Natalie Norris. Yesterday, I went over to Maureen Chrysler's new place and installed a ceiling fan in her garage. We stayed with Maureen in 1999 and 2000. Back then she used to live about a half mile South of Natalie, now she has a new place about a mile away. 

Today it was off to the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center to pick up Nik and Kaylinn. This place is a real prison with 14 foot fences topped with razor wire and armed guards that have to buzz you in and out of gates. I took two pictures before I asked if I could, they said no but didn't do anything about it. Both dogs are a little stiff, but nothing a little time won't cure. There is one more dog on the way, I don't know who it is, I should find out tomorrow.

Out here in Willow its been very nice and sunny with temperatures hovering around 0ºC (32ºF) during the day and dipping down to -15ºC (2ºF) at night. In Wasilla it has been very windy. The Matanuska glacier is on the other side of Wasilla on the way to Glenallen and the wind comes off of it and blows through the valley out to the ocean, and Wasilla just happens to be in the way.

When it comes to Karen's schedule, I'm just as in the dark as you. The schedule that she gave me at the starting line (which is at least the sixth one she made) has been trashed because of never-ending changes in the trail. Believe it or not, Karen makes a run/rest schedule in September for the race. This schedule is needed so that we have an idea of what we need to start buying for the food drop bags. As long as she moving forward, I'm happy.

Later
Mark

March 8, 2003

As predicated, Karen phoned yesterday. She was in a very, very good mood. She was half way through her 24 hour rest, and had just finished sharing a lobster with Palmer Sagoonick. This time she was very talkative and all I had to do was a lot of "mmmm's", "oh yah's", and "sounds good to me". She shared a few stories but she can talk a lot faster than I write...but here go's.

Just outside of Tanana she was admiring the northern light that I was talking about the other day. She was staring up in the sky as the dogs were moving down the trail, when she finally looked forward to see were the dogs were going she got whacked in the head by a Sweeper. A Sweeper is a branch that sticks out over the trail that the team and sled can get under but you can't, unless you duck, she didn't. She says that she still had a headache yesterday. Now I call her "Karen Bumponhead".

In order to lessen some of the work load on herself in preparing for the race Karen had her Mom make up the kits that she uses in checkpoints to clean up. These kits contain things like, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, washcloth and such. When we packed the drop bags all we did was grab one of these "personal packs" for each checkpoint and throw it in a bag. So the other day Karen goes to use on of these packs, opens it up and sees a dark brown chunk wrapped in paper. Karen thinks to herself "oh my what a nice surprise, my mom packed me some chocolate", and took a big bite out of it...

Eeeeee-yuck!

Well needless to say, those of us that have been getting 8 hours of sleep each night might have quickly noticed that it was SOAP, not chocolate, BEFORE we bit into it. What Karen had to say next cannot be printed on this family page, but its a good thing that she had her mouth washed out with soap already :)

One last story. As Karen was running to Ruby at night she was drifting in and out of consciousness, when she looked down and saw something dragging in her team. When she was able to focus her eyes on the problem she saw that it was Odie's harness, and there he was running beside it naked. Now I don't know how this could have happened because in order to take a harness off you have to undo the neckline. I'm sure that Karen will be scratching her head about this one for a while, probably right above the big bump on her head.

Karen also talked to me about how she's learning lots about how to "race" from other faster teams, that she normally doesn't get to hang around with. She also said the times that you see for mushers checking out doesn't mean that that's when they actually left. The rule says that you must leave within an hour of signing out.

Later
Mark

March 8, 2003

There is a new photo of Karen at UltimateIditarod.com as well as more race coverage (but sadly, no mention of Karen's adventure).

Karen Photo

Click on the Photos to see larger versions. Photos by Bonnie Lundberg Romantix Dogsledding Gifts

Ceremonial start in Anchorage Karen Hypnotizing one of her dogs ( perhaps Kira? ) to be a TOUGH Iditarod sled dog Wheel dogs at the Ceremonial Start. Innisfree Pirate on right. Wheel dogs ready to GO! Karen & Jamie Nelson Karen pauses for a picture with her Iditarider, husband Mark looks on. Karen wearing Native snowgoggles Karen in the dog yard at Norris's (Notice the Canadian flags on stakes, those are her dogs) Karen by the dog truck One of Karen's tables at the Mushers Banquet.