My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [36]
He’d hardly closed his eyes before two snowmachiners drove up. It was Craig Medred, a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, and photographer Jim Lavrakas, who snapped a few pictures of the “sleeping musher.”
A few minutes later, Lee was disturbed yet again. A bicyclist no less! The guy was training for the Iditabike, an upcoming 200-mile mountain-bike race.
“There’s a guy a mile or two up the trail who can’t get his dogs to go,” the bicyclist told Lee. “Said he’s been stuck there for nine hours.”
Nap time was over. Lee got his team rolling to see if he could help. He found Moore rigging a tow line for Carpenter’s team.
“You know, Gary,” said Lee, as he helped Moore fashion a connector that wouldn’t drag the trailing leaders by the neck, “he’ll be out of the race.”
“I know, but he doesn’t see any way around it.”
Carpenter stood on his sled, out of earshot, awaiting Moore’s cue. With the tow line in place, Moore’s dogs ambled forward. The Good Samaritan supported the line to Carpenter’s leaders in one hand.
The incident was observed by the reporter, the photographer, as well as Carpenter’s wife and handler, who had just landed on the river in a ski plane. Lavrakas pulled out his camera and documented the rescue.
“Too bad that Joe has to scratch,” Lee remarked to the musher’s wife as they watched the two teams depart.
“Why would he have to scratch?” she asked.
“He can’t accept help like that,” Lee explained. “It’s explicit in the rules.”
Rule 26 stated that teams could only be tied together in an “emergency situation,” which had to be declared at the next checkpoint. Dogs quitting on a mild, sunny day was not likely to constitute an emergency in the eyes of the race marshal.
“I don’t think he knows that,” Carpenter’s wife said.
“I’ll tell him,” said Lee, whose dogs were anxious to chase anyhow.
The tandem pair were barely creeping along. Moore was trying to cut Carpenter loose. But every time he relaxed the rope, Carpenter’s trailing leaders faltered. Lee quickly overtook them.
“Joe, you know you’re going to be disqualified,” Lee shouted.
Carpenter protested that his situation certainly amounted to an emergency. “I don’t have any food. I don’t have any fuel,” he cried.
“OK,” Lee said, shrugging. A reformed alcoholic well versed in self-help litany, Barry recognized denial when he heard it. He’d tried. If Carpenter was too freaked out to accept the inevitable, so be it.
The Coach hadn’t wanted me to even stop at Yentna Station, let alone stay six hours. I thought I was being prudent. In covering sled-dog races, I had seen a lot of people blow out their dogs the first day. I was still there when Carpenter finally made it to Yentna—showing no signs of grasping his predicament. He was talking about schedules. Talking about those supplies waiting in Skwentna. Lee and I shared uneasy feelings listening to Joe rant. It was like watching a driver babbling about scratches on a totaled car.
I headed upstairs for a nap as Carpenter and Medred began arguing. The musher couldn’t understand what was so newsworthy about his little delay. Why would Medred want to write about this? Carpenter’s Iditarod was history, and he just didn’t see it. Lavrakas’s photo of the illegal tow was destined for page 1 of Alaska’s biggest newspaper. Medred was gathering details for the next day’s lead story: the first disqualification of this year’s race.
Had anyone asked, I would have said I was traveling somewhere in the middle of the 74-team field. Like Carpenter, I was deluding myself. Lee better understood our plight. He knew there was no one left behind us.
Joe Garnie led the first wave into Skwentna. The hard-driving Eskimo from Teller trotted into the floodlights set up on the river at 3:14 A.M. Sunday, March 3. Being first counted for more than bragging rights. Garnie had won the “Dodge Dash,” a special Iditarod promotion, and the prize was a $15,000 Dakota pickup. With the keys to his new truck in hand, Joe vowed to set fire to his old truck.
Within 2 hours, 15 teams were camped on the river below postmaster Joe Delia’s cabin