My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [98]
Few items are more precious to a musher than his mitts. Mine were linked with a nylon rope that had a large hole to slip over my head. From the moment I stepped on the sled until I made camp, I almost never took them off. When I wasn’t wearing them over my gloves, I let them dangle at my side. Sometimes it felt annoying having those mitts swinging free, but it kept them within reach.
Four years earlier, Peter Thomann, a thoughtful musher driving beautiful burly Siberians in these same hills, had gotten careless on what appeared to be a mild, delightful day. Figuring he could dispense with his heavy beaver mitts, Thomann stowed them inside his sled bag.
Later that day, Peter suddenly found himself in a wind so wicked his fingers stiffened at its touch. He stripped off his gloves, intending to place on dry liners for extra warmth. The wind sucked the life from his bare hands before the musher could get the liners over his fingers. Thomann’s mitts would have come in handy then, but they remained out of reach, locked away by the frozen zipper on his sled bag.
He managed to get a glove over his right hand. The fingers on his left hand were “frozen stiff like pieces of ice,” as Thomann put it later, in a hospital-bed interview with Medred.
Thrusting the frozen hand under his parka, the musher had raced for the village like Napoleon’s army fleeing. “You panic for a minute. But once they are frozen, it is not a problem,” he told the reporter. “They do not hurt anymore.”
Thanks to an abundance of foolish climbers, mushers, and victims of unlucky outdoors accidents, Anchorage doctors possess great expertise in treating frostbite. Thomann didn’t lose any digits. And rather than bow out of the sport, he developed new defenses to protect that damaged hand from further injury.
Out on the Quest Trail, one 40-below night, I quietly watched, prompted by usual reporter’s curiosity, to see whether Thomann would skimp on dog care owing to his injury. I was surprised to find the musher working barehanded as he tended those paws with a diligence I’ve never seen surpassed. The trick was a small can of flaming Sterno, which he set down in the snow between his knees. Thomann worked a few seconds, then warmed the bad hand over the flickering blue fire, as he patiently nursed each of his furry friends.
Terhune smiled, something he didn’t do often. I clutched at my sides, hoping to prove him wrong. No such luck. Changing out of my warmer clothes, I had carelessly rested the mitts on my handlebar or sled bag. Trailing us, he found them by the side of the trail.
“I figured you might want them back,” Jon said, slinging the mitts over to me.
We both knew that the loss of those mitts could have proved disastrous in bad weather.
We continued through the hills for about 20 miles before the trail dropped into a frozen marsh. Looking down from the last ridge, the view reminded me of standing on top of a ski hill. The trail formed a winding white path through trees. Puffs of snow marked the progress of half a dozen mushers already descending. I was a little nervous as I launched my team over the edge, but the snow was deep, giving me fine control, and the ride was a joy.
I don’t know if a frigid breeze suddenly picked up, or if it was there all along, waiting for me. But I hadn’t gone 50 feet out into the marsh ice when the cold bit hard. Jamming the snow hook into a patch of crusty snow, I tore open my sled bag and grabbed the snow suit. With awkward, herky-jerky steps, I slipped my legs inside, thrust my arms into the chilly sleeves, and flipped the cowl over my head. Back to the wind, gasping, I leaned on the sled with my hands tucked under my armpits and collected my wits.
“That was close,” I whispered.
I don’t know how cold it was. It wasn’t very windy, but the slight breeze sliced through living flesh like a laser.