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Thanks, thanks, thanks... is the first order of business that I need to relay. Not only to my dog team but every bit as heartfelt to my wonderful wife and family and all the supporters, near and far. Without all of you my 18th Iditarod would have been even more of a disaster than it already was.

What happened? How come ? Where and how are probably the most common questions I have to answer not only to my friends but as importantly to myself and my sponsors.

After a most challenging training season I entered the race with a team that had the potential of winning the race and a schedule in my pocket that would have gotten me to Nome in about nine days and three hours. Lack of snow shortened the ceremonial Anchorage start to a joy ride of about 10 miles with as many dogs. My "Iditarider" not only was great company but is now also considered one of our friends. Kurt handled the tag sled real well and the team performed perfectly. It has to be said that the first five miles of this Iditarod probably were the best ever. I want to thank the new mayor of Anchorage and anybody who was responsible of putting in the trail out of town. The street were not only covered with good clean snow that was easy on the dogs feet, but the trail was also elevated for great spectating and it had a "base" to it to boot, meaning the dogs didn't punch through and flounder in the soft snow.... that would come later.

At the restart, relocated to Willow at the very last possible moment for lack of snow, we where greeted by yet another perfect trail and a well organized holding area. The team was eager to get on the course and we took off with bib number four and championship number four in sight. The 16 athletes in the team are led by Inca and Kira, the two main leaders. We are real fortunate that Kira is in the team, recovered from a shoulder injury that was deemed possibly career ending at first, she is wearing a small Saint Francis medallion on her neck given to us by one of the many teachers following the race via the internet. Kira's buddy Inca was a main dog in Aaron's yearling team during the last Iditarod, and has blossomed into a fast, energetic and reliable leader. The other leaders are Ranger and Four Runner, Fearless/Blondie pups with a lot of heart and a third brother F-150 mostly running in the team. Aztec, Worf and Whirlaway are also leaders expected to guide the team throughout the race. The pairings in the team vary on each stretch of the trail. We switch dogs from one position to another because of trail conditions, to relieve them from a challenging spot in the team such as wheel or lead and to give them a chance to run with someone else. Some dogs also like to run on either side of the gangline while others are extremely left or right sided. I would never run Worf in wheel for instance, he is way too tall and the down pressure on his hips would be greater than on a smallish dog. On the other hand I would never run Kira in lead when there is water on the trail, she does not like to get her little feet wet and would go miles out of the way just to stay dry. The last leader in the team is Fisher. He has the most experience of all the athletes and is the only member from the winning 97 team in this group. Tomcat, Stealth, Fraiser and Snake are talented wheel dogs. They take turns running right in front of the sled, helping to avoid obstacles and guiding the sled through treacherous terrain. Solid team members make up the rest of the team, OldSpice, Bryner and Cypress are the remaining three dogs to introduce. Cypress has been coming on in training real well and has recently migrated up the gang line to the swing position and knows the commands. He wont do much leading this year but he might grow into a leader in the future. 3-2-1 go!! Temperature is about 30 degrees, the trail is well groomed and the spectators on foot, with dog teams, snow machines and various flying machines, stretch for many many miles, well past the first checkpoint at Yentna Station. The Iditarod fairies are costumed friends parked on Long Lake waiving and shouting encouragement but the most welcome spectators of course are Kathy and Nikolai, escorting my Iditarider and Tony Oney in his helicopter. They have the chance to fly the trail and even visit with me a little during the first scheduled longer stop past Yentna Station. I share with them that I found some welcome fresh water earlier and was able to cool down the dogs with clean, cold river water. The dogs snack real well and receive new booties before I depart at what will later seem eternity.

With such a great send off and a good looking team, you expect the race to progress smoothly and successfully....... but F-150 is starting to limp on his right front leg. My race plan has me resting just a little beyond Skwentna and I am making my first adjustment to the plan. I park at the checkpoint where I can converse with the veterinarians and after a long rest have the option to leave the dog there if I have to. F-150 is not coming around after over five hours of rest and gets to go home by air. I never feel bad for leaving a dog behind, rationalizing that he has made the selection into the main team and thus deserves the rest if anything is wrong. After all I have 15 good looking dogs pulling well. The trail continues to be in good shape and at the next brake, just beyond Vera Lake, I complement Stealth for his great pulling efforts. As a matter of fact he is doing so fine that I plan on using him in lead during the next segment. Stealth has trained flawless this year and actually ran in lead some just before the start. He was performing so well in that position, taking commands and setting a blistering pace that I had it in the back of my mind to let him lead some during the big race. Well, upon leaving, Stealth is limping and carrying his left front and had it not been for the Rainy Pass checkpoint to be real close. I know Stealth would have ended up in the sled. To make matters worse, Worf is hurting as well and I dare not to enter one of the most challenging sections of the entire Iditarod with a questionable dog, especially one that weighs almost 70 pounds. So the team is reduced by three athletes and we are heading into Rainy Pass and down the infamous Dalzell gorge. The trail is starting to deteriorate rapidly and we are warned that there is very little to no snow on the north side of the mountains. Well that was no exaggeration. Glare ice, bare ground littered with tussocks, roller coaster ride like patches of vegetation, rocks and stumps and a occasional patch of snow would describe the next hundred miles. I have always been pretty nimble on the sled but this year, I am getting catapulted from one obstacle to the next. I am hitting trees, fall over and get drug countless times hitting knees, elbows and other body parts until I am bruised head to toe. On the worst sections of trail, the dogs accelerate out of control. I believe they think they are loose running in the summer time. Dust, kicked up by the dogs feet, in the so called buffalo tunnel obscures my vision. It is dark and the head light glares of the rising dust particles making vision most difficult, like high beams in a snow storm. My brake spring fails and I need to make repairs. The spring has broken at the very end and force alone would bring the coil end into its designated hole. I slip and slice my right outside knuckle pretty deep. One more try and the spring is somewhat back in place, secure enough to get down the trail and very red. My hand is bleeding profusely from a tough to bandage spot. I try to stop the bleeding with the little bandaging material that I have, but the band aids get washed away with the flowing blood. I have to resort to direct pressure, some padding and a tight glove liner stuck in my work gloves keep the hand from bleeding to much. The blood would soak through eventually, but at least it wasn't dripping anymore. Two or three stitches probably would have been the fix of choice, but it's hard to stitch yourself up in the middle of nowhere, at night, with dental floss, so I let it be. Besides in one of my prior falls, I had hit my right elbow hard enough to take all the attention away from anything else right about now. I was passing other people with sled problems, John Little was pulled over and I was so busy trying to control my own team, that I could not render help. I came upon Dee Dee at a stream crossing, watered the team and was only able to inspect and critique her fix job on her sled. She had a similar plight with her brake, but before she could fix the primary problem, her brake caught on the bare ground, brought the sled to a sudden and very abrupt stop, severed her gangline and ripped the back stanchions off her sled. I don't quite know how she caught her team but it sounded like the catapulting force of the sudden stop had her land well into the team, fortunately she was unhurt and fixed the sled with hose clamps, splices of wood and rope. Once more I was too preoccupied with my progress/survival to render much help.

The trail stayed rough, unforgiving and bare of any snow for about thirty miles and by the time I got to Nikolai I was reduced to a hurting unit with only eleven dogs. Now the pain started to be mental as well as physical. I had left Nikolai with ten dogs before but this was different, my confidence was gone and the team sensed that. The dogs needed a long brake and I pulled into Takotna for my 24 hour rest, one more deviation from my race plan.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.... the goal up to this point was to win our forth Iditarod, all the decisions leading up to this point were based on that goal. If I was on a camping trip or if the goal was simply to reach Nome, my driving style certainly would have been different. I would have rested longer in some spots, probably would have waited out the night in others and avoided the heat of the day yet in other places. By trying to get there first, one takes chances and gambles that all will turn up trump.... well it did not and my pain and depression persisted to the point of wanting to quit. It took four sleeps during my layover before I could honestly look at continuing the race. I talked to Kathy, I talked to the boys and I talked to my friend Kent before I was ready to push on with mixed emotions. I still wanted to win, still wanted to race, but also knew that my team and myself were too banged up to really do any good. We all needed more rest than is allowed to play in the lead.

Doug Swingley was having another great race and was pulling away from his competitors steadily. We were hoping for bad trail conditions to slow him down and bad trail conditions we got. Don's cabin is the unofficial half way point between Takotna and Iditarod. A single room dilapidated cabin near a riverlet that often has running water for the dogs, marks this spot. I stop for a rest and am quickly joined by Rick Swenson and Paul Gebhardt who left Takotna about one hour behind me. We all feed and care for our dogs before tending to our personal needs. In my case this includes rubbing dogs ointments on my left knee, right elbow and right hand to help ease the pain. Furthermore my until now mild coughing that I picked up in the dusty buffalo tunnel, has progressed into a noticeable hacking accompanied by a greenish discharge. Time to brake open the heavy gun. I carry a prescription of Zithromax, a once per day antibiotic, with me for situations like this. Rick noticed my discomfort and came over with his helpful remedy, Echenasia. I was laying in my sled and he offered a dropper full of the nastiest smelling stuff I ever ingested. It must be said however, that as soon as I took that medicine, I felt the war between good and evil fight in my body. I was gagging and convulsing but felt that my breathing was already getting better. We all waited out the heat of the day, I collected fresh water in my dog bowls from snow melting of the cabin roof.

The trail to Iditarod was almost snow free once more. The rolling hills had just enough snow on them to hide the uneven terrain and make the going very difficult, especially for a small team. This section of the trail gets no traffic other than the Iditarod every other year, so we are not really expecting a freeway, but what we had was ridiculous. I encountered several bikers on this stretch, actually they were bike pushers because riding a bike is entirely impossible here. The bikers and some runners belonged to the "Iditarod Impossible" a super ultra marathon to Nome testing these athletes to the max. Had they known the trail conditions ahead, I think they would have called it a race in Iditarod. I don't think there was another mile until Safety that would have been hard enough to pedal a bike on. In fact I came up with a new standard on how to describe a trail; ridable by bike, push your bike and worst of all, carry your bike! The last few years we encountered these bikers on the coast or just before Nome, meaning they had driven hundreds of miles ahead of the dog teams on hard trails. This year the weren't even half way when the dog race passed them by and I think if they haven't given up their quest, they must still be out there somewhere pushing or carrying their bikes. Hats off to their enormous efforts. So this was a zero for riding bikes which makes it about a zero for driving dogs, but we were about to encounter "carry your bike" for 150 miles on the Yukon.

In Iditarod it had become clear that my race has not materialized and I pretty much resign myself to try to finish the race as good as I can. My traveling times are falling off and I can not compromise the small team by cutting their rests short, especially not on a slow and punchy trail. I help the team as much as possible by pedaling the sled with my feet and pushing with my ski poles. All the unnecessary equipment and some possibly crucial equipment has been sent home to lighten the load. The trip up the Yukon is a windy hell. The wind is straight into my face if I dare to show it. I hide behind the back of my sled to reduce drag. I feel the slow team going even slower whenever I stick my head from behind my hiding place. It is not easy to cramp yourself behind a 20 inch wide sled standing about three feet tall. I try many different ways to help the forward progress of the team. Running is out of the question, even in this punchy, windy, newly snowed in trail, the dogs are walking at about 6 miles per hour and I can not walk or run that fast for any length of time in my arctic gear. So I try my ski poles or try to push the sled but the headwind is so strong that all my efforts are nullified and actually become more of a burden to the team than any help at all. The best way to help is to hide behind the sled until you get cramps in your legs or shoulders and stay out of the wind. Occasionally I lay flat on the sled, melting into the load to stay aerodynamic but all sled steering ability is lost this way and the sled runs into even deeper snow then what the dogs are following. So back behind the sled I climb, peeking out from under the handle bar to help stay on the soft trail. My depression now has overcome my physical pains and only the thought of my boys and my wife keep me going. For years I have tried to instill a "can do attitude" into those whom I love and now I have to live up to those expectations myself. So I think of Nikolai and Rohn and the homeless shelter in Anchorage. The Brother Francis shelter has used my Iditarod efforts for years as a fund raiser. "Per mile" pledges are collected and the shelter receives the money. I would love to be the one to close down that shelter but as long as people are down on their luck.....we must push on and try to raise some funds for them. I have two thoughts, at least my situation no matter how hard difficult it seems right about now, at least it is self imposed and that if the wind is in your face all the way to Kaltag, there must be a tail wind on the way to Unalakleet. Battling up the river is taking its toll on the team and Snake refuses to eat. He has worked so hard all this way and pulled way more than his faire share. Tomcat, racing in his very first Iditarod has a troublesome shoulder that I have worked on with ice packs, massages and heat packs at every stop. Now he shows too much discomfort for me to take him any farther. Once again I call my family for support, not something I do during a usual race and Kathy and I are trying to raise my spirits by looking forward to our trip to Disney World right after the banquet. That means I have to make it to Nome by Sunday to catch my connecting flight. Searching for Polly Anna's spirit at least I will have a tail wind going to the coast.

After a double digit of rest hours I take seven dogs direction Unalakleet. Kira is leading with either Inca or 4-Runner. Ranger and Aztec are team dogs and Cypress and OldSpice are wheel dogs for now. The trail is pretty smooth and it is snowing very lightly. We start off real well and plan on taking a good rest at the Old Woman cabin when the snow starts flying straight into my face. The wind is picking up, it's snowing more all the time and pretty soon there is no visible trail ahead of us and we are fighting our way down the trail.....straight into a strong head wind again. The odds for that wind to shift 180 degrees are astronomical and only the melting snow on my face hides my tears. After battling the headwinds for what feels like ten days we finally get close to the new "Old Woman" cabin. A nice log building maintained by the BLM. Often we have to wade through overflow just before the cabin. Fortunately the water is absent this year but I stop anyway and walk to a open hole in the small river to fill my cooler with water. Carefully I step my way to the water hole, testing the ice with all my considerable weight. The ice feels safe and I fill my cooler to the brim, turn around and walk towards my sled. With a loud thud, a big pan of ice drops about two feet with me on it, spilling water everywhere as I scamper forward to get to safety but I manage to stay dry somehow. Back to step one, the watering hole is a lot closer to the trail now and I get the water from the newly created ledge, drive 300 yards to the cabin and start cooking for the team. Two BLM agents and a caribou hunter from Nulato are resting in the cabin. The real surprise arrives via snowmobiles minutes after I made myself comfortable in the cabin for a rest. Jeff and Heidi Erickson from Unalakleet came to check on me, Jeff giving me a hug and a "kick in the rear". Then Tony Haugen and his sister drive up followed by my Nome friend and host Pat and his two oldest daughters. What a great feeling to have friends coming all this way to commiserate with me. In the meantime Charlie Boulding has joined the festivities at the cabin and is entertaining the group with his tall tales. I feel comforted to have friends care enough to drive 40 miles to check on me, stay a hour or so and then drive back to town. Thank you friends. After a short nap I get back on the trail and find the going a little easier, the snow has stopped falling, the wind has stopped blowing and the heart is a little lighter for having had a good visit with friends however short it was.

Unalakleet had just received a little snow and the glare ice is covered up making traveling pretty good. The long run from Kaltag has tired the dogs and I have to rest for a long time to be able to climb the Blueberry Hills later on. During my stay I have to convince one of the racers not to quit and by doing so of course, reaffirm my stubborn mind that I can actually reach the finish line within a few days myself. In the checkpoints we often compare our traveling times and I know that we are slower than most of the other teams around me. That problem is of course compounded by the few dogs doing all the hard work and therefore needing more rest to keep on performing. We don't really look forward to the Blueberry Hills, a overland section of trail on the way to Shaktoolik that I will have to cross in running shoes to help the team. The kids in Shaktoolik always think I'm crazy when I arrive there with my tennis on my feet. Just don't stop moving. A big group of racers is leaving Shaktoolik at day break after high winds made night travel most challenging. I would like to rest the dogs longer but realize that the storm might get worse and being amongst other dogs will excite my team a little. I head out into a strong head wind once more. The dogs fight their way up the trail and eventually reach Koyuk ready for another long brake. The rest of the coast fortunately is relatively calm, however, still no bike riding trail.

For the last day and a half of the trip I have grown an appendage. One of the racers is tailgating me and is duplicating my every move, stopping and snacking, changing booties whenever I do but refusing to take a turn leading to give my dogs a brake. At first my team is quite bothered by this energy sucking parasite but after a while they seem to be getting used to him and stop looking back. We have a few more miles to go and I wonder if my family actually made it to Nome or if they decided that Disney World would come soon enough to be with dad. On front street the guy behind me tries to pass me for the first time in many miles and my team responds with a energy burst to the finish line keeping the proper order. Kathy and the boys are waiting for me under the burled arch, their presence means more to me now than ever before, thanks for being there.

The final result will reflect a 24th place finish in Iditarod 2001, my worst performance in my Iditarod career, my toughest race so far but I feel that I learned a lot as well. I don't quit easily, the body can heal, the dogs will have a great summer and in the fall we will start anew to prepare a wining team for Iditarod 2002, we might even have some snow to train on. Thanks to all my friends and well wishers who helped me get through this one by sending messages, faxes, prayers and just plain positive thoughts, I am glad I made it....there are better results coming........

Keep the faith,

Happy Trails