Reliving the 1000mi Iditarod Trail Invitational – Day 16

Christof Teuscher

As much as I was still blown away by the beauty and the scale of the Yukon, as much was I looking forward to finally getting off this monster in Kaltag at about mile 633. The miles finally started to look like the end was getting a little closer. But alas, 367 remaining miles looked still quite intimidating.

There isn’t much to say about the stretch from Nulato to Kaltag. More of the same, yet still always somehow different. The moon was there, the sun came up, and I moved, and moved, and moved some more. A local on his way to Nulato stopped and we chatted while he smoked a cigarette. He told me his wife wanted him to take his granddaughter, yet he declined because he couldn’t go fast with her on the snowmachine. We laughed and he took off like a rocket. And no, the locals do not wear helmets.

Around noon, veteran musher Lisbet Norris passed me and tossed me a snack pack (pictured). I was very excited to eat some new food as I was growing increasingly tired of each and every type of food I had packed (and shipped). Lisbet had the only all Siberian husky team at the 2022 Iditarod. Siberian huskies are white and have beautiful almond eyes is an adaptation to protect their eyes from the wind. Alaskan huskies currently dominate in long distance mushing while Siberian huskies are sometimes nicknamed “Slow-berians,” yet they are adaptive, resilient, and great long distance dogs.

PS: a team of students at Portland State developed a more efficient musher cooker that Lisbet and other mushers now use. More info at https://bit.ly/3EjQdxB.

I reached Kaltag by 7pm, after a solid day of moving in great conditions. None of these small rural communities use cars in the winter. You get around on snowmachines. The ITI checkpoint was located in the Kaltag school, a big red building. It was spring break, so nobody was there. I quickly organized my resupplies (from another mailed box), boiled water for the next day, made dinner, and passed out. The next two days will be a long 86mi stretch to Unalakleet, which is located on the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea.

The moon. And not, this is the Yukon, not a lake.

Veteran musher Lisbet Norris tossed me a snack pack. Thanks!

“You are almost there!” Right.

The long wait for the short summer.

The Kaltag school, where the ITI checkpoint was.

Alaskan hospitality!

Organized chaos.

#iti2022 #iditarodtrailinvitational #ultrarunning #nome #alaska

Reliving the 1000mi Iditarod Trail Invitational – Day 15

Christof Teuscher

Well, my journey on the Yukon wasn’t over yet. While good moving happened on the previous day, I never quite got into the zone today. There are good days, and there are bad days. This was not a good one. But such is life.

Regulating your body temperature is a constant struggle. The saying goes that if you sweat, you die. So yes, you really want to avoid any sweat because it can literally freeze on your body. But conditions and the temperature change very frequently, and you don’t want to constantly stop to remove or put on layers. The key is to have layers that you can easily vent by opening zippers.

Another challenge is the ice buildup in your shoes. Your body always generates moisture that evaporates. If it’s cold enough, that moisture leads to ice on your socks first (pictured), and later to a gradually growing ice layer inside your shoes. While you can change your socks, it’s very hard to remove ice buildup inside your shoes without having access to a warm place for drying you gear. Once you have ice on your socks and inside your shoes, it’s almost impossible to keep your toes warm. While not perfect, the best solution to avoid ice buildup is to use vapor barrier socks (pictured). Like the sleeping bag vapor barrier liner, it’s just a fancy name for an expensive plastic bag, but it does the job.

Just when it got dark, Josh caught up with me a few miles before Nulato. He had left Galena 4h after me. That tells you how slow I was. Or how fast he was. Nulato residents are predominantly Koyukon Athabascan and lead a trapping and subsistence lifestyle. The mayor of Nulato himself greeted us at the Iditarod checkpoint. We were allowed inside only after passing a COVID test. It was great to have a warm place to sleep for once. Several mushers from the back of the pack were resting as well, including Inupiaq musher Apayauq Reitan, the first trans woman competing in the Iditarod. By competing in the race, she hopes to inspire other transgender people.

I was on my way to Kaltag, the last checkpoint on the Yukon, in the early morning hours.

Good morning!

That’s the moon.

That’s the sun. It was bitter cold.

In low temperatures, moisture from your stinky feet leads to a gradual ice buildup on your socks and inside your shoes. It leads to toes that you cannot keep warm anymore if you don’t address the problem.

One solution to avoid ice buildup on your socks and inside your shoes is to use vapor barrier socks. They are essentially expensive plastic bags. And yes, you can use plastic bags too.

Nulato is “just” around the corner behind that hill on the right. It still took hours to get there.

Inside the Nulato Iditarod checkpoint. We were allowed to sleep inside and dry our gear after passing a COVID test.

#iti2022 #iditarodtrailinvitational #ultrarunning #nome #alaska