2010 Alaska Ultrasport Day 2 part 2Finger to Finn Bear

2010 Iditarod Trail Invitational
Day 2 Part 2
Finger Lake to Finn Bear Lake


I woke at some point during the morning when I heard a disk brake squealing down the hill out of the checkpoint. No one else was stirring though, and I was fairly comfy, so I shut my eyes for a few more minutes. The next time I opened them, I could see Bill and at least one other racer(Nicola? Brij?) stirring and/or sitting up. Wake up time. Packed my gear, strapped it to my bike. There was about 5 inches of fresh, new, fluffy snow on the ground. I went off to pillage my drop bag. It really wasn’t so much pillaging as picking through. I took full advantage of the 10 lb limit on the bags, and since I arrived at Finger Lake in under two days, I had a lot of extra. The temps had been warm all race so far, so all of my hand/foot warmers got left behind. I had forgotten to take out cash to bring with me for the race, and only had about $45 with me at the start. Everyone was talking about getting breakfast, and I was worried that we only got one meal and had to pay for any additional ones. It was a great relief to find out that there would be no charge for breakfast. Food and lodging are included at each checkpoint from Finger Lake to McGrath, I just wasn’t sure how much food and lodging that would be.

I knew I had slept quite a bit, and was anxious to get on the trail before Craig on his snowmachine. The light fluffy stuff looked somewhat rideable, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case after he passed. After I ate and filled up on water, I headed for my bike. Bill was the only one outside, and was packing up his bike. I asked if he was ready to go, and he said “5 or 10 minutes”. I thought about waiting and taking off with them while walking to my bike. Everyone else had parked their bikes up by the lodge. I rolled mine down to the tent the previous night and parked it right outside. Once I had double checked everything on the bike, I stood and looked up the hill toward the lodge. It didn’t look like anyone was coming, and I was ready to move, so off I went.



I was right, the trail was about 50% rideable, even with the new snow. Phil from Nome had been the squealing brake I heard a few hours earlier, and his tracks certainly helped. It was gorgeous out, with all the fresh snow covering everything. The only visible tracks being those of a bike and occasionally it’s rider’s footprints. Phil is a much more experienced snow rider than I am, and between that and his multiple gears, he was certainly able to ride a bit more than I was.



I pressed on at a fairly quick pace, working up a sweat. I wanted to get as far down the trail as possible while it was still rideable. I had fantasies about making it to FinnBear before the trail got churned up by snowmachine. I hadn’t reached gotten to the Happy River Steps though before I heard the whining sound of a motor behind me. When I ran into Craig at the checkpoint the previous night, I had said to him, “I know you can’t help it, but your track tears that trail up…”. He said he knew it, and felt bad about it. He was out here on a job though, reporting for the race. “It is what it is”, as someone once said. Once Craig had come past, the trail was what it was, and that was a slog. Even the downhills where sketchy at best. Some of them I didn’t even bother trying to ride down.



The pushing became a lot more strenuous. I was working harder, sweating more, and drinking more water. I got the notion that I might run out before reaching FinnBear Lake, so I started supplementing my water with snow. It was warm enough that hypothermia wasn’t going to be a problem, but those snow crystals do tear up one’s mouth.



Craig was stopped at the bottom of the last of the Happy River Steps. Passing him, I stopped to ask if he had seen Phil(he had), and see if he had a way to get some water going for the group of racers behind me. I figured at that point that I had enough to get me the handful of miles to FinnBear, but that if I was running low, so might some of them. My hopes shot up again that I might be able to ride the flats and downhill parts from there to FinnBear.



After the steps, you come down onto the Happy River for a few hundred yards, where you intersect the Skwentna River, again traveling a few hundred yards before climbing up off of it. The hill after it is probably the single most strenuous pitch of the course. It starts with a 8ft or so near vertical wall up the river bank. Last year I had to alternately lift and set my bike, and kick in footholds. This year, with all the new snow, I was able to wheel my bike right up, while quickly kicking in my footholds. Mike Schoder passed me right before the wall, no paddle track on his machine. For somewhat of a perspective on what each do to the trail, especially soft trail, I took a photo of his track, and a photo of Craig’s nearby. You'll have to forgive the quality, as it's the only way to get the definition to show up.

Mike



Craig



Neither are rideable where the photos were taken. Both tracks break down the structure of the new snow, but Mike’s doesn’t affect the base, and the resulting track sets up more quickly into a generally nice trail. If it’s warm out, the paddle tracks will dig down, occasionally disrupting the base and making an unrideable trail. And when that churned up, scrambled trail sets up, it’s far from smooth and far from fast. Not that it would set up in those temps until night time anyway.

So, after the wall, It was a bit of a slog up the long steep hill, but I think maybe easier than last year. Last year it was icy and difficult to get a foothold, but the bike rolled easier. This year, foot traction wasn’t a problem, but the bike rolled a bit slower. 6 of one, half dozen of the other I guess.



On Shirley Lake, I took a sucker trail because the main one was all but completely blow in, and it looked like Phil had postholed down it. It eventually led back to the main trail, but added a little bit of distance.

Up over the next rise, I knew I was really close to FinnBear, so I went ahead and drained the last of the water in my hydration pack.



When I got down onto the Lake, It was blowing pretty hard and the trail was drifted. The mid-day, overcast sky cast a very flat light that, combined with the drifts, made riding futile for me. When I got to the sign for Mike and Ingrid’s, the cutoff trail to their cabin was completely blown in. Just gone. No signs of it at all. I thought about heading to the other side of the lake to melt snow, but knew that the cutoff trail generally runs in a dead straight line from a few feet in front of the sign to the cabin, so I went for it. I postholed maybe up to midcalf for a little while before eventually finding signs of the trail again and making it up to the cabin. Mike and Ingrid greeted me outside, and to my surprise, remembered me from the year before, despite the fact that it had been dark the only other time they had seen me. It was very comforting to see some friendly faces, and I planned to stay about half an hour or so, to chat and fill up on water.

2010 Alaska Ultrasport Day 2 part 1, Shell to Finger

2010 Iditarod Trail Invitational
Day 2, Part 1
Shell Lake to Finger Lake


As we killed time at Shell Lake Lodge, stretching, eating, drying clothes and resting, riders came and went. Eventually I put my wet shoes back on and headed out to catch Tim, Chris and Kyle(Phil might have been in that group as well), who had left a minute ahead of me. Brij, Big Nicola and Bill had left a while earlier and were well ahead of us. We had been warned of some overflow and open water in the first meadow out of the lodge by Mike Schoder, and soon enough found ourselves at a big, wet rift in the trail. It looked deep enough to go around, so we walked and occasionally crawled through the deep snow skirting the edge of it. I’ve found that when I punch through into deep snow it’s easier and more efficient to just proceed by ‘walking’ on my shins till the trail looks like it firms up. I was walking in front of the procession, so rejoined the main trail before the others. I mounted my steed without pause and pedaled away. Mike had been grooming it all morning, so despite the fresh snow the night before, it was hard packed and rather fast, especially with the tracks of several riders in front of me.

Last years travels through this section had felt like a bit of a slog, but actually ended up taking about the same amount of time as this year. I think the difference could be accounted for in this years slog from Skwentna to Shell, my gear woes in the middle of the swamp, and perhaps a longer rest at Shell. The swamps and meadows did seem to fly by under my tires this year, and I took no photos on this section. So I’ll add a few from last year to keep your attention.









Around the time it became justifiable to put my headlamp on my head, I spotted a brief flash of light a couple of hundred yards up the trail. Often, at night on winter trails, you won’t see another racers headlamp in front of you unless they look back. The headlamps we use are light and small, and usually not more than 100 lumens due to the reflectivity of the snow. Combine that with the trail being in somewhat of a trench most of the time and a rider could be 200 yards in front of you and you might not even know it. Squinting in the fading daylight, I was able to make out the shape of two riders not very far up the trail. I pressed ahead to see who it was(and to pass them, this being a race after all)… It was Lou and Eric, a couple of pros from California, who had done this race numerous times before. I had remarked at some point after last years race that getting myself to McGrath before a racer as accomplished as Louise Kobin would be a nearly insurmountable feat. Catching up to her and Eric on the trail gave me a bit of an adrenaline surge, and I pressed on at a quicker pace than I had been traveling at, thinking about my chances of maybe catching a few more racers.



It wasn’t long before I saw more headlamps and came upon Bill, Brij and Big Nicola. They were happy to see me as they had been setting in tracks through the churned up trail for quite a while. Craig Medred was on the trail reporting on the race, and unfortunately had a paddle track on his snowmachine, which really makes a mess of the trail and is difficult ride behind. So far it seemed like myself and the other racers mentioned so far had been playing leap frog with him since Yentna Station. It was only starting to get a tiny bit annoying at this point. By a stroke of luck, the point where I caught the three B’s was also the point where Craig had caught and passed Dave Pramann from Minnesota, so I had a track to follow for a bit. Unfortunately I was just coming down off the adrenaline fueled overexertion I had been cruising on, and my pulls were feeble at best as the trail continued to get softer for the last handful of miles into Winter Lake Lodge on Finger Lake. Brij summoned up his powers of levitation to calmly pedal away from the pedestrian travel of Bill and I, while Big Nicola fell off the back a bit, encouraging us to press on without him. Had a good chat with Bill as we made our way in to the checkpoint about 15 minutes behind Brij.





I had planned on pressing on a few miles before bivying, remembering the discomfort of trying to sleep in the weatherport last year at Finger Lake. As we sat eating our dinner, we found out that there were TWO heated tents this year, and that changed my attitude. Bill, Nicola, Brij, Lou, Eric and myself went to check out the second tent, with Dave sleeping soundly in the weatherport. It was warm, the floor was dry, and there were no fumes or odors, so I made the decision to join the group on the floor. Lou and Eric expressed the desire to leave around 2am, and I considered departing with them. I only had about a half hour of sleep so far though, and a good night’s rest proved too appealing when I heard them pack up and head out in the middle of the night.