Iditarod Trail Impressions

Huw Oliver is fresh (well, not quite “fresh”) from 22 days spent on Alaska’s Iditarod Trail, fat-tire biking nearly 1,000 miles from Knik to Nome across frozen rivers, sea ice, and Alaskan tundra. For every challenge presented by crossing Alaska in winter — -35-degree nights, blown-in trail, or howling wind — the trail offers respite in the form of lingering winter sunsets and northern lights reflected in the ice beneath your tyres.

Unlike most bikepacking routes, the Iditarod Trail is uniquely ephemeral, as it’s only passable for just a few weeks in late winter. It traces its roots through many historic travellers, from trade routes between interior and coastal native groups to the Alaska Gold Rush and the modern-day Iditarod sled dog race. As with any pedal-powered journey, it’s impossible to condense such an immersive landscape into one neat box. Instead, it becomes a series of impressions of the natural forces and features that take control of day-to-day life once you take that first pedal stroke from Knik Lake.

Coming from the picture-postcard countryside of the UK, the sheer scale of the Alaskan landscape is one of the first things that strikes me, and it continues to do so all the way to Nome. Even the more mountainous terrain of the Scottish Highlands would be a footnote beneath the Alaska Range that defines the first stretch of the journey away from the Cook Inlet at Knik Lake. I’ve always enjoyed human-powered journeys for their ability to give perspective and time for appreciating a place, but I’ve never felt as small as I do in the endless rolling hills and stooped black spruce trees of the Alaskan interior.

I wouldn’t call the land inhospitable though; I would say that it simply demands respect and thoughtfulness in order to travel it. The land provides firewood at cabins, and the beauty of winter travel is that the terrain is far easier to cross when the swamps and rivers are frozen, and snow fills the hollows between tussocks.

We aren’t the only people edging gently across the land’s snowy contours, though. It feels like a real privilege to ride the trail at the same time as the Iditarod race’s mushers — in fact, our own journey relies on the trail breakers that expertly pack down the snow across hundreds of miles of forest and tundra, making this ephemeral route passable for only a few weeks in late winter. The dog teams begin to catch and pass us while we’re travelling the route’s remotest miles, deep in the interior. More than once, we’re woken from sleep in our tents by the eerily quiet sounds of a dog team passing in the night: just the whoosh of runners on snow, the patter of dozens of paws, and the soft panting of many mouths.

Ice

Land and ice can be hard to distinguish between at times, as if one balances out the other. Like the cold, it is everywhere, creeping into our clothes and sleeping bags as our bodies constantly produce moisture, much to our annoyance. It crystallises around our mouths through the day, forming impressive snot-cicles suspended from our face masks and neckwarmers.

Much of the time, the ice helps us on our way. A huge milestone comes when we reach the Yukon River, likely the biggest river I’ve ever seen, and ride its frozen course upstream some 140 miles from Anvik to Kaltag. The river is often more than half a mile wide, splitting and re-joining constantly around the many long river islands, and we are rightly fearful of its potential for extreme cold, wind, and drifting snow. But thankfully, the river smiles on us, and our passage upstream is sunny and pleasant, all things considered. The thick ice of the river is a highway shared by just a few bikes, dog teams, and snow machines.

Possibly the single most serene moment of the entire journey also takes place on ice — this time sea ice — on the trail to Golovin. It is sunset, and the recently disappeared sunlight has given way to gathering gloom as we arrive on the ice. I stop to address a leaking valve core, and meet a canny-looking fox, who reckons there might be snacks in his future. We both pause, breath held, for a moment before he skitters away. The fading light in the sky reflects in the glare ice, which moves cool and blue beneath our studded tyres as the hard surface provides fast progress across the bay. Jumbled bergs form obstacles on the smooth surface, and, without any wind to slow us, we can slide unseen and unheard across it, feeling like we belong there more than we do among the warm lights of the approaching town.

Cold

The cold defines every moment of time out on the trail, whether waking or sleeping. That’s not to say that every moment is unpleasant, but in low temperatures there is the inescapable need to plan ahead to avoid problems, and small but essential tasks consume extra time and energy. Water for drinking and cooking must all be melted from snow, and camp chores take around 2 hours in the morning and again in the evening. Wet gear is a constant worry: we must take care to avoid sweating while riding, and pull off layers early to avoid moisture creeping into them — once that moisture freezes, it's impossible to get rid of. Even at night, moisture from breathing causes problems by freezing into a thick layer of rime around the rim of the sleeping bag hood. The most difficult part of the day is first thing in the morning, when it takes me a while to build up enough enthusiasm to break out of the warm security of the sleeping bag and lean into the day’s tasks.

That being said, it is the cold that adds an indefinable element of magic to every single day. When temperatures at night hit lows below -30 Celsius, I take joy in feeling secure and warm inside my cocoon with just my nose poking out, even while taking care to make sure that it doesn’t get frostbitten. The margin for error between safety and danger becomes thinner while travelling self-supported in winter, but the solutions all lay in our hands, and that made the journey all the more satisfying. The entire journey depends on the cold in such a way that to shrink away from it would be self-defeating. Instead, it becomes like a companion, and when the trip is over, I’m not sure whether I feel relief or loss.

Food

In much the same way as the cold, the daily routine orbits the constant need for food. Even when my mouth becomes tired and I no longer actually want to eat, I have to. As any bikepacker knows, the day is bookended by breakfast and some sort of dinner, but any spare time in between is filled with snacking. We budget around 5,500 calories per day and do the best we can to get through it all each day. Our focus shrinks to more immediate needs, and any stop on the trail, whether changing gloves or taking a photo, sees our hands rummaging in pogies, bags, or jacket pockets for the least-frozen snacks available. Our bodies effectively have the thermostat turned way up, and the fuel to provide that heat has to come from somewhere. In case you’re wondering, the minimum operating temperature for a peanut butter cup is somewhere around -30 Celsius (-20 Fahrenheit) before they freeze and turn into weird frozen food dust.

The food is mostly bad: chips and jerky and instant mashed potatoes with butter. It’s calorific, but calling it nutritious would be stretching the truth. Our reliance on shelf-stable food that was produced in a factory thousands of miles away is a reminder that we’re temporary visitors, like birds that have been blown off course. We’re reminded of this again when we meet Mike, an Iditarod musher, at a cabin somewhere east of the Yukon one sunny afternoon. Mike is from a small village on the upper reaches of the Kuskokwim River, and after feeding and bedding down his dogs for a rest he joins us for some lunch. He sees our trail mix and immediately offers us dried salmon from his own bags, saying he has more than he can carry anyway. It’s delicious and is immediately followed by a version of “ice cream” (frozen berries mixed with caribou fat) and muktuk (small chunks of whale skin and blubber). All of it is full of calories and nutrients, and it feels like exactly what my body wants. The salmon was prepared by Mike’s mother and wife, the caribou and berries were all from nearby his home. The whale blubber was exchanged with relatives from the coast. Mike seems proud to be able to offer it to us, and I would be, too, since food and place are never too far removed.

I try to ration out the bag of salmon that he sends me away with, adding a little to blander food here and there, thinking that we owe Mike far more than just a lunchtime snack. I feel an immense gratitude to him and his generosity. Mike goes on to finish 23rd, mushing the 1,000 miles to Nome in just 11 days and 5 hours.