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The weather has turned warm with snow, almost a repeat of our Christmas dump, but not quite. We had a foot of heavy, wet snow Wednesday, laced with some rain, but nothing like the late-December deluge. The snow has settled somewhat and packs beautifully. Our trails should be in great shape once we can work on them. We've got another low-pressure system swirling up from the North Pacific with more moisture and warmer temperatures for the weekend, though, and there's no telling what that may bring. We seem to be having a winter of extremes up here. Mother Nature seems to find little virtue in moderation this season.

I have to say I'm going through withdrawal pains at the moment. For the first time in five years, I'm not somehow involved in the process of gearing up to launch my team from Fourth Avenue in Anchorage on the first Saturday in March. I'd be disingenuous if I didn't say I'd like to be there, but there are any number of reasons I'm probably better off not being there this year, given the way things have worked out.

And it's not as if I don't have plenty of things to do. First and foremost at the moment is putting on the Willow-Su Valley 300 race next weekend. I've been running around in ever-decreasing circles trying to get the million and one loose ends tied up. Among other items, I'm dragooning my friends and neighbors to put together a thousand Iditarod-style trail stakes, each with a couple of pieces of reflective tape. I've made a couple hundred myself already. I've been on the phone all day trying to line up people to put in and mark 150 miles of trail, and to make sure everything is done before the race, but not so soon that this weekend's recreational snowmachiners will destroy everything. In a few locations, I'm still trying to nail down the final routing, which may vary right up to race day because of overflow and other considerations.

I've been making sure our four checkpoints have everything we'll need, such as 24-hour access, water, a place to park the teams and the mushers' trucks (which will be following the teams), a place for mushers to rest and warm up, and someplace to put all of the trash. We must have a checkpoint staff at each checkpoint, including a trustworthy, knowledgeable checker and assistants, a race judge, and a communicator. They must also know when to expect the first teams in and the last teams out, as well as the rules under which everyone will be running. I'm arranging to borrow a friend's snowmachine so I can personally go out and check key sections of the trail next week to make sure the markings are still up and there aren't any confusing turns. There's also the matter of fielding inquiries from an ever-increasing number of mushers interested in running the race, each of whom needs a complete description of everything from the trail to the entry fee.

The media must also be kept informed, especially since this is not one of the big-name races and we need all the publicity we can get. I guess our race could aptly be described as a back-of-the-pack race, if for no other reason than the Big Names will be down on the Kenai Peninsula running for the bucks the Tustumena 200 while our little crowd is chugging around a new race trail for little more than a chance to qualify for the Iditarod, or for some folks, just to be out on an adventure on a new trail. We've intentionally designed the race to be musher friendly, with all checkpoints on the road system, access for musher trucks, as much help by handlers as the Iditarod qualifying rules will allow, and a trail that should be marked as well as the main runway at LAX. Now it just remains to all of us race volunteers, and for better or worse, to me as the organizer and chief gofer, to make all of this happen in a timely manner. I will say that my learning curve has been very steep and may approach vertical as race day approaches. And this isn't even a big race!

I'll probably have an update on our race on the internet, although I can't guarantee its currency since I'll be running around from checkpoint to checkpoint trying to put out fires. I'd like to have a fancy website like the Copper Basin 300 or the Kusko 300, but we've intentionally kept things as simple as possible--for instance, we're running on well-used trails wherever we can, mushers will haul all of their own food and straw to each checkpoint (or at least their handlers will), we probably won't even have bibs, and there won't be any trophies or even patches. But there's still more than enough to go wrong to demand my complete attention right up until the awards banquet is over.

Sometime while I'm doing all of this, I need to get with my publisher in Anchorage so we can send the second edition of my book to the printer. I hope we'll have the books back by Iditarod time, if for no other reason than we have plenty of back orders resulting from the unexpected rapidity with which the first printing sold out. Of course, I need to keep working on the Trail Notes for the Iditarod and keep this diary up (but that may come under the heading of therapy).

And then I have to figure out how get my snowmachine fixed--it overheated in the wet snow and 25-degree temperatures last night while Barrie was putting in her sprint training trail and burned a hole in one of the pistons. This probably means a new engine, which means I may have a choice between fixing the machine or going on the Serum Run--but if I can't fix the machine, I'll have a hard time keeping trails in to train for the Serum Run. O. Henry would have loved it. And of course, I still have to run my team once in awhile to remind them they're supposed to be working for a living this time of the year.

We had a nice break in the clouds tonight to watch the lunar eclipse. We were in the clear for almost all of the period of totality. Up here the moon appeared a dull red with a lighter fringe at the bottom. The difference between the inky murk of totality and the blinding glare of the restored full moon on the snow was astonishing. Normally we never get to visualize so sharply how much light the moon really provides at night in the winter when it can reflect off the snow.

By the way, here's a question most people haven't considered: Why do total eclipses of the moon only occur when the moon is full? If you think about it, the answer is obvious. The only time the moon can pass through the earth's shadow is when it is directly in line with the sun and the earth, which means it is directly opposite the sun. This, of course, is precisely when we have full moons--when the light of the sun can shine past the earth and fully strike the moon. (If the moon were off to the side of the earth relative to the sun, we'd only see part of it illuminated, and there'd be no way for it to pass through the earth's shadow.)

Anyway, the sudden contrast between the brilliance of the full moon and the darkness of a total eclipse is so dramatic it's hard not to appreciate the subtle order and logic in nature that allows such things to happen. I'd have preferred to be out on the trail with my team during this celestial celebration, but I had a telephone stuck in my ear most of the time. At least it was a cordless phone and I was able to stand outside….

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