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Well, here we go again. I can't believe it's already getting cold. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was heading up Front Street in Nome, happy just to have made it to the finish line in the toughest race in years. I guess part of it has been that I've stayed so busy flying all summer I didn't have much time to do anything else. Nothing wrong with that, of course--at least I made enough to take care of some really crucial things, like a truck that actually runs, a diesel generator that doesn't dim out when I turn on the microwave, and an oil heater that doesn't need to be fed an armload of wood every four hours when it's 50 below outside.

Thanks to some unexpected help from my Iditarider(s) from this year, Alice and Lara Baker of Softworld, Inc., in Los Alamos, New Mexico, I had enough to pay my entry fee for the Millennium Iditarod last week. Of course, getting the rest of it is up to me, and to be honest, I'm not sure I can pull it all together. But I have to give it a try. Just like the lottery, you can't win (or in this case even start) if you don't enter. So, I hope to be able to win some money in the early races, or maybe the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol will chase me down on snowmachines. Anyway, I'll see what happens. If I can't get all my ducks in line--which is a very real possibility--I'll just get my entry fee back in February andbe waiting at the front of the line at the signup for the 2001 race, which I have every intention of running and finishing in the top 30 regardless of what happens this year.

Actually, I have a fair enough team right now, or at least it should be if I can train the dogs properly and bring some of my prospective leaders along satisfactorily. Over the past couple of years I've been picking up good dogs from people like John Barron and Steve Adkins and breeding some of my own, and it's starting to show results. For instance, this is Clyde, who's only four years old. He was one of the first pups from my own lot, and he's run in the last three Iditarods with me along with his sister Bonnie.. My real goal is the 2001 race, when I should be able to put a reasonably competitive team on the trail. I'd really like to run the 2000race if for no other reason than to get some good experience on the dogs that will be the core of my 2001 team. Of course, it looks like the 2000race will be the biggest sled dog race in history, and just being a part of that would be well worth the effort involved. And besides, what else would I do with myself in March if I weren't on the trail to Nome?

For now, I'm just trying to get all of the thousand and one things done that have to be finished before the snow falls, which should be within a couple of weeks here at Montana Creek. We already had a day of snow last week, but nothing stuck. The snow line on the hills and mountains all around the valley is well below 2,000 feet, and the snow is heavy and deep above that. Any of the next few storms should finally dump the white stuff onus down here in the lowlands.

I haven't run a single dog in training yet this fall, but I'm not overly worried. I'm only going to focus on about 18 of my best ones, which includes a number of younger ones I'm counting on for future years. I'll need twelve good ones for the Copper Basin 300 in early January, so that's the immediate goal. I'll work on my yearlings and pups as I get the time--I've got three11-week olds (from my marvelous leader Maybelline) and half a dozen seven-month-olds, plus a few 18-month-olds and several two-year-olds. Some of them have some excellent potential and I'm really looking forward to training these kids for my future teams.

At the moment I don't have anyone to help me, but I'm expecting a handler from the Czech Republic around the end of the month (if he can get his U.S. visa). I may also have someone from the local area helping out a few days a week. There's plenty of work for everyone. I'll be substitute teaching three or four days a week plus catching up on some graduate courses in Anchorage on several weekends between now and Thanksgiving, so my new handler may find himself running the entire show at times.

I'm also involved in organizing a new 300-mile race for late January. It'll start in Willow and run throughout the Susitna Valley and maybe as far south as Knik, even using part of the Iditarod route. We think we'll call it the Willow-Su Valley 300, or maybe just the Willow 300, and we want it to be an Iditarod qualifier. There was a race called the Su Valley300 until the late 1980s and it was quite famous. There seem to be a lot of mushers who would like to run this one, even though it's not going to have much of a purse. As one of the organizers, I may find myself in the position of not being able to run my own race, which would be poetic justice, I suppose.

I've also joined a new organization called the Iditarod National Historic Trail, Inc., which is a private, non-profit advisory and advocacy group for the Iditarod Trail. I may even be on the group's board of directors. The group will focus on the historic aspect of the trail and the preservation of the many historic structures along its route. One spin-off of this will be that I'll include more historic information in the Trail Notes when I update them later on.

It promises to be a very busy winter, and I can't wait to get back to running the dogs. They're all literally screaming to go every time I drive the four-wheeler into the dog lot. I feel bad I'm not going to hook up a team and go dodge traffic on Montana Creek Road, but that will come soon enough. And if the Old Farmer's Almanac is right, we shouldn't have very long to wait until we can go on sleds--the Almanac says we're supposed to have heavy snow here the last part of this month. It also says our winter is supposed to be four degrees colder than normal and we're going to get even more snow in December and late in February. I'm not prepared to discount any of this at the moment, judging from how early and heavy the snow already is on the foothills of the Talkeetna Mountains not five miles away. But then, it's winter and this is Alaska, so what else should we expect?

I hope to be able to get diary entries on line at least a couple of times a week, and hopefully more often. I might even be able to include some photos if I can run down a digital camera. If nothing else, I've got to show some pictures of Maybelline's pups--I'd forgotten how much fun puppies can be, and these are classics. (I'd better watch it. I'm starting to sound like people who show you pictures of their grandkids whether you need it or not.) In the meantime, think snow!

Note: Everyone seems to be interested in the weather in Alaska. The weather site I use most is run by the National Weather Service Alaska Region. This is the official U.S. Government weather source for Alaska and I use it every day during the summer when I'm flying. They've got just about everything anyone might want to know, including some live camera shots from various locations around the state.

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