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Hard to believe it's barely 48 hours until the Millennium. Back when I was a lot younger, I can remember thinking about the turn of the century as a long way off. I never gave any thought to what I'd be doing then, and now it's day after tomorrow. One thing is for sure--I never figured I'd be mushing dogs in Alaska, much less getting ready to go to Nome for the sixth time. Makes you wonder about fate and things like that, I guess. Or, as Robert Frost so beautifully called it, "the path not taken."

Our weather has swung from one extreme to the other. We had two monster storms in seven days, either of which would have maxed out our yearly quota. The second storm did exactly the same as the first--a foot or more of snow, followed by a day of drenching rain. Anchorage set a couple of new high temperature records, as did quite a few other locations around southern Alaska. On Tuesday there was no snow at all around Wasilla and Palmer--it looked exactly like late September, with the wind blowing forty or fifty miles an hour.

The main difference about the second storm is that it graciously gave us another six inches of new, dry snow after the rain quit. Then the storm moved east to say hello to Canada and a ridge of super-cold high pressure moved in behind it from Siberia. Here at Montana Creek we went from 35 above zero on Monday night to 30 below on Wednesday night (tonight). Once the skies cleared you could almost hear the thermometers unwinding as the temperature fell off the edge of the planet.

Barrie and I finally got the Yellow Peril wound up and out on the trail Tuesday. Most of our trails set up very nicely, but there were some nasty surprises, such as a fifty-yard stretch of waist-deep water on our main southbound trail. We kept the snowmachine out of the bad stuff, but John Barron and a couple of his handlers came roaring down the trail about a hundred miles an hour later that afternoon and went swimming. John just said it was good practice and kept going.

Actually, our trails are going to be in superb shape for the rest of the winter as soon as we can finish packing them down, and as soon as the intense cold freezes the more obvious spots of open water. The only problem we can see is the hordes of moose that have already begun to stomp holes everywhere. The snow is now deep enough to force the ungainly ungulates onto the trails since they don't like to plow through the woods. We don't have enough noisy snowmachiners roaring up and down the trails yet to chase the moose off, so we're gritting our teeth and trying to keep packing everything down. Actually, this might be the only time we'd like to see big snowachines with paddle tracks churning up the trails so we can re-pack them to get rid of the moose holes.

There is a very good chance that our current cold snap could turn into one like we had this past January and February, or in early January 1997. We could see 40 or 50 below by next week. I ran the 1997 Knik 200 on the first weekend in January and we hit 62 below zero on the Yentna River, so it's not too early in the winter. Already McGrath is hitting record lows, down to 55 below tonight and probably worse later in the week. The dome of cold air extends all the way into Siberia and is building east toward us and deepening--all the hallmarks of a first-class January deep freeze, or as some people call it, an old-fashioned Alaska winter to chase the cheechakos back south.

Another sign this is the real thing is that the relative humidity has dropped off-scale low. It's so dry you can't even work outside for half an hour without working up a ferocious thirst. The dogs can still eat snow for moisture, but we're going to have to give them a lot more water in the form of soup every day. Inside my cabin I've turned on the propane gaslights because they not only generate heat but also put a lot of water vapor into the air. It's extremely easy for dogs and humans to become dehydrated in this kind of weather without realizing it. That only makes things worse since the blood thickens and can't flow as well, resulting in poor circulation in hands and feet (or paws) and ears, making it harder to stay warm and making frostbite much more likely.

The irony of the dry cold is that there's still a lot of liquid water underneath the snow in many places, and it won't freeze for quite awhile. The heavy new snow cover is also pressing down on ice on streams and lakes, causing them to overflow. At least it's cold enough so open water or even wet snow will give off steam fog, which gives a bit of warning. Out on the rivers, there's enough open water and overflow to create a lot of fog in some places. In the 1996 Iditarod, we ran into heavy fog from overflow about ten miles upstream from Yentna Station. It was more than a little spooky inching up the trail knowing there was open water somewhere close but not being able to see it.

I've been so busy just keeping my place running and digging out and trying to get trails put in that I haven't hooked up a dog for a week and a half. Among many other things, we had to pull up the dog houses three or four times and even make some new ones to replace some that were hopelessly frozen in. All of the straw had to be replaced after it got wet, and now that it's getting cold we'll have to replace it again. The sleds took a couple of hours to unstick from the ice, and we had to stomp new paths to all of the dogs. The dogs still had to be fed and all of the other chores still had to be done. Adding everything together, I could have used a few more people to help.

But it's all settling down now and everything is starting to look shipshape again. The roads are all plowed and the trails are setting up nicely. The trees are all re-loaded with snow and the low sun casts everything in a golden light even at noon. Denali glows orange in the sunset and the northern lights are peeking out after it gets dark. It almost looks like what everyone thinks Alaska should look like during the winter.

I've sent the 2000 Trail Notes in to Lois at Iditarod. They should be appearing soon on the main Iditarod website. I'll also put them up here as soon as I can. Eventually I'll add photos of much of the route, but I'm waiting for a replacement slide scanner. In the meantime, let your imagination run wild (and it still won't be as wild as what the trail is really like)....

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