As much as I was still blown away by the beauty and the scale of the Yukon, as much was I looking forward to finally getting off this monster in Kaltag at about mile 633. The miles finally started to look like the end was getting a little closer. But alas, 367 remaining miles looked still quite intimidating.
There isn’t much to say about the stretch from Nulato to Kaltag. More of the same, yet still always somehow different. The moon was there, the sun came up, and I moved, and moved, and moved some more. A local on his way to Nulato stopped and we chatted while he smoked a cigarette. He told me his wife wanted him to take his granddaughter, yet he declined because he couldn’t go fast with her on the snowmachine. We laughed and he took off like a rocket. And no, the locals do not wear helmets.
Around noon, veteran musher Lisbet Norris passed me and tossed me a snack pack (pictured). I was very excited to eat some new food as I was growing increasingly tired of each and every type of food I had packed (and shipped). Lisbet had the only all Siberian husky team at the 2022 Iditarod. Siberian huskies are white and have beautiful almond eyes is an adaptation to protect their eyes from the wind. Alaskan huskies currently dominate in long distance mushing while Siberian huskies are sometimes nicknamed “Slow-berians,” yet they are adaptive, resilient, and great long distance dogs.
PS: a team of students at Portland State developed a more efficient musher cooker that Lisbet and other mushers now use. More info at https://bit.ly/3EjQdxB.
I reached Kaltag by 7pm, after a solid day of moving in great conditions. None of these small rural communities use cars in the winter. You get around on snowmachines. The ITI checkpoint was located in the Kaltag school, a big red building. It was spring break, so nobody was there. I quickly organized my resupplies (from another mailed box), boiled water for the next day, made dinner, and passed out. The next two days will be a long 86mi stretch to Unalakleet, which is located on the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea.
The moon. And not, this is the Yukon, not a lake.
Veteran musher Lisbet Norris tossed me a snack pack. Thanks!
“You are almost there!” Right.
The long wait for the short summer.
The Kaltag school, where the ITI checkpoint was.
Alaskan hospitality!
Organized chaos.
#iti2022 #iditarodtrailinvitational #ultrarunning #nome #alaska