Reliving the 1000mi Iditarod Trail Invitational - Day 21

Koyuk, less than 100mi below the arctic circle, is the most northern point on the Iditarod trail. I was now less than 200mi from Nome. There was more sea ice, some hills, the Kwik River safety cabin, more ice, and then some more of all of it. The wind was still going strong, but that was a minor detail. At least the weather was still good.

Over the past 800mi, I had literally zero blisters and no feet issues at all. I blame the fabulous Inov-8 shoes that felt really comfortable. It sounds like a minor problem, but the terrible skin cracks on my fingers were really painful. My office fingers are just not used to these rough conditions, so after a few days in the cold, the fingertips crack open. The cracks don’t heal because of the continuing (ab)use and exposure. The best solution I found is to seal the cracks with SuperGlue.

In the late afternoon I reached the “old Elim,” a bunch of houses and cabins that are now used as a fishing camp. A local couple drove up to me across the ice on their snowmachines to check on me. They had just come back from an ice fishing trip on the river. He had a huge auger on his sled to drill through the ice and showed it off very proudly. Sadly, they had not caught anything. They recommended I take the sea ice route to Elim instead of going over the hills. I was skeptical about that option because the route would not be marked and might not be safe. I might encounter open water and lose hours if I had to turn around. So into the hills I went. The climb to the high point was long and tough. However, the long downgrade right into Elim provided the best sledding of the entire trip. I went so fast that I was worried the pulk would break in half.

In town I had once again trouble finding the school until a local emerged (in a cloud of weed smoke) from a house, shook my hand, and directed me to the right building. It was now past midnight. The school principle, who had stayed up to welcome me, told me that my resupply drop box had not arrived. Oh dear, now what?! Was that the end of my journey?