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Saturday, March 2, 2002
The Iditarod Start
Hello Everyone!
Today was the big day, the start of the 2002 Iditarod! Mr. Holmes and I packed our suitcases and headed into town. The streets sure did look different from last night when they were hauling in all of the snow in with dump trucks. The streets were completely covered today with about six inches of snow. Crazy! There were fences lining both sides of the street. This created a chute. The fans stayed on the outside of the chute, while the mushers, dogs, handlers, Idita-Riders, and volunteers were all inside the chute. What an honor!
There were mushers and trucks parked all along both sides of the street inside the chute. Each musher was assigned a parking space for his or her truck. These were in order by their bib numbers. Here the mushers unpacked their dogs and hooked them to chains to keep them from running off. Mushers do this every time they are going on a run, whether in practice or a race. Unpacking all of the dogs before attaching any to the gangline is important because the dogs want to run so badly that they will jump up and down and tug. Sometimes they can dislodge the snow hook (brake) and take off without the musher! The mushers were saying that the dogs were showing signs that they knew this was a big race. They were pulling harder than ever.
While the mushers were getting ready, we wandered the streets and talked to some of the mushers.
Champions Dick Mackey and Jeff King share a laugh
Devan Currier and I send a big hello back to everyone in Vermont!
There were so many cameras it made me dizzy. As you probably know, the mushers and dogs are stars just like your favorite football players or figure skaters. Everyone wants to take pictures of them. Today I spent some time taking pictures of the incredible dogs who run the 1,149 miles to Nome. They seemed happy to say hello and to give me their best poses.
The athlete posing for photos
More athletes checking things out
At the starting line
One of the wonderful parts of being an Idita-Rider is that you get to be in the chute with all of the mushers. Mr. Holmes and I plopped ourselves down by the television cameras and newspaper photographers and got some pretty amazing shots of the mushers and dogs as they left the starting line.
Dee Dee Jonrowe is excited that the big day has arrived
Jeff King is with Quinn, his mom Rachel, and Husky as they leave the starting line
Martin Buser, clad with dimples, with his Idita-Rider
Bill Borden heading out along the trail with his Cool Dreams rider
The other wonderful part of being an Idita-Rider is that you get to spend lots of time with your musher and the dogs that are pulling you. I learned a lot about all of the preparation it takes before taking off.
A last smile before the camera with Al Hardman before I got into his sled
I sat down in the sled about a half an hour before our given time to leave the starting line. Al gave me a big old pillow to sit on. I watched as the dogs were attached to the gangline. There were about six people trying to hold the dogs back. They just wanted to get going. Al checked all of the ropes and booties and then hopped on the back of the sled. We went up to the starting line. As soon as we got to the starting line the dogs just went crazy. They were leaping, and barking, and tugging. Oh my gosh, this was it. Seeing how very excited the dogs were brought tears to my eyes.
Doug Swingley’s dogs show you how excited they are when waiting for the word "GO!"
The barking is unbelievably loud and enthusiastic!
The announcer introduced Al and "Aarin Holmes, all the way from Norwich, Vermont" to all of the fans. The dogs kept looking back at Al as though to say, "Can we go now? How about now?"
The dogs keep looking back as if to say, "Can we go yet?"
Suddenly we heard it over the speaker, "Five, four, three, two, one, go!"
Now does this look like a happy face?
We raced down the chute past hundreds and hundreds of race fans. They yelled out words of encouragement, "Go Al." "Way to go Al!" It was really exciting to see the unbelievable support that people have for the mushers and dogs. The full ten-mile ride had fans lining the trail. At two spots fans had made muffins and hotdogs for the mushers. They put the food out and the mushers took the food from them as they flew by. Kids were yelling, "Booties, please," and Al would toss them a used bootie. (I got all of you back in my class a bootie too). It was really neat to see. The dogs shredded their booties quickly because the snow was very deep in the chute.
My favorite part of the ride was watching the dogs and hearing Al giving them commands. The dogs ran really smoothly. They barked wildly when waiting to go, but were silent as soon as they started running. The dogs would turn when Al said "gee" or "haw." Al gave them lots of praise and encouragement. At one point Jeff King went racing by which was interesting to see. He has a very fast team. Did you know that the dogs don’t stop to go to the bathroom? They just go while running down the trail. I thought this was rather clever! I absolutely loved the ride and experiencing the trail from a musher’s point of view. Thank you so much Al, for giving me such an amazing experience.
When the dogs arrived at the checkpoint they were fed first, then checked for lameness.
One of Al’s dogs being checked for lameness by a veterinarian
Today was just the most incredible day. It was so filled with learning and excitement, as well as happiness in the people and the dogs. I hope all of you back home can come see the Iditarod some day too!
Mrs. Holmes
"Look Maude, here comes a musher now!"
Anchorage, - Sunday, March 03, 2002 at 10:32:10 (EST)
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Mrs. Holmes
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Webspace for Mrs. Holmes Iditarod 2002 project was provided courtesy of
ValleyNet of Norwich, Vermont.
