Morlock fears for life on treacherous trail

Patti Klevorn - News Editor

Friday, March 9, 2007

“He’s in survival mode,� four-time Iditarod finisher Al Hardman of Ludington told the Daily News this morning from McGrath, where Morlock had just arrived.

Morlock of Walhalla is running a team of Hardman’s dogs plus some of his own dogs in his first try at the 1,100-mile race across Alaska.

Morlock is tired and needs to rest, Hardman said. He first has to care for the dogs, laying down straw, taking off their booties, checking for any injuries, talking to veterinarians about the dogs’ condition, and feeding them.

Then Hardman plans to give him a pep talk, helping him mentally prepare for the remaining 700 miles of the race.

The conditions were treacherous through Rainy Pass, the highest elevation point of the race at 3,771 feet. Winds were whipping across at 80 miles an hour lowering visibility to almost nothing.

“He said, ‘I can’t believe you went through that pass four times,’� Hardman said Morlock told him. “I never want to go through that again.�

It was so bad, many mushers have gotten off the trail, including one who was lost for 36 hours on what should have been a four-and-a-half-hour run.

Adding to the problems Morlock has faced, the female dogs on the team were in heat, which has been distracting to the males, Hardman said.

Morlock dropped six dogs, all females, and now is down to nine dogs from what started as a 16-dog team.

“I should have put my foot down,� Hardman said of allowing Morlock to take so many females, especially after one of the male dogs on the team had just bred prior to the race.

Now Morlock has to decide whether to drop another dog, Equis, who quit pulling on the most recent leg of the race.

Hardman said he’ll try to be encouraging to Morlock, a rookie, and help him lower his expectations. He had hoped to finish in the middle of the pack.

“I’ll try to tell him: ‘Take longer rests, just get yourself to Nome.’�

He was in 55th place of 66 mushers remaining in the race. Sixteen have scratched.

Mackey first into halfway point; missing musher found

By MARY PEMBERTON

Associated Press Writer

IDITAROD, Alaska (AP) — Lance Mackey was the first to reach the halfway point in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, putting him on course to join his father and his brother as Iditarod champions.

But Paul Gebhardt, who finished third last year, was positioning himself Thursday as a spoiler — just six minutes behind Mackey in reaching Iditarod, a once bustling gold mining community and now a ghost town of dilapidated and collapsed buildings.

Meanwhile, a search for rookie musher Deborah Bicknell, 61, of Juneau, was a success. The search was launched Thursday after Bicknell left the Rainy Pass checkpoint Wednesday morning but never arrived in Rohn.

The 48-mile run from Rainy Pass to Rohn was a particularly treacherous stretch where far more experienced mushers had gotten lost, with some flipping and crashing their sleds on the icy, snow-barren trail.

Bicknell was spotted Thursday afternoon from the air driving her team on a trail through Ptarmigan Pass, a route formerly used in the race, said race spokesman Chas St. George.

“It appears she took the wrong trail,� St. George said.

She was seen driving her dog team 18 miles from the Rohn checkpoint. Both she and her dogs were tired but otherwise in good condition, race officials said after she arrived in Rohn.

Bicknell, who was in last place before getting lost, planned to rest before analyzing her situation Friday, St. George said.

With temperatures falling to 35 degrees below zero, Mackey was the first musher to arrive in Iditarod.

Mackey, 36, of Fairbanks, arrived just after midnight and won $3,000 in gold nuggets. Gebhardt, 50, of Kasilof, soon followed. Ed Iten, 54, of Kotzebue, was third, just two minutes ahead of 2004 Iditarod winner Mitch Seavey.

Seavey said the section of trail leading into Iditarod was the worst he’s seen in his 14 Iditarods. There were many stretches of windblown tundra where he couldn’t even find enough snow to melt for drinking water for his dogs.

“It has been a tough race,� Seavey said. “If you actually think this is fun, you have a problem.�

Gebhardt said his sled wouldn’t go on the bare tundra, so he was forced to walk up the hills, get back in, and then get out again for the next rise.

Gebhardt said five-time winner Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, who is competing in his 31st Iditarod, told him the Iditarod trial this year was just about as bad as it gets.

“Swenson says he’s seen it worst. But he says it matches right up there with the worst,� Gebhardt said. “It seems it’s the worst to me.�

Mackey said at the start of the race that he wanted to prove to people that the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race could be won by the same musher in the same year.

Mackey won his third consecutive Yukon Quest race this year.

“If Lance can win the Quest and the Iditarod in the same year, he’s a super musher,� Seavey said, as three veterinarians checked out his team and he rubbed ointment between the pads of his dogs’ feet.

However, Seavey remains skeptical.

“I will go so far as to say I don’t expect it,� he said.

Seavey later stopped in at the checkpoint headquarters, which is actually an old trapper’s cabin with tilted floors and green peeling paint, to soak his hands in some warm water.

Potatoes in foil were cooking on the back of the wood stove. A blue enamel coffee pot was balanced on the top.

“We are halfway already?� Seavey said, jokingly. “It seems like we just got started.�

———

On the Net:

ww