PUNTILLA -- The tears started to come as Karin Hendrickson sat at the long, pine table in Perrin's Rainy Pass Lodge talking about the year of struggle gone for naught. Outside the big picture windows overlooking the lake, the winds blew snow sideways in the 5-degree cold, and dog teams in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race started the long push toward the 3,350-foot pass that breaks through the Alaska Range.

Hendrickson had expected to be with them. Hendrickson had worked so hard to try to be with them. Hendrickson was thinking the Iditarod would be her chance to at last enjoy that primordial splendor found in Alaska's winter wilderness.

"I work full time year-round," she said. "I work. I run dogs. I work. I run dogs. It's all for this. Mushers talk about being constantly broke, constantly tired. It's hard. The race is relaxation."

Or at least it is supposed to be relaxation. For Hendrickson this year, it has just turned into hell. After 20 hours here with a strong dog team and no sled, she was planning to call it quits on her second race.

It was a hard thing to think about. She had to fight back the tears when she did. She knew if she pushed herself she could keep going, but it just didn't seem worth it.

"I don't want to be the last musher," she said. "I feel like it's a cop out, but I don't want to keep going."

Zoya Denure -- another musher dropping out here with a different and unique problem, a breast infection -- tried to counsel Hendrickson with the reminder the Iditarod is supposed to be a race. If you can't race, Denure said, scratching is the thing to do.