Dalzell skid ends rookie's race

Craig Medred photo

A red-eyed Kathleen Fredericks tries to put the best face on things in the one-room log cabin that is the Rohn checkpoint for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Fredericks dropped out after crashing her sled into an ice hole on Dalzell Creek and having it lodge there. A crew of trail sweeps were eventually able to help her free it, but not without effort.

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ROHN -- Everything was going perfectly fine for 58-year-old musher Kathleen Frederick right up until the second it wasn't. One little mistake as she rounded a corner in the Dalzell Gorge and her Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was over.

Luckily, that was all. Things could have gone ugly but for the fact Frederick had the sense to violate the number one rule of dog mushing: Never let go of the sled. Ever.

As they say, the exception makes the rule, and in this case the exception turned out to be a wise move. Frederick let go of the sled just as it started to skid sideways off an ice bridge over Dalzell Creek. The dogs just made it over the bridge. The sled didn't. It went crashing into a five-foot deep slot in the ice and then wedged, upside down, in the water beneath.

"It was ironic," Frederick said. "All my survival gear was in the sled, and I couldn't move it. It took five people to get it out."

The ice bridge in question had been waiting to nab someone all race. Narrow and with big holes on either side, it came up quickly after a sharp left-hand corner. All that kept it from snagging any number of teams was that the snow that fell just before the start of this Iditarod bonded to the glare ice that served as the approach to the bridge. A race's worth of traffic over the trail had, however, broken the bond.

"Actually, it was deceptive," Frederick said, "because it looked like good snow. Normally, you see something like that and you slow down and it's fine."

Frederick tried to slow down. She stepped on the drag brake, a piece of snowmachine track mounted between the runners of her dog sled. One of two brakes on an Iditarod toboggan, the drag brake is designed for stopping in snow. It works great for that.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all on ice. What Frederick should have stepped on was the ice brake, which drives a couple of spikes down into the ice to slow the sled. She realized this almost as soon as she stepped on the drag brake, and it started skidding over ice.

Craig Medred photo

At the dog lot empty at the lonely Rohn checkpoint high in the Alaska Range, Kathleen Fredericks packs up after dropping out of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Fredericks, who had to quit after her sled went into an ice hole on Dalzell Creek, said this was her first and last Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She can't afford another try, she said.

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Her dog team had already gone fast around the corner and over the ice bridge. The sled behind was being whip-cracked toward the gaping, five-foot-deep hole in the ice. Frederick knew there was only one sensible thing to do:

Jump!

All she needed after that was a little luck. "It would have been fine if the sled hadn't flipped," she said.