Alaska Dispatch

SKWENTA -- As fat-tire cyclist Jeff Oatley told his story at 4 a.m. in the Skwentna Roadhouse, it was a little hard to tell if the tale was real or a hallucination. He had been back along the Iditarod Trail on the frozen Yentna River pedaling steadily north in the dark and heavily falling snow when he caught up to a snowmachine pulling a huge sled, he said. This was odd in and of itself. Snowmachines normally travel a lot faster than even the fastest cyclists.

Oatley said it didn't take but a blink in time to figure out why this one was traveling so slow. Almost as quick as Oatley asked the inevitable question of travelers on the frozen winter trails of Alaska -- "Hi, how you doing?'' -- Oatley recognized the man was seriously drunk. Despite that, or maybe because of that, the snowmachiner wanted to chat. In fact, Oatley said, he putt-putted ahead and circled back a couple times just to be able to talk some more.

Oatley was glad the man was driving slow. He seemed, Oatley said, to be looking for someone with whom to party. The man volunteered that his whole sled was full of booze. Oatley made friendly, but said he had a bike race to run.

Later, Oatley, a survivor of Fairbanks winters of 40 to 50 degrees below zero, gave thanks the weather following the Iditarod Trail Invitational race up the river this year is warm. He did not like the man's odds in hostile weather.

"A mechanical (breakdown),'' Oatley said, "and it could be bad.''

That is too often the case in the north. Drunks have a bad habit of freezing to death on the winter trails of the 49th state. Most winters you can read about them in the dispatches of the Alaska State Troopers. The telltale words after a search ends at a body are these: "Alcohol is believed to be a factor.''

 

Oatley said the last he saw of the snowmachiner the man was circling and cruising close to the banks of the frozen river, apparently looking for the turnoff to party central. Oatley didn't stay to investigate. The early leader in this slightly crazy, 350-mile bike and foot race from Knik on the shores of Cook Inlet up and over the Alaska Range to McGrath in the Interior, Oatley kept pedaling.

 

The 40-year-old defending champ in the race, he knew he was being hunted by younger, leaner, hungrier racers. Among them as the race turned onto the Skwentna River and headed toward the Shell Hills was 30-year-old Peter Basinger from Anchorage, a three-time winner and the race record holder. In 2007 Basinger covered the 350 miles to McGrath in 3 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes. That's about the time it takes for a team of huskies to cover the distance in next week's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

The huskies are professional canine athletes. Basinger is a university graduate student studying for his teaching degree while working part-time as a bike mechanic at Speedway Cycles in Spenard and part time as "manny," the male version of a nanny. The dogs get the benefit of a day built around their training schedules. Basinger pretty much has to work his training in around work and school.

It is much the same for Oatley, a research engineer at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. A onetime aerospace engineer in Colorado, Oatley came north in 2000 with his wife, looking to enjoy a few years of adventures in the great white silence before retreating back to the south. They ended up hooked on Fairbanks. "...The lifestyle suits him and his wife, Heather, and they (now) have no plans to leave,'' according to his bio at the cold climate center. "He spends as much time as possible riding bikes in exotic and exciting locations like Hawaii, Crested Butte, and Skwentna."

The first day leader of this year's Invitational, Oatley lost it Monday when he decided to rest at this comfortable and friendly roadhouse in "exotic" Skwenta. A scattering of homes and a handful of business hidden in the spruce-birch forest around a remote airstrip north of Anchorage, Skwentna is more often described as rustic than exotic. It was, on Monday, a welcome rest stop and feed station for the leaders of the nearly four dozen adventurers now making their way up the Iditarod under human power alone, or at least a welcome stop for those adventurers who managed to force themselves out of the warmth and friendliness of the Yentna Station Road House on downriver Sunday night.

 

Some of the cyclists who expected to be among the frontrunners in this race suffered mechanical problems or psychological ones fighting their way north through soft, hard-to-ride snow. There was a lot of pushing. More than a few spirits were broken, at least temporarily.

 

In this sort of circumstance, comfortable checkpoints can be the same kind of trap in this race that they are in the bigger, far more famous Iditarod dog race. When Oatley chose to slip into a bed here for several hours, Basinger passed him and gained a lead of a couple hours. Familiar with the checkpoint trap, the younger man from Anchorage stopped only long enough to come inside, melt the crown of freshly fallen snow off his head, scarf down some hot food, and lament the fact that between constant snow and sweat he was destined to be wet for days no matter what he did. And then he was off on the trail to Shell Lake and the Finger Lake checkpoint beyond.

Most expected him at Shell by daybreak or shortly thereafter, but he had not arrived. That fueled some speculation he might have camped in the Shell Hills. It can be a good strategy. Take a nap in a marginal sleeping bag, or a good sleeping bag unzipped, and you are guaranteed to be awakened by the cold after several hours. It is hard to ignore that signal to get up and get moving. Gone is the option to give the good old "OK, 10 more minutes'' shout to Skwentna roadhouse boss Bonnie Childs when she arrives with a wakeup call.

Still, everyone has to sleep at some point, observed Wyoming's Jay Petervary, the winner of the 2008 Invitational. Rest pays dividends in the end, he added. But then, Petervary isn't just riding his bike another couple hundred miles to the McGrath finish line of the Invitational this year. He's planning on going all the way to Nome, another 550 miles on. A couple hours behind Basinger, Petervary headed north on the trail Monday morning.

Behind him , other hard men were upstairs asleep at the roadhouse, probably dreaming about the crazy chase through the wilderness that offers no prize money, no trophy and little public exposure. It is racing in its purest form, a bunch of folks doing it on an old dare -- "Bet I can beat you to the corner!''

Craig Medred is on the Iditarod Trail, covering the Iditarod Trail Invitational to McGrath. Watch for his stories here, and catch his bulletins at http://twitter.com/craigmedred. He hopes to be back in Anchorage in time to follow the tail end of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race all the way to Nome.