Cutting the Steps…Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?
February 3rd, 2012 by LittlestMusher | Posted in Be The Lead Dog, Lead Dog Leadership
Tags: Applying the Lessons From the Dogs, Be the Lead Dog, Canine-Inspired Life, Iditarod, Leadership, life lessons from the dogs, self-mastery, Team Performance
Iditarod® drops tough section of trail
By KYLE HOPKINS Published: 02/02/12 20:06:00
Iditarod officials plan to snip one of the most dangerous sections of the Last Great Race from this year’s trail.
For the first time, the race route will include a short detour bypassing the notorious Happy River Steps, said race marshal Mark Nordman.
Feared by rookie mushers and respected by veterans who meet the steep switchbacks with a rush of adrenaline, the Steps live in Iditarod infamy. A place of busted sleds and broken bones.
You can read the full story online at: http://www.adn.com/2012/02/02/2297304/iditarod-mushers-now-have-a-safer.html
So what do you think about the change? Please drop me a comment and let me know!
I am of mixed emotions. “THE STEPS” was the one thing that I feared the most about attempting Iditarod. One night a few months before Iditarod, I actually cried myself to sleep, sobbing at the thought that I didn’t want to die. Like all myths, urban legends and similar bogeymen, it takes on an outsized persona and reputation, growing nastier with the retelling and looming large in the minds of rookies especially.
No doubt, it can be nasty. It can also be fun. I got lucky…my year it was fun. My heart was in my throat as my leaders saw the entrance to the first step and dove over the edge…and once we got into it, I thought “Hey! I can do this!” and the dogs were clearly having a blast.
I am sad to see the Race, as many challenging things in modern life, continue this insipid crawl toward being watered down. I certainly don’t want to see dogs and people hurt, yet…it’s also part of the mystique and the wonder that is Iditarod. I won’t bore you with the platitudes about the statistical realities of easily getting hurt crossing the street in your hometown. But a big part of Iditarod is the mental challenge, the self-mastery it requires of each of us. Diminishing that challenge, bit by bit, a knick at a time, leads me to wonder what will end up being left. Not now necessarily, as Nordman points out there’s still the Gorge, et. al. But we’re on a slippery slope if not toward mediocrity, then at least toward “ho hum ness.” Nobody was particularly happy with the Iditarod experience running out of Fairbanks that year, and that’s one of the reasons they swear “never again.” Much safer, but pretty damn boring for mushers and fans alike to see teams travelling up and down the Yukon.
If I was a rookie this year I’d be relieved, but I’d also feel more than a little bit robbed…
So what do you think of this change? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Would you make the same decision on the trail route? How do you feel as a race fan?
Thanks! — Liz
Iditarod’s Littlest Musher
Teaching others self-mastery through living a “Canine-Inspired Life™!”
Well, since I’ve never done anything anywhere near as hard as the Iditarod, my opinion isn’t very valuable. I know what you mean about making things too safe: I see it in the way kids are raised today. 40 years ago, our parents let us do stuff that would get them thrown in jail today, ha ha ha.
Why can’t they offer the entrants a choice? Maybe give special recognition to those who choose the steps?
I have many difficulties with this decision. First, I haven’t heard of any dogs repeatedly being injured while running their favorite gauntlet. Yes, mushers have gotten hurt there. However, some are now wearing shoulder pads to prevent injuries. What I don’t understand is doing away with them altogether. If they HAD to address the issue couldn’t they have made some changes to improve it slightly? Were Iditarod veterans polled about this decision?
I agree with your comment of a slippery slope. Like one poster wrote: “Will they build bridges over the overflow hazards?” Or will they put in high intensity lights in dangerous sections with heated bleachers for fans? Next will be McDonald’s food trucks at each checkpoint.
To me the Iditarod is an extreme sport! Altering the route diminishes the essence of the race – human, canine and nature working with each other NOT avoiding one another. Sadly I think this is changing the history and intent of this great race.
I doubt we’ll see a McDonalds at the Cripple checkpoint anytime soon!
Thank goodness! However, it isn’t this particular change, in and of itself, that is truly problematic (although I still think if I was a rookie I’d feel gypped).
But the trend, the slippery slope is what bothers me. The unstated expectation that life has to be ever “safer”, that we have to be protected somehow from experiencing the fullness of life – this change, in concert with a thousand others, mostly small, some not – to me reduces the richness and fullness of the experience.
I’m not a Luddite and not against change. Change is a fact of life, and we all need to embrace it. No question! And hopefully seek out and find those experiences which support the richness and intensity of life.
I liken it to rock climbing. The first extreme sport I took up was technical rock climbing. Why? Because I found I could utterly lose myself in it…when I’m on a pitch, nothing else matters, nothing else even exists except me and the rock. The complexities of modern life drop away, and it is totally absorbing. At its best, mushing can be exactly the same way. That’s the experience I embrace.
Whether it’s rock climbing or distance mushing or photography or any other activity, I want it to open up a window into my soul, and part of the way that happens is through the intensity of the experience.
And you’re right Rochelle — the dogs certainly DO love it! Once I got over my fear and realized “Hey, I CAN do this!”, then I was mesmerized watching how much fun the dogs were having. They felt the adrenaline rush for sure! WOOT!
I’m sure Iditarod didn’t want to turn this into a referendum Lori. The Iditarod hasn’t ever exactly been like a democracy, nor has it pretended such.
You’re absolutely right about the way kids are raised. I can’t even imagine growing up like my nephews do, vs. what I experienced growing up in the 60′s. I don’t know if that’s going to make for better citizens or not, but for sure our societal expectations have changed/are changing.
Thanks for your thoughts!
My first thought was no. I agree that we don’t want to see anyone get hurt, or worse, but it is an extreme sport. That’s why I find it so fascinating to follow. The dogs and humans are amazing!
New law says kids must continue to ride in a car seat unless they are 8 yrs. old, or weigh 80 lbs! Gee whiz, what’s next? No car rides until they’re 18?
Thanks for sharing Cathy, but my goodness! 8 years old? 80 lbs? Uh…because of the cancer treatments, not to mention coming from “exceptionally short stock” (my Dad topped out at 5’4″) I wasn’t over 80 lbs until I was about 12 or 13! A 7 year old in a car seat??? Wow, I thought the car seat thing was already intrusive before.
However, when you legislate away the need for common sense, you get exactly what you’re aiming for…heaven help us!
None of those kids that sit in car seats until they’re 8 are gonna be in the Iditarod, that’s for sure!
I am inclined to say thumbs down on the trail change. I agree, this is an extreme sport and eliminating the steps takes something away from the intensity of it all. I would feel gypped if I were a rookie attempting Iditarod this year. I imagine managing The Steps was a huge part of your personal experience Liz. How did The Steps change or influence you? What lesson(s) would you have missed out on had you not had the Steps in ’08?
I’m instinctively a bit of a wimp. So I threw myself (inspired mainly by books) to go out and have an adventure. The horses I grew up on (and fell off of), the medieval arts I practiced (mostly whomping guys upside the head with rattan broadswords), martial arts, scuba (mostly in cold water, sometimes in visibility inside the mask), sea kayaking (where the ^$%#&^ am I??? and what’s that fin???)… not to mention the several Siberian huskies which found me and drag me kicking and screaming into the winter wilds… have enlarged my world a great deal. All of it was scary (training a mustang who’d run wild 8 years, a dive where I lost sight of an entire 400′ sunken ship…and the floatin’ one as well), but done within the parameters of “safety”… or at least knowledge and some experience.
Richard Louv in “Last Child in the Woods” shows that kids need unstructured play time in the natural world (brains develop in a different way there than in soccer or ballet or school). We all need that time to experiment with the laws of physics (falling off rocks or whatever). We need the challenges to expand our world.
Joseph Campbell outlines “the Hero Journey” in “Hero With a Thousand Faces”… the mythic tale all cultures in all times tell as a reflection of real life. The Iditarod is a Hero Journey, as epic as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, and fraught with obstacles, helpers, “wizards”, and “warriors”, and “orcs” (or at least a few moose).
There need to be places of true wilderness. And the ability to go in there and encounter it. It’s in our blood, in our souls. I find myself irritated everytime I see a “no swimming” sign on a waterway I’m paddling. What? We need lifeguards everywhere? Yes, there will be the idiot who goes out paddling in March in a T-shirt and falls out of his boat… requiring River Rescue to come to his hypothermic aid. Does that mean we tell everyone to stay ashore for our convenience? We need wilderness, we need to face it; but with skill and education. The Iditarod seems to have adequate rules in place framing what mushers need to know and have before they set out on this epic trail (I couldn’t do it with my sled and my 3 dogs!).
Of course we need to be sure the dogs we are asking to carry us on this adventure are safe. After that… I don’t know where the boundaries are. And the Trail, like the rest of the world, will change, especially as the climate does. Aliy Zirkle blogged about the Copper Basin 300 (finally cancelled due to extreme conditions, and inability to break trail) and how there was a point where she decided to turn back, while some others yet wanted to plow ahead through insane conditions. Here is experience speaking: she knew when the conditions had gone beyond sane for something that was only a race.
Removal of the Happy River Steps; good? bad? Everything, every record, every run, now has a different set of parameters. If records are set, if a previously winning musher wins again this year, it will be a different trail, a different record. Just so they don’t turn the Trail into a superhighway.
I hope it continues as an Epic Journey, accessible to rookies as well as professionals, to traditional breeds like Sbierians as well as dogs bred specifically for racing, to fans and followers around the world.
But no McDeathburgers at the checkpoints, please…
PS: I thoroughly agree with the comment about “legislating away common sense”. Education, education,education is the key.
Completing the Steps was a HUGE confidence booster for me Linda…certainly not only for the “tough stuff” like the Dalzell Gorge that was coming up, but also for everything to come.
It’s sort of like the first time you attempt anything new where you are testing yourself to really stretch and you’re not sure if you’re up to it. You worry, or at least wonder, if you can accomplish it. When you do…wow!
The first year I ran Race to the Sky, they had a very mini “bad section of trail” that was comparable to the Alaska Range challenges. RTTS left out of Camp Rimini, on a huge wide groomed snowmobile trail (i.e. road) for several miles, and then the trail left the road and went “overland” for about 3 miles to connect up with another groomed wide road that went over the Continental Divide at Champion Pass and dropped down into Deer Lodge.
That 3 miles was however, pretty challenging stuff. As described in the drivers meeting, you would make a sharp left turn and head down a steep hillside, where a trail was cut in between trees JUST wide enough for a sled to pass. A mile of this careening downhill, a mile along a creek bottom, then a mile up the other side to hook into the opposite groomed system.
One of the other drivers stood up and started ranting about how he went out there in the summer with the crew that put the trail in and it was REALLY narrow and really dangerous, and the trees were right there and you’d better wear a helmet, and … I was stunned, I’d never driven any trail like that with 12 dogs on a sled. Wow. It must’ve shown on my face because the wife of one of the other mushers leaned over and whispered to me “He’s exaggerating. You can do it.” Well…okay…
And no, he wasn’t really exaggerating, at least not by much. I always wear a helmet anyway, because of being on blood thinners, so that wasn’t a problem. And I remember seeing my dogs drop over the lip of the hill, 2X2, and thinking “Well, there’s no turning back now!”
And I could do it! And it was VERY tight…you did not want to lean the wrong way. But I could do it — like anyone in an intense situation, you get “in the zone” and time seems to slow down a bit, you see parts of the experience as it’s rushing by. I COULD control the sled by shifting my weight. The dogs were having a blast. I could slow us down a tiny bit, or at least keep us out of freefall. It was like dropping into a chute. Stay in the slot. Focus on where you want to go, not what you don’t want to have happen.
When I got down, I was all smiles. When I got to the dinner at Deer Lodge that evening, she asked me how it went and I grinned “No problem!” And I realized I was a better sled driver than I thought I was.
So that’s the lesson of these extreme experiences. We each are better than we think we are.
Great insights Teanna! Thank you so much for sharing your observations. Yes, Iditarod is a Hero’s Journey, in the Joseph Campbell sense.
Yet it is also a metaphor for the big challenges in our lives. Everybody has their own Iditarod(s), their own adversity to overcome. Everyday heroes? Absolutely. Can’t legislate away the challenges, can’t regulate away the good and bad choices. Thank goodness. It’s how we find out who we are.
Kudos for you Teanna for confronting life and yourself and seeking out the activities and experiences which opened you to yourself and your own Hero’s Journey! I wish that for everyone! We all NEED our Iditarods to find that part of ourselves. And yes, doing that in wild places is an invaluable, irreplaceable thing. When we can’t get into the wilds anymore, it will not be a world I want to live in.
Hi
My first reaction to the decision was concern for more danger not less. The Iditarod is a race for mushers with experience and skill. If the trail is somewhat altered by removing the steps and Eagle Summit I am worried non skilled entrants will sign up and bad things will happen. I have not run the race and I will never have the skill to do it. I have respect for those who do and I realized that rookies are always at risk because all I have read says a musher has no idea about the race until they run it. Making it safe may in the long run make it less safe. I like the asterisk in the record books! NIce idea. Jean
That’s a really interesting point Jean…I hadn’t thought of it that way. You may be right — by watering it down, others may be encouraged to attempt it who would be less intimidated and therefore less prepared, making it more dangerous.
Obviously won’t impact entries this year, but again, a possible long-term trend — the law of Unintended Consequences at work! Thanks for your insight!
Perhaps a choice would be nice. That would probably involve extra work on the race organizers but would give runners the option of the extra challenge or not. Like some peeps have been saying; the Iditarod IS an extreme sport and if the most extreme part is cut out; does that still make it an extreme sport???? How extreme do we want? It does seem that life keeps heading toward sedentariness and socializing through inanimate objects like computers. Humans are not interacting with their outside environments near as much as we did in the past. Some humans live vicariously thru the actions of others…the more extreme, the higher the apeal and for the racer—the higher the sense of accomplishment/well-being!
Hmmm Vickie…As tight as things are financially, I’m sure that Iditarod does not have the resources to give an option on the trail. Perhaps we all need to just pay attention to the creeping sedentary, insulated life experiences — and by being aware, avoid them! Your dog will be happy to volunteer to help with that!!
Hi, I have raised and trained some of my own sleddogs. Gotten some others from friends and mushers. I started out in sprint races. I loved all of it, and looked forward to another race. My big plan was to move up to mid distance races, then to long, and of course to start and finish the great race. But life doesn’t always go our way. And sometimes changes are hard to accept or do. So as I think about it, not racing the Iditarod may be the biggest regret of my life.
Anyway I feel that it is NOT right to cut out Happy River Steps. It just takes away one of the big chalenges to do so. DO NOT CUT the steps. It just will no longer be “THE LAST GREAT RACE ON EARTH “. Mushers don’t race it because it’s safe. They race it because it’s there, and all obsticals have there place in it.
I can just see future conversations. Well did you race the Iditarod when it was still a good race, or after they cut out the steps. Can’t you here the sadness in those voices, instead of “YEA, wasn’t that a great race!!!!!!
I say on with the old Iditarod FOREVER !!!!! That feeling comes from the heart !!
Thanks Elaine
Thanks for your comments Elaine! My sentiments also…the Steps are an important and valuable part of the Race on so many levels.
As to your regret at not running Iditarod…we each have our own personal Iditarod to run. Iditarod is a metaphor for the personal adversity and challenges we each face. So we each get to WIN our own personal Iditarods! And often they can be tougher than the one in Alaska, even with the Steps…
If the dogs have taught me anything it is that YOU CAN DO IT! We all learn to do…by doing, just as the dogs do.