Iditarod Trail Invitiational Race/Ride: Start to Flathorn Lake (pics)

[spruceboy]

Supposedly there's one really short section(about 200 yards long) that's really dangerous on a dog sled. Not sure why they couldn't just go around that, but I've never been there, let alone on the back of sled pulled by 16 amped up dogs. I do know that they normally build benchcut snow banks in sections of the Happy River Steps, trim a mile plus of alders above the Dalzell(and many miles throughout the course) and build snow/ice/branch/sapling bridges across open water in many sections every year. So, either that's not the real reason, or the section in question is really that tricky.

The only reason I saw not to take the Hell's Gate route for the dog race is the lower part of the south fork outside rohn, and a few places in the upper section - it looked to me like like the river was very active, and could open up at any time, leading to some tricky last minute logistical challenges, which I expect they didn't want to deal with. Otherwise it was in great shape. The Rohn to Nikolai section was the best I have ever seen it, with lots of snow.

[AKCheesehead]

The only reason I saw not to take the Hell's Gate route for the dog race is the lower part of the south fork outside rohn, and a few places in the upper section - it looked to me like like the river was very active, and could open up at any time, leading to some tricky last minute logistical challenges, which I expect they didn't want to deal with. Otherwise it was in great shape. The Rohn to Nikolai section was the best I have ever seen it, with lots of snow.

The Iditarod used to go through Hells Gate before the Rainy Pass/Dalzell route was established sometime in the early 80's.. Rainy Pass was deemed to be a safer route for the dogs so when it comes to altering the route they don't even give Hells Gate a thought anymore.

[spruceboy]

The Hell's Gate route was pretty scenic.. definately one of the highlights of the McGrath race.

DSC08130 by J C


DSC08134 by J C

[spruceboy]

if folks will forgive the blog spam, Bikepacker.com has some (minimal) words and photos from my ride to Nome
Knik To Nome: A Photo Journal Along the Iditarod - Bikepacker

The photos sort of suck, I had to warm up my camera's battery to take photos at 0f or colder, and there was a lot of that, so my motivation to take photos was pretty minimal, and I never cleaned the lens, so there were lots of lens spots. But such is life.