March 14, 2007

• Sitrep from Eric Rogers

  All just about anyone knew for several days was that Eric Rogers had left the Ophir checkpoint at 11 PM Saturday with fifteen dogs to go the ninety miles to the ghost town of Iditarod.  Today, race officials and some race insiders along the trail released the information that I quoted from the Anchorage Daily News in my earlier entry.  Then, hoping for more details about what had happened to Eric, I checked his website.

  I found much more than I had hoped for.  There is an audio file of a phone call in which Eric gives a report on his current situation and describes his experiences over the past three days.  I’ve transcribed a lot of it and will give you the edited highlights.

  He was having the same sorts of problems everyone had around Rainy Pass.  Several falls left him bruised and taking ibuprofen.  Coming out of McGrath, he caught some straw, a chunk broken off a bale that he’d left there, under his brake.  It left him with no brake and no drag.  In the fall that resulted from that he, “drug [his] shoulder into a protruding piece of ice.”  More bruises, and he added acetaminophen to the ibuprofen, and that was before things got really rough for him.

  Part of his problem was that he has a better team this year than last year.  They were cruising about four miles an hour faster this year, and the trail was rougher so he was crashing more often, and the crashes were hurting more.  He reported, “seven major crashes, …last 3 major incidents that took me off the trail.”

  Out of Ophir, “they said it was going to be gnarly, and it was.  Got lost a couple of times, navigating from missing stake to missing stake, no snow through some of the tundra.”

  “…we’re coming down… we crossed a creek bed with overflow [That's water that is flowing out over the ice on a frozen stream.]  and the dogs balked.  I had to get out and walk my Northern Outfitters [$200.00 boots rated to -60°F]  through the overflow and my feet got wet.  They advertise that you can wring out the liners and then put them back on and walk ‘em dry.  It didn’t work.”

  This happened about 1 AM Sunday.  Later on, about 6 AM, over some rough trail blown free of snow he was riding,

  “…with my toes out on the runners and my heels on the drag so I can kinda control the team just by changing weight and the way I balance.  My right toe caught a tussock, rotated the foot, overextended it to the right, flipped it around underneath, overextended the ankle again, drug it underneath and broke the left runner.”

  He used the patch kit he was carrying, and patched the runner.

  “I said, ‘Golly darn that hurts.’ [Yeah, right, I'll bet that's not quite what he said. ]  He was trying to get on down the trail when Ellen Halvorson caught up with him.  They camped there until about noon before getting back in motion.

  “At that point I’m feeling that my foot’s in trouble.  I stopped and put some handwarmers in [the boots].   My big toe had frozen from the overflow I’d crossed about 1 AM — just the tip of it, mild to moderate frostbite they said, no big deal, but it’s a little painful.”

  “So we went down the trail about 8 miles, saw Don’s Cabin, went past that **laughs** It’s a hole in the wall.  Made it about another mile and a half, caught another tussock the same way, rotated the foot back almost the same way, said ow again, and broke the right runner on the sled and the patch on the left runner, so now I’ve got a sled with both runners broke and my foot’s all tore up.”

  “It took me two hours to get from there back to Don’s Cabin.  I kinda jury-rigged it, tied the runners from the foot pegs to the stanchions, tried to sit in the seat and only crashed three times on the way to Don’s.

  That was about 3 PM on Sunday.  The trail sweeps on snowmachines found him there about five on Monday.  One of them was a physician’s assistant.  She examined him and treated him as much as she could and they eventually moved him to a location where a plane could land to airlift him out.  He was calling from Unalakleet.  His dogs are fine.  In response to a question about trying again next year, he said if he can find a way to pay the mortgage he will give it another try.  He said, “I’m not mentally trashed about this.”

  You can hear the whole story here:
  http://www.rnorthbounddogs.com/Audio/EricRogers_031307.mp3

  

  • 6:21 pm
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