iditarod dreams

[pumbaa]

I was having a yarn with a mate of mine the other day , witch was on the lines of "once in a life time adventures" . My choice is to do the iditarod . This is aparently not a "normal" choice , had allsorts of what ifs thrown at me . Bizare thinks i , thought it was about the adventure !!
Anyway , this all lead me to thinking about what courses and personal prep would be needed to do such a thing ? Not that im seriously thinking of doing the race , but just wondered what you guys and gals thought about such an adventure and what personal preperation you would like to do before hand ?
If you dont know what the iditarod is go here
.
Cheers
Pumbaa

 

[Jedadiah]

Wow! Not heard of this before, looks like something your grandkids would tell your great grandkids about. Preperation? HM, i'd learn to mush! Having read Guy Grieve's book 'Call of the Wild' it appears a lot harder than it looks, and it looks 'kin hard! Definate acclimitisation, possibly lightweight kit, warm clothing and a cast iron constitution! Put a team together that works and complement each other and that wants to work for you and lot's of training.

Reading this back, it almost sounds like i know what i'm talking about!

 

[pumbaa]

Bet your thinking about doing it now .
I was more thinking on the lines of personal preparation . To aqquire and train the dogs as well as learning how to sled is a mission in itself . I read Winterdance and the guy that wrote the book was doing 200 miles a day with his dogs , just to prepare !!
I know i would have to up my personal fitness levels , and i dont think a bit of blubber would go amiss either . . Would deffinately have to attend some kind of arctic survival course , just to brush up and have it fresh in mind .
there i go thinking about it again !
Pumbaa

 

[Jedadiah]

DO IT!!!!!!!!! Listen to the voices, your only here once, this is not a rehersal!

 

[BOD]

Pumbaa,

You do this forum proud. What a grand dream

Go ahead, dream then start planning!

You will be remembered for generations in your family while most of the other uncles will have been forgotten.

I only wish it was a feasible dream for me

 

[illumeo]

Sound like a brilliant dream to me. Have you read Winter Dance by Gary Paulsen? I went up to the sled dog centre in the Cairngorms and was chatting to the owner Alan Stewart about it (not to do it but just about all things sled dog). He reckoned that people hired dog teams so they could run it but it was very expensive. Sort of the "arrive and drive", of the sled dog world. Here is the link to the Sled dog centre http://www.sled-dogs.co.uk/ I had a great day there. (My avatar is one of his dogs)

 

[Tengu]

Me too!

I have a friend who helps out most years...you have to be dedicated and experienced just to be a volenteer, its not easy

Ill ask her

 

[Tourist]

When I was in the Army there was a Postie, 'Speedy' was his nickname, he used to help out on the Iditarod every year.......and in the process used to do most of the route.

He used to get out to Canada on the regular BATUS flights, hitch over to Alaska by whatever means at his disposal, which normally involved having himself classified as freight and getting onto various Canadian and American military flights. Over the few years I knew Speedy he was written about in various military journals and local Alaskan newspapers and became quite a celeb. He also endeared himself with the local population around Gnome, so much so that he had an innuit (didi I spell that right) girlfriend to wed when he left the Army and had been given three trap lines and a piece of land to build a house on.

He was a lecherous old git, classified as a career Corporal, nobody would share a room with him as he insisted on sleeping with the windows wide open all year to train for his annual visits. In mid-winter he used to tab around in shirt sleeve order - with the Colonel and RSM just tutting loudly - off duty he would likewise just wander around in a t-shirt. I remember a vague tale about Speedy getting back late one year and facing all sorts of charges for absence, turns out whilst hitching across the frozen wastes a mother of a blizzard blew up and stopped all movement of traffic for five days - so Speedy, waiting for his next lift, at a junction in the middle of nowhere, threw up his tent and lived in it until the blizzard cleared and traffic started moving.

My point, in a long winded way, you do not need the expense of all the kit and kaboodle to kick off with.........go, look and help them out for a year. You will get a feel for what you need and what it is like.

If you don't at least have a look at it you'll regret it forever.