It was bitterly cold along the 200 miles of Yukon Quest trail into the race’s midway point of Dawson City, but for Nome musher Rolland Trowbridge, it was “heat” that did his team in.
Trowbridge said his team had been running strong, fast, and “happy” in the first 250 miles of the race, keeping him in or near the top ten. He pulled out of Pelly Crossing to tackle the 4,000-foot rise of King Solomon’s Dome Monday night with a team of 13 dogs, but by the time he got to the hospitality stop en route to Dawson, things began to change.
“I got into Scroggy Creek, and my main leader, Uber, who basically drives everything, was in heat,” Trowbridge said by phone from Dawson City on Thursday night. “I had the vet confirm it and she said, ‘do you want to drop this dog?’ And I said ‘I can’t drop this dog.’”
With temperatures dipping to -45°F early in the race, the dogs were consuming huge amounts of food to keep running. Trowbridge and his team passed through Scroggy Tuesday and went along the Stewart River before climbing roughly 20 miles up the Blackhills switchbacks. After the climb, Trowbridge snacked his team and bedded down for a 5-hour rest, only to wake up Wednesday morning to find his team just wouldn’t get going. For the dogs, “the heat” had gotten worse.
“It’s 8:30 in the morning, I’ve got just enough food to get to Dawson, [I] booted up my team and said ‘hike hike’ and my team will not move. I mean, they will not move. And I spent three hours swapping people around, begging, cajoling, but all they could do was think about those [now] three dogs in heat.”
The scramble went on through mid-day and into the afternoon as Trowbridge said he saw the team that had been running strong in the race’s top ten quickly fall apart.
“The team [was] just a disaster,” he said after failing to move more than a mile after hours of struggle. “It’s like I went from being on fire to not moving in one fell swoop … I was out of the game.”
With the sun setting, the food running low, and still some 45 miles to Dawson, Trowbridge said he had to do what was right for his team.
“I had one feeding left, and I know what another musher would tell me, just feed them that last feeding, and try to make it, and I said look, I’m not going to sit there with a team of dogs with no food, [a team] that are already on empty.”
There was only on thing left to do. “I just made a decision, I’m pushing the button, we’re going to get some food.”
Around 5:15 p.m Wednesday Trowbridge hit his race beacon, alerting race officials who then dispatched a team of Canadian Rangers. The rangers found both musher and team healthy but unable to continue. They were escorted into Dawson City, where Trowbridge officially withdrew from the race.
After a day in Dawson, Trowbridge said, despite having to withdraw, he’s very happy with how his team performed.
“Last year, I was a nobody with dogs that were all cast-offs. This year I’ve got a team that’s tuned up and ready to go,” he said.
“I entered the race feeling like a rookie, and I scratched the race feeling like a contender.
