The Kuskokwim 300 starts this Friday, and Nome musher Diana Haecker will be running as a rookie. She said the race is a “logical” next step in her mushing development.
“The K300 is very prestigious race, which my husband ran four times and all our mushing friends — Joe Garnie and other old-time Nome mushers — ran,” she said. “So for me, it’s just following their footsteps and hopefully succeeding in doing so.”
Haecker is originally from Germany, and she said she married into mushing. Her husband, Nils Hahn, is also from Germany, and he moved to Alaska for the express purpose of running dogs. The couple met in 2002, and Hahn introduced Haecker to the sport and the lifestyle.
Now, they both work at the Nome Nugget newspaper, and their family has a small kennel of Alaskan huskies. Haecker is training 16 dogs for her 12-dog K300 team.
“They are from the bloodlines of Joe Garnie, Egil Ellis, and the Streepers. And pretty much every one of them, I was there when they were born,” she said. “We raised them from the first breath they take until finally clocking your first 50-mile runs. You see the pups that you raised, and you’re just mighty proud of them and what they can do.”
She started training for the race in September with short, three-mile runs. And as soon as snow was on the ground, she laid stakes outside of Nome, expanding her trails as winter conditions improved.
“And then, of course, there’s always the Iditarod trail. So that’s really convenient to have that right out of my doorstep,” she said. “I can go on the Iditarod trail, and the sky’s the limit.”
But conditions for the K300 may be difficult. Haecker’s been watching the weather, and she said she expects the unseasonably warm temperatures to have wreaked some havoc on the trail. The Bethel area has hovered around 36 degrees Fahrenheit, and the river has seen some overflow near Aniak.
Haecker said she’s trying not to dwell on those elements outside of her control.
“The K300 has a very formidable reputation as being a tough race in terms of conditions,” she said. “Sometimes it’s super windy. Sometimes it’s super warm. Sometimes it’s 40 below, and you fight against headwinds. You’ve got to be ready for it all. It’s a little bit like serving. You’re in God’s hands.”
While Haecker is heading to Bethel on her own and running the race without handlers, she said she’s not really alone.
“You cannot really do this on your own, she said. “This is a whole, big family effort — especially since we’re a small family, a small kennel, and we have jobs on the side as well. That makes it really hard to organize your training schedule.”
She said the support from her family has been invaluable, especially when training ramped up in December. While others were celebrating the holidays, Haecker was either on the trail or under deadline at the paper. She thanked her husband and daughter, Lizzy, for all of their help.
After all the hard work, now all that’s left is for Haecker to run the race.
“My goal is to bring my well-trained dog team to Bethel, race it around the course, and do so in an honorable fashion that allows my dogs and me not necessarily to peak, but to have a very good experience — and finish,” she said.
Haecker leaves for Bethel on Wednesday. The K300 is scheduled to start Friday at 6:30 p.m.
