Saves time, money: Organizers say decision best for all concerned.
Is the home of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on its way to becoming the place you drive through on the way to the restart of The Last Great Race?
It’s beginning to look that way with organizers of the 1,000-mile ultramarathon from Anchorage to Nome again this year announcing the race restart will take place not in Wasilla — where the race is headquartered — but in Willow.
This time the announcement comes long before any real concerns about lack of snow. The race doesn’t start for almost two months.
Iditarod Trail Committee director Stan Hooley did note a shortage of snow in the Susitna Valley so far, but added “that there is no question that the many roads, driveways and bike paths don’t make for good and safe racing conditions” on the mushers’ way out of Wasilla.
Development decades ago blocked the Iditarod race from running from its Anchorage starting line direct to Nome.
The Saturday start in Anchorage became purely ceremonial, and the real beginning to the adventure — though called a restart — was formally scheduled for Wasilla on the first Sunday of March.
Off and on for nearly a decade, the race began at the downtown airstrip there, paralleled the Knik-Goose Bay Road to the old mushing hot spot of Knik, and then jumped west along the historic Iditarod Trail toward the Susitna River.
Because of snow-short winters, that route hasn’t been used since 2002. Now, with development in the Wasilla area exploding, it is looking less and less likely it will ever be used again.
To ensure a safe restart, mushers say the Iditarod pretty much needs a dedicated trail that minimizes road and driveway crossings on the way toward the wilderness.
“We’ve been talking to the city for a long time about trail development,” said Chas St. George, Iditarod spokesman. There has been such a proliferation of vehicle crossings in the Wasilla area that there aren’t enough volunteers and local police to serve everywhere a crossing guard is needed to protect dog teams from traffic.
And that’s only part of the problem.
Land disputes in many places require that the trail routing be adjudicated, he said, and that is time consuming.
Take these problems, mix in a shortage of snow, and moving the restart to Willow becomes the easy thing for the Iditarod to do.
Planning for both Wasilla and Willow restarts is time-consuming, costly and inefficient, St. George said.
So, he said, the “prudent thing to do this year” was to make a quick, early decision to move to Willow. Mushers have long favored the Willow Lake restart. It gets them away from the congestion and cookouts that had proliferated along the Knik road trail, and it offers quick access to the wide-open snows on the frozen Susitna River.
Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce executive director Cheryl Metiva said she thought Wasilla business owners would understand.
Wasilla businesses might lose out somewhat, she added but they don’t expect to lose all that much. A study done by the Iditarod in 2006 calculated the direct and indirect benefit of a Willow restart to be about $2.1 million in Wasilla, St. George said.
“People pass through,” Metiva said. “We’re still reaping the benefit of that.”
A couple of years ago, she added, the Wasilla Chamber board discussed the problem of the restart regularly moving north and decided the best thing to do was to take “on the mantra of Iditarod 365. We’re the home of the Iditarod year-round. We can lay claim to that and celebrate that year-round.”
Recent Comments