DAY 2

Buser takes early lead Monday morning

Staff and wire reports

Published: March 5, 2007
Last Modified: March 14, 2007 at 06:45 PM

After his victory earlier this winter in the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race, many suggested that Big Lake musher Martin Buser had bounced back from two off years in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Before the sun rose over the Alaska Range on Monday morning, he was proving it.

Buser, the 19th musher to start Sunday morning in Willow, had ripped off fast early runs to move to the front of 82 mushers racing the 35th Iditarod. Behind a 16-dog freight train, Buser was in and out of the Finger Lake checkpoint by 4:35 a.m. He was headed up the steepest part of the Iditarod trail, bound for Rainy Pass, some 30 miles away. That checkpoint, on Puntilla Lake, is at 1,835 feet, and from there the trail climbs to the summit of the pass at 3,160 feet before making the often-dangerous descent down the Dazell Creek gorge.

Buser was moving quickly. He averaged 11.74 mph on the 45-mile run from Skwentna to Finger Lake, at least 1 mph faster than any of the six other mushers who'd made the journey by early Monday.

Race marshal Mark Nordman said on Sunday that trailbreakers told him "the trail from Finger Lakes up to Rainy Pass, they've seen a lot worse.

"There's not a lot of snow up there. (But) leaving Rainy and going up toward the pass is okay."

Zach Steer, the young owner of Sheep Mountain Lodge, was second Monday morning. He left Finger Lake 35 minutes after Buser, at 5:10 a.m.

Jim Lanier of Chugiak was a surprising third. Lanier, who has six Iditarods finishes no better than 40th place, was the third musher out of Finger Lake at 5:13 a.m. He, too, had 16 dogs in harness.

Four other mushers were into Finger Lake, including the first to arrive -- Fairbanks' Lance Mackey, who won the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race just two weeks ago. Mackey arrived in Finger Lake at 3:30 a.m., an hour before Buser, and clearly had decided to rest there.

Two other former Yukon Quest champions -- Ramy Brooks of Nenana and Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers -- were in Finger Lake along with young Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse, the seventh place finisher in the just-completed Quest.

Three other mushers were making a hard early push.

Two-time champion Robert Sorlie was the 50th musher to leave the start line, but the Norwegian had already passed 40 mushers to move into 10th. He was moving as fast as Buser -- even though Sorlie is know for maintaining a steady pace with his dog team.

Five-time champion Rick Swenson had also moved up. Starting 44th, Swenson was out of Skwentna in 12th place and moving smartly.

And young Tollef Monson of Kotzebue had started far back in the pack at 75th, but was out of Skwentna in 15th place.

Sunday night, mushers endured sub-zero cold and bitter north winds. The winds picked up after midnight, pushing the wind chills down to 30-below or colder.

"I think this wind is going to be a bit chilly on the river, but it's not going to be a problem for these guys to navigate," Nordman said on Sunday. "There's lots of snowmachine traffic.

"The whole thing has been staked by volunteers from here to Rohn. But I try to keep those trail breakers far ahead unless I see a big storm rolling in."

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