Wisconsin musher reunited with lost team
Published: March 9, 2007
Last Modified: March 14, 2007 at 06:35 PM
MCGRATH – A search team of local snowmachiners scrambled late Thursday night and helped Wisconsin musher Matt Rossi find his missing dog team.
The 49-year-old rookie lost his 15-dog team just after sunset. But with the help of speedy snowmachines, he found the team sleeping four miles off course on the Big River .He led them safely onto the Kuskokwim River and rolled into this Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race checkpoint at 3:45 this morning with all 15 dogs, according to McGrath checker Mike Cox.
“Everything’s good,” Cox said. “They looked happy and healthy.”
Rossi lost his team 21 miles outside of Nikolai and hitched the remaining 27 miles on the sled of fellow musher Gerry Sousa of Talkeetna, according to race judge Lavon Barve.
When Rossi arrived onboard Sousa’s sled at 8:20 p.m., Thursday, he immediately told Cox what happened. Cox called for two locals to drive snowmachines and help Rossi retrace his steps to find the runaways.
“It may take awhile to get them back,” Cox said late Thursday night.
Indeed.
Rossi left with two snowmachines at 9:45 p.m. for the wild sled dog hunt.
The mishap occurred 21 miles into Rossi's run from Nikolai to McGrath. Rossi left Nikolai at 2:26 p.m. Thursday, and along the way had to stop the team.
“He was taking care of a tangle and they just took off,” Barve said.
Barve’s account was that Rossi stepped off the runners on the frozen Kuskokwim River to untangle his team. But something may have spooked the dogs, causing them to flee.
Rossi spent the next 10 minutes searching for the team until his headlight battery lost its juice and eventually died, Barve said. The rest of the story is unclear until Sousa arrived.
The two returned to McGrath and Rossi ate a plate of spaghetti while he waited for locals to fuel their snowmachines, Barve said.
Then he hopped on one of the snowmachines and headed down the Kuskokwim toward the halfway point between here and Nikolai, where Rossi believed he lost his dogs.
On his way to McGrath, he reached the mouth of Big River – a long and narrow but windy river that spills into the Kuskokwim. He thought his dogs may have turned left and headed up the Big River instead of following the marked trail, Cox said.
“They went left most likely,” Cox said Thursday. “It’s a crooked portage, so (the team) is probably hooked up.”
The team was sleeping.
“They actually got a little rest out there,” Cox said.
The National Weather Service reported a minus 23-windchill in McGrath on Friday morning. Considering the clear nighttime sky, it’s likely that temperatures dipped lower further down the Kuskokwim River.
Rossi, who lives in Herbster, Wis., is the father-in-law of Iditarod musher Ryan Redington.
His son, Andrew Letzring, has also ran the 1,100-mile Iditarod.
Daily News reporter Kevin Klott can be reached at kklott@adn.com or 257-4335.
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