View of an Iditarod musher from the air.

The Monday after the start of the Iditarod – this year, March 5 – most of our guests will start the day in Talkeetna. If you’ve never been to Talkeetna, it is one of our most favorite places in Alaska. The town is located at the confluence of the Susitna, Talkeetna and Chulitna rivers, and is known as the jumping-off point for mountain climbers who are headed to the Alaska Range to climb Mt. McKinley (and other massive peaks in the area). Climbers get to the mountains by air taxi, so Talkeetna airport is a rather busy place twelve months of the year.

Our guests will start the day pretty early, and head down to the airport, where they will head out to the checkpoints in the foothills of the Alaska Range. We try to get out guests to Rainy Pass checkpoint, which is the last checkpoint before the Alaska Range… but with the pace of the race and the weather, you may end up at one of the other checkpoints, such as Skwentna. The goal is to get there as the leaders pass through, and since this is less than 24 hours after the restart of the race, the mushers are still quite close together, but the fastest teams have moved to the front of the pack.

A view of the Rainy Pass checkpoint from the air taxi.

One of the big advantages of heading out to the more remote checkpoints is that unlike the experience in Anchorage and Willow, there are few spectators on the trail, so this is the Iditarod’s version of court-side seats and locker room passes all rolled into one. Our guests will have the opportunity to get fantastic photos and experience life on the trail firsthand. In fact, the photos in this post were all taken by one of our guests… so these are an accurate representation of what you can expect to see and experience along the way.

There is a lot of strategy and gamesmanship that goes on during the race, and visiting the checkpoints is a great way to see some of that going on firsthand. Weather, trail conditions and competition affect the decisions mushers make on the trail, such as whether to take a break at a checkpoint, or to pass on through. Later in the race there are mandatory layovers. Some are fixed, and others are at the musher’s discretion, so deciding when to take your mandatory layover could be a matter of luck, or a matter of strategy.

Mushers, vets, spectators, locals, and of course, the dogs doing their thing at the Rainy Pass checkpoint.

Our guests will spend about a half day on the trail. The pilot of your plane will guide you through the various checkpoints, with the goal of getting you to the front of the pack as they race through.

In the afternoon you’ll return by air taxi to Talkeetna. Depending on how we have arranged your package, some guests will overnight again in Talkeetna, while others will depart in the evening for either Anchorage or Fairbanks.

Evening in Talkeetna - The Roadhouse.

Our next post will talk about the middle portion of the race, and some of the various activities and destinations that we include in our packages.

If you’re interested in having us arrange your Iditarod package, give us a call at (877) 692-5275 or +19073342888. Or you can go to our website and complete our form, and we’ll get back to you!

The Iditarod is a bit unusual in that the start of the race on Saturday is a ceremonial start. The reason is that there is no safe or practical way for mushers to traverse Knik arm, the Knik River and the Matanuska River. So the pageantry of the race start is held Saturday in Anchorage, but the real race doesn’t get rolling until Sunday afternoon in Willow.

Iditarod musher Dee Dee Jonrowe takes a moment to sign autographs for fans in the chute.

That doesn’t bother Alaskans, and it is actually great for visitors. Thousands of people come to downtown Alaska and line the sidewalks of Fourth Avenue for the ceremonial start. The starting line is at 4th and D, and the area to the st of the starting line is called “the chute”. This is where the mushers park their trucks, harness their dogs, and get ready for the race. While it is certainly fun to watch the mushers head down the trail, the real action is back in the chute, where you can get up close and personal with the mushers and their dogs.

If you have a favorite musher, and you didn’t meet them at the banquet, this is a great place to get a photo and shake their hand – provided you get there early!

The first musher heads down 4th Avenue at 10 AM, with subsequent teams starting every two minutes. The starting order is decided in advance, with the first starters at the far end of the chute, and the last starters in the front. You’ll want to get downtown early – perhaps as early as 8 AM, if you want to see the initial preparations of some of the early starters.

One strategy that some guests choose is to get downtown early, meet the mushers, get some photos, and then stake out a spot along the Anchorage portion of the trail. The race starts downtown, but winds its way throughout the parks and greenbelts of town, and ends at Campbell Airstrip. There are lots of great viewing locations around town, and you can have many of them to yourself.

Iditarod musher heads down Fourth Avenue at the ceremonial start

Most of the activities are over by about 2 PM… and this is good for both the mushers and for guests. Sunday at 2 PM the race starts for real, and it is nice to get a good meal, a good night’s sleep, and then head off to Willow on Sunday!

If you’re interested in having us arrange your Iditarod package, give us a call at (877) 692-5275 or +19073342888. Or you can go to our website and complete our form, and we’ll get back to you!

When we do an Iditarod package for our guests, we usually start the package on the Wednesday or Thursday before the actual start of the race. The race starts on the first Saturday in March, which is on March 3 in 2012… So most of our guests will be arriving in Anchorage sometime on February 29th or March 1 (yes, 2012 is a leap year!).

Our main reason for having people come so early is to avoid the unfortunate event of a flight delay. For example, if someone were planning to arrive in Anchorage on the Friday before the race starts, and there was some weather or equipment delay along the way, almost certainly he or she would miss the start of the race on Saturday morning.

Midway Rides at the Fur Rondy and Iditarod celebration

The days immediately before the start of the race are part of an annual winter celebration here in Anchorage known as the Fur Rondy. The celebration lasts two weeks, and includes balls, carnivals, fireworks, and dog racing. The Fur Rondy dog races are the week before the Iditarod. If you’re looking for an extended Alaskan vacation, this is a fantastic time to visit – Come for the Rondy, and stay for the Iditarod!

If you’re more focused on the Iditarod, the official events start on Thursday evening, with the musher’s banquet. Not all of our guests choose to attend the banquet… but it is a great event, and it is an opportunity to meet the mushers, and to get some sense of the atmosphere of the race. If you were going to include the Start Banquet in your package, you would certainly want to arrive in Anchorage on Wednesday – it would be a shame to count on an on-time Thursday afternoon flight to get to the banquet on time Thursday evening.

Friday is a day that we generally leave as a free day for our guests. Many of our guests have never been to Alaska, and having a day to explore on your own is often just what the doctor ordered. However, there are some activities that you could choose, either as a part of the package, of as something you could do on your own.

One of our guests snapped this photo on a drive down Turnagain Arm the day before the start of the Iditarod

In past years, we have been able to arrange kennel tours at a professional racing kennel. You’d think that mushers would be too busy the day before the race to take time to show people around… but they tell me that if you’re not ready by Friday, you’re not ready. You could also visit some of the museums in Anchorage, or take a drive down Turnagain Arm (a spectacular drive), visit Girdwood, or even take a day cruise into Resurrection Bay. There is plenty to keep you busy in Anchorage on the Friday before the start of the Iditarod.

Friday night you’ll want to get a good night’s sleep. The race starts at 10 AM on Saturday, but there are many good reasons to get downtown early and walk around.

More on that in the next post!

If you’re interested in having us arrange your Iditarod package, give us a call at (877) 692-5275 or +19073342888. Or you can go to our website and complete our form, and we’ll get back to you!

Our friendly neighborhood volcano, Mt. Redoubt, has continued to put on a spectacular show just across Cook Inlet from Kenai. For the first time since the recent eruptive episode started, there was noticeable ashfall in Anchorage.

We had a few hours of notice, so I put a sheet of notebook paper out and let the ash collect on the paper. In four hours, I collected about a teaspoon of ash on the paper. If you go to the Alaska Volcano Observatory website, they describe the proper procedure for collecting an ash sample, and I did a passable job following their directions.

Here is what I collected:

When I went to scoop the ash into the plastic bag, the air smelled strongly of sulfur. It occurred to me that just a few hours earlier, this ash had been molten rock deep inside a volcano. This ash was essentially the youngest rocks on Earth.

I think most people just take rocks for granted. If we bother to consider the age of a rock, we’re not really able to fully grasp what the age of a rock might be. Even if one has no idea of the age of a rock, the first number that pops into our mind is likely to be in the millions of years.

This volcanic ash was less than three hours old when I scooped it into the bag. And before that, it had been molten rock deep inside a volcano. This ash was ash from Hell… literally!

UPDATE: Here it is, one day later… and as you walk through the stores or around town, you can still smell the sulfur, and people are wearing masks. The snow, which just yesterday was a brilliant white, is now grey, and becoming more grey by the hour as it melts. Footprints in the snow are white inside, surrounded by the dirty grey of the ash.

The volcano is making for entertaining conversation both in the office and in online chats here in Anchorage, but while we marvel at nature, people in other areas are having to deal with some of the problems associated with the volcano.

We had an eruption this morning, and most of the low-level ash traveled south and east from the volcano, and is now falling out in the Homer area.

There is a steady stream of images and information being published online, but one of the best sources is the Alaska Volcano Observatory. On their website, they have two webcams of the volcano – here and here - and some of the other volcanoes they watch, like this one, historical information, and collections of recent photos.

Hard-core volcano watchers also know to watch the National Weather Service Radar, where you can see the radar representation of the ash plume.

I think it is just a matter of time before Anchorage gets its dose of ash. This is not a good thing, by the way. Volcanic ash is microscopic glass particles, and they’re very irritating to the eyes and lungs, they damage machines, particularly cars and airplanes, and all in all make a mess.

It is strange here today in Anchorage – the plume is overhead, and all of the airports are closed. It is rare to see a sky without airplanes in Alaska.

After weeks of unrest, Mt. Redoubt, located about 80 miles southwest of Anchorage, has erupted. For the latest information, visit the Alaska Volcano Observatory Website.

You can also see the plume in weather satellite images and on the National Weather Service Radar in Kenai .

For the latest information visit the Alaska Volcano ObservatoryWebsite or listen for official news and information from the media.