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"Organized Chaos"

Drop bags, an essential pre-race chore

by June Price

03/12/2005

Note: While the race is sorting itself out as mushers take their layovers, I thought I’d take a look at a few of the activities behind the race that are rarely seen by fans.

One of the biggest chores faced by mushers pre-race is that of organizing their drop bags. With the help of Tasha Stielstra, who graciously allowed me to use her Photos (1-8) of their preparation, I thought I’d give you a look at how this task is accomplished. For those in the Lower 48, getting the bags to Alaska is quite an undertaking itself, of course.

Photo 1 shows the drop bags themselves. These are provided to each musher by the Iditarod Trail Committee. Each bag will eventually contain an average of 60 pounds of gear and/or food per checkpoint. Bags needing to remain frozen will have the word "Freeze" stenciled on them. You’ll also note that Ed has put how many bags he’s sent to each checkpoint on each, ensuring he’ll know how many to look for at each checkpoint. Most mushers also carry a list with them of what they have waiting.

Photo 2 shows the bags laid out in preparation for packing. Two teams are running out of Nature’s Kennel this year, Tasha’s husband Ed and rookie Andrew Letzring. Thus, organization and room to spread out was essential. As the photo shows, the bags were arranged according to checkpoint. The items to be packed for that particular checkpoint were placed beside its bags. One indication of how long Ed and/or Andrew planned to stay at any given checkpoint would most likely be represented by quantity. The more supplies packed, the longer they planned to stay there.

Photo 3: Of course, all those bags don’t pack themselves. "We sent in over 1600 pounds of beef for the dogs," says Tasha. "All of it had to be sliced into ½ inch pieces before being put into eight pound bags." These were in turn packed inside the larger bags.

Photo 4 shows the Stielstra’s living room. "The entire house was pretty much a disaster for three days," sighs Tasha. "Booties, runner plastic, socks, pants, underwear, batteries, Kleenex, dog jackets, foot ointment and harnesses were spread out everywhere!" This is definitely one aspect of race preparation most fans can’t even begin to imagine. Brenda Borden, wife of Iditarod 2002 musher Bill Borden, for instance, remembers how the smell of the meat and fish they packed remained in their garage long after the race.

Photo 5: Of course, Ed and Andrew have to eat, too. While different mushers have different menus, the preparation of the people food is just as important as that of the dog food. If the mushers aren’t properly fueled, they can’t care for their dogs. In this case, the food for Ed and Andrew included beef stew, spaghetti, tuna casserole, halibut, shrimp pasta, lasagna, pumpkin pie, cheesecake and cookies, according to Tasha. All were vacuum sealed to retain their freshness and take up less room.

Photos 6, 7 and 8 show the final steps before the drop bags are shipped to Alaska. The Stielstra’s were fortunate enough to have the support of their local IGA, which allowed them to use a giant freezer to freeze the meat extra hard before packing. Bags were then packed, checked and sealed for repackaging into three 48" x 40" x 6’ insulated boxes and put on a truck headed to Seattle. From there, they were taken by barge to Anchorage, Alaska.

Of course, it isn’t just mushers from the Lower 48 that ship their bags to Anchorage rather than deliver them in person. I spied bags being unloaded at the drop bag facility from semi-trucks with names like Redington (Photo 9) and Seavey. Let’s take a look at how the bags are handled when they’re delivered by the mushers themselves, however.

Photo 10 shows Canadian musher Karen Ramstead arriving at the drop site. In this Photo, Karen has backed her loaded dog truck up to the shipping door. From there, volunteers will unload the bags and begin the process of sorting them into piles to be flown to the checkpoints later.

Photo 11 shows musher drop bags being loaded on a front loader for distribution. While volunteers are unloading the likes of Ramstead’s truck, others are unloading semi-trucks arriving with bags from all over. For all those involved, it’s quite important to keep your wits about you. Everything is happening at the same time. As a result, although I’m presenting the next steps as a series of events, they’re ongoing and happening at once over and over and over again until the last bag is in place and off to a plane to be flown to the proper checkpoint.

Photo 12 shows volunteers moving the bags toward a table at the front of the storage facility. As seen in Photo 13, it’s usually done in something of an assembly line fashion to relieve the burden. No one person is forced to move hundreds of pounds of bags far. When the bags reach a table set up along one wall, they’re weighed, Photo 14, and then passed along to be piled onto a stack of bags designated for that checkpoint. Of course, the weighing is of great interest to the mushers (Photo 15) as that determines how big a check they’ll be leaving behind at the end of the day!

Photo 16 shows just a tiny fraction of the volunteers involved. As one volunteer moves forward, another replaces them and moves forward in turn to place the bags on the proper stack (Photo 17) . Slowly but surely, the piles grow (Photo 18) under the watchful eye of race officials (Photo 19).

Photo 20 shows an empty pallet. This one is for Safety. Since few mushers stay long here, few send bags to Safety, the last checkpoint before Nome, which is beckoning by than. Every musher entering the race hopes to be reunited with these bags (Photo 21) since it will mean they’ve completed the race.

Throughout the day, this process is repeated (Photo 22) and repeated (Photo 23). Finally, of course, the mushers must "face the music" and ante up the cost (Photo 24) while, elsewhere, another truckload (Photo 25) is being unloaded and the process continues.