With its start area underwater, Alaska Iron Dog officials scramble

Stephen Nowers photo. Alaska Dispatch.An ice fishermen has inadvertently sabotaged the Big Lake start of the Iron Dog — the world’s longest and toughest snowmachine race, but usually not its wettest.

The 2,000-mile race over the Alaska Range to Nome on the Bering Sea and then back to Fairbanks atop the big, frozen rivers of the Interior starts at 11 a.m. Sunday. But of Wednesday afternoon the start area was underwater thanks to an active ice auger and race officials were scrambling to find a new location from which to launch, according to officials.

The water itself is not that big a problem for the snowmachines. They travel at speeds in excess of 70 mph, and they can basically fly across the top of open water. But the hundreds spectators who usually gather for the start of the race can’t walk on water. The Iron Dog had plowed off a big chunk of Big Lake to provide parking for their cars and trucks, and to make it easy for people to get around at the start.

Apparently, the large, plowed area looked attractive to a local ice fishermen. He drilled three holes in the middle of it.

Oh-oh.

Heavy equipment and the big snow berms sitting on the ice bent the frozen surface of the lake, creating downward pressure that forced water up through the fishing holes. Terry Hanson at Hatcher Pass Polaris in Wasilla reported Wednesday there was as much as 18 inches of water on the ice when equilibrium was finally reached between the downward pressure of snow and equipment and the upward pressure of ice trying to float on water.

All of the water that spewed from the fishing holes was held in place by the snow berms created when the area was plowed to create parking, he added.

“It’s kind of like mashed potatoes and gravy,” he said. You know, the Thanksgiving style mashed potatoes and gravy where you put a big divot in that stack of spuds to hold the turkey gravy you pour in.

“It’s pretty bad,” Hanson added.

The situation left Iron Dog officials scratching their heads in disbelief.

“Iron Dog doesn’t own the lake,” Hanson said; so it has no power to tell people where to fish. But the holes, he said, were drilled only about 50 yards from shore in an area not really very good for fishing, and anyone with knowledge of Alaska’s problems with overflow should have known that the weight of snow and equipment on the lake surface was likely to force water up through the fishing holes.

Now Iron Dog has a problem. Hanson, whose boss is the race trail manager, was at the lake Wednesday afternoon scouting for a new start area. Unless the old area gets a good freeze, Iron Dog is probably going to have to plow a new start zone. Hanson didn’t seem worried.

“They’ll get it figured out,” he said.

Water problems are nothing new to the Iron Dog. The race stalled on the Bering Sea coast last year because of flooding, and then had to proceed to Nome under a “yellow flag” because of wet and dangerous conditions.

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com

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