Iditarod 2015 on the Yukon — Tanana to Ruby, Then the Long Night into Galena

If Fairbanks-to-Tanana was the opening chapter, the Yukon River was where the story really settled in. Big sky. Big miles. Big quiet. And that feeling that the world has narrowed down to the dogs, the sled, the trail, and whatever’s happening inside your own head.

Ripp & Ruby are wearing their jackets. Photo by Jeff Shultz / Iditarodphotos.com. Do not use/copy without permission.

Tanana: jackets, wrist wraps, and changing my mind mid-race

In Tanana, I put a jacket on Ruby. Her brother Ripp was in the foreground, wearing wrist wraps.

Over the course of the race—after a lot of discussion with trail vets and plenty of first-hand observation—I became disillusioned with wrist wraps and stopped using them.

Here’s why: when a dog gets a sore wrist on the trail, heat and circulation are the undisputed keys to healing. A wrist is warmest when it’s curled up under the dog. Wrist wraps can prevent that curled position, and they can also slightly restrict circulation just by nature of wrapping.

Instead, I focused on what actually helps: massage to stimulate circulation and Alygval (a natural liniment to reduce inflammation) at checkpoints. Once I stopped relying on wraps, I didn’t have any overly sore wrists coming into Nome.

The Yukon strategy: “three forties” vs “two sixties”

Leaving Tanana, there was a traffic jam on the Yukon River, and then—boom—the next reality: 120 river miles to Ruby.

On that stretch, mushers generally picked one of two strategies:

• Three forties (three ~40-mile runs), or

• Two sixties (two ~60-mile runs)

Because there isn’t regular traffic on that stretch (meaning no guaranteed trail base), and the Yukon is notorious for blown-in, punchy trail, no matter what anyone tells you, I chose to be conservative and break it into three forties.

That decision ended up being wise. The trail did blow in, it slowed down, and I watched others suffer through some verrrrryy long sixty-mile runs.

The Yukon was my favorite—yes, really

I loved the river. I really dug the river.

The run from Tanana to Ruby ended up being one of my favorite parts of the 2015 Iditarod. The landscapes were stunning: slowly curving river bends, late afternoon sun, big open views that made you feel tiny in the best way.

We hit sections of jumble ice—the biggest we encountered that year—and the dogs just… handled it. Like it was their job. (Because it was.)

Snack breaks became their own little scenes: Ripp and Ruby in lead, Vader and Pete in swing—and the unmistakable look of, Guess who’s holding the snack bag?

“Day two!” … “Nope, day three.” Time gets weird out there.

At one point, I remember thinking, Yeah! Day two on the Iditarod trail!

And then almost immediately: Nope! Lost count already! Day three!!

Time doesn’t behave normally on the trail. It stretches and compresses and disappears. Your brain runs on dog schedules and snack breaks and camp math.

That first night on the Yukon, we camped for 8 hours… accidentally. I overslept again. Then we ran through the night into a mild windstorm.

Dawn on day two on the Yukon River. Ripp & Vader in the lead. It was quite windy, with a minor ground storm going on.

Wind, blown-in trail, and my least favorite sport: checkpoint complaining

Dawn on day two on the Yukon was windy, with a minor ground storm going on. The trail was mostly blown in for the next sixty miles to Ruby, with occasional good spots peeking through.

Those conditions can mess with morale because it’s slow… or worse, fast-then-slow, which is incredibly irritating. It’s also the kind of situation that makes people complain at the next checkpoint.

And honestly? I never understood that.

The trail and the weather are the two things you have zero control over. So why waste energy complaining about them?

Instead, I watched the river wake up under a pastel sunrise—pink light across the snow, hoarfrost lit up in the trees, the dogs frosted up and looking like tiny winter creatures built for exactly this.

River camp in the sun (and frosty dog portraits)

We took a second river camp and rested for four hours. The dogs snoozed in the sun, and I remember thinking how gorgeous it was—even when it was brutally cold, even when the trail was blown in. The Yukon had a kind of quiet beauty that felt like a gift.

Frosty Ripp. Frosty Georgie. Dogs sleeping like they didn’t have a care in the world.

The bootie lesson I learned the hard way

About ten miles out from one camp, the trail shifted—hard pack turned into more drifts and loose snow. I had left camp without booting because the trail had been so firm.

That was the last time I ever did that.

Stopping mid-run to put booties on all the dogs is annoying. It’s slow. And because I’m slow, the dogs immediately interpret “stop” as “camp” and go to sleep.

(They weren’t wrong. It basically was a camp. Just… a very inconvenient one.)

Still, it was a stunning place to stop. Snow was blowing off the tops of mountains, and the world looked wild and huge.

Ruby: coming in at sunset, confidence boosted

Late afternoon sun lit up the trail into Ruby, and it felt especially neat to arrive from the opposite direction that year.

We spent 29 hours covering the 120-mile stretch from Tanana to Ruby.

In Ruby, I talked with Sonny Linder—not running the race, but in town because his construction company had a project there. He gave me good advice and reaffirmed my plan to 24 in Huslia, the halfway point.

Normally, 460 miles is a long way to go without a 24 rest stop, but these had mostly been “easy” miles—no mountain ranges like the regular route. Some mushers felt it didn’t matter as much where you took your 24 this year.

I agreed, and I felt even better hearing Sonny’s perspective. A solid rest later in the race seemed more beneficial for my team—and his sage words bolstered my confidence.

Ruby to Galena: the iPod shuffle that saved my brain

From Ruby, we ran through the night toward Galena. That stretch could have been rough: flat, dark, and I was starting to feel tired in that creeping, heavy way.

So I did something I seldom do while running dogs: I turned on my iPod shuffle (it's 2015 after all ;).

I’d bought it in Anchorage the day of the start and loaded it up the night before leaving Fairbanks. I usually don’t listen to music or audiobooks on the trail because it can insulate you from what’s happening with the team and the environment.

But that night? I needed to stay awake more than I needed to be purist about it.

And it worked. I grooved my way through the darkest, sleepiest part of the night—tired, yes, but not asleep.

The picture above was taken in the early morning, about twenty miles outside of Galena. It was beautiful, but too cold for my camera to function.

Isabelle at -50°F (and one of the toughest moments I witnessed)

Ten miles later, we came across Isabelle Travadon. Her dogs had quit.

I stopped to try to help her get going again, but her dogs were stubborn and would not budge. Her thermometer read -50°F.

That is too cold to be stranded anywhere.

But Isabelle was calm. She said she wasn’t cold and had everything she needed, so I kept going.

A couple of hours after their self-imposed rest, her dogs took her to Galena. She gave them a solid rest—and impressively, she nursed them all the way to Nome.

Many mushers would have thrown in the towel after a moment like that. Isabelle didn’t. She listened to her team, gave them what they needed (or demanded), and kept going.

Galena: resting at -40°F

When we finally arrived, the team rested in about -40°F in Galena.

And that’s where this chapter ends: dogs curled in straw, the world quiet again, and me standing there thinking about how far we’d come since Fairbanks—how big the river had felt, how small the checkpoints felt, and how the trail keeps teaching you things whether you ask for the lesson or not.