Iditarod 2015 Reroute — Restart Morning in Fairbanks & the Long Way to Tanana
- Lisbet Norris
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
The year the Alaska Range didn’t have enough snow, the race got rerouted to Fairbanks. On paper, it was a simple change of scenery. In real life, it felt like someone picked up the Iditarod, shook it like a snow globe, and dropped it back down in the middle of town—full speed, no warm-up, and (cruelly) no coffee.
Fairbanks restart: crack-of-dawn chaos (and the world’s worst coffee situation)
I was in the restart arena before the sun, packing my sled in that quiet-but-busy way that only exists right before a race. The kind of quiet where everyone is doing a hundred things at once, and you can feel the miles waiting.
And yes—all of it went into my sled.
Everything except the harnesses… because those went on the dogs. 😉
I probably took longer than I needed to, but I had a perfectly valid excuse: it was the crack of dawn and there was NO COFFEE. I genuinely assumed there’d be a coffee stand somewhere nearby. Fairbanks. Restart day. Massive event. Surely coffee, right?
Nope.
Sled packed, I was conferring with my super awesome handler girls, Sarah and Franzi—and if I had to guess what we were discussing, it was either something important… or me complaining about no coffee. I was a little bit of a diva on restart day. I’ll own it.
Then I climbed into the start chute with my mom nearby, and suddenly it was time. The noise, the energy, the go.
Leaving town on the frozen Chena (and driving 16 dogs for the first time)
We dropped onto the frozen Chena River, and that moment hit me hard: this was the first time in my life I had ever driven 16 dogs.
Running the river felt like flying—fast, open, and clean. It also felt personal. When I went to school in Fairbanks, I used to skijor on the Tanana (the Chena feeds into it) with Tuffy—the dog who went on to help me qualify for Iditarod in the 2012–2013 season.
As we ran downriver, I kept thinking about that invisible line in my head: the “last known point” Tuffy and I had been together. And now here I was, going past it—continuing toward Nenana, Nome, and everything I’d imagined for years.
Nenana: Supply Stop & Hot Chocolate from Mom!
Christian Turner and I were the only teams to camp out on the river before Nenana.
When I pulled into Nenana, 60 miles after leaving Fairbanks, there was my mom waiting with a nice warm drink. Hot chocolate.
Bless her heart. Truly. Much appreciated.
Still not coffee. 😅
Nenana itself was… a madhouse. Franzi ran in front of my team to guide us out of the checkpoint, and I still can’t believe the maze she had to navigate to dump us back down onto the river. We popped onto the ice again right before the Parks Highway bridge.
And now, every time I’ve driven to Fairbanks since then, I don’t look up at that bridge like I used to. I look down at the river and get this little jolt of disbelief: we ran dog teams under that bridge and into the Interior, roughly following the original Serum Run route.
Old Minto: the middle-of-the-night coffee miracle
Thirty-ish miles out of Nenana, on a narrow, twisty, fun trail, we popped out of the woods into a clearing—Old Minto—and there were three young people gathered around a fire in the middle of the night.
They were up cheering on passing mushers, offering hot dogs and warm drinks like it was the most normal thing in the world.
At first, I wasn’t going to stop. We were cruising, and we were only about fifteen miles from camp. Plus, if you stop for every nice person on the Iditarod trail… you’ll never make it to Nome.
But then I saw it.
A steaming thermos mug. Coffee.
I slammed on the brake like my life depended on it.
That coffee hit the spot so hard it felt like it warmed me from the inside out. I still laugh thinking about where I finally got my coffee fix—Old Minto of all places.
To the folks from Minto who stayed up to fuel us: I will remember you forever.
Camp #2: the night my alarm clock froze
Our second camp on the trail was at least -40°F, confirmed by Isabelle Travadon’s thermometer up the trail. The cold was so intense it didn’t just seep in—it stopped time.
We stayed a couple hours longer than planned for two reasons:
I overslept because it was so cold my watch and alarm clock stopped, and
when I woke up, my feet were frozen.
That part was scary.
I spent a long time stomping around, walking, trying to get blood back into them. After 45 minutes or so, circulation started returning—painful, but also weirdly comforting in that “okay, I still get to keep my toes” kind of way.
I knew I couldn’t rush that process because the team was fresh and the trail was fast, which meant I’d spend a lot of time standing on the drag mat. Standing still on a drag mat in deep cold is a great way to lose your feet. I ended up pedaling while riding the drag mat just to keep blood flowing.
Luckily: no frostbite. But I’ve never forgotten how close that could’ve gone the other way if I’d ignored the numbness and hurried the team out.
The fun, twisty trail toward Manley
From Nenana toward Manley, the trail had these stretches where you’d be wrapped in dense trees… and then suddenly pop out into a scene that didn’t look real: birch trees, bright snow, beautiful open trail, and that sharp winter sunlight that feels happy without feeling warm.
It was also the kind of trail where you could run your dogs straight into what looked like a literal wall of trees and just trust that, yes, there was actually a trail in there.
Manley: a sunny run, a snack break, and a decision to keep going
We took a snack break on the way in—Vader and Ruby in lead—and the dogs were happy. The run from that frozen camp spot to Manley was sunny and smooth.
We arrived mid-afternoon, and my friend Pete the trail sweep was there. Always good to see him.
After a 7-hour rest, I was half considering taking a break on the “alleged” 66-mile run to Tanana. But I figured it probably wasn’t quite 66 miles… and the temperature was dropping fast as night wore on.
The dogs were looking good, and I knew they’d get better quality rest in the cold in a checkpoint: full straw, reliable water for hydration, the whole setup.
So we kept going—running sloughs and swamps, mushing through some cold spots. I remember seeing Tim Hunt camping in what felt like the coldest place on earth and thinking, Poor sucker.
Little did I know other mushers would think the exact same thing about me later in the race.
And that’s how we pushed on toward Tanana.
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