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Rookie living Iditarod dream
By Mary Pemberton, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | No comments posted.
WILLOW, Alaska — Rookie musher Kim Darst of New Jersey is packing heat for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Her mother is glad she is.
“You know what worries me the most — moose,” said Della Darst as she prepared to watch her only child hop on the back of a dog sled and embark on the world’s longest sled dog race in a year where warnings abound about deep snow and stubborn moose on the trail that can stomp a team in a heartbeat.
“I think just about everyone is carrying,” Darst said, including her daughter who has a .44 magnum tucked inside her sled bag.
Darst said she’s never been able to talk Kim out of something once she sets her sights on it. Her 40-year-old daughter, a helicopter pilot, has been breaking the mold since she was a little girl, she said.
Kim Darst drove 6,000 miles in a truck with 18 dogs to come to Alaska and realize her dream — racing in the 1,100-mile Iditarod.
“I think if you have a dream you should go after it,” Darst said. “I don’t care if I come in last. This year I just want to get to Nome.”
Darst is one of 15 rookies in this year’s Iditarod. Sixty-seven teams took to trail from Willow on Sunday. Darst was in second to last place late Monday.
Canadian musher Sebastian Schnuelle retook the lead from two-time defending champion Lance Mackey.
Mackey overtook Schnuelle when he was the first musher into the Rainy Pass checkpoint, 224 miles away from Anchorage. But Mackey rested his dog team six hours and lost his lead when Schnuelle rested at the checkpoint for only five minutes.
Darst said she doesn’t expect to be competitive this year. At the musher’s banquet where she drew bib No. 52 toward the back of the pack, it was just enough to be in the same room with the likes of Mackey, five-time champion Rick Swenson, and four-time winners Jeff King and Martin Buser.
“It is so overwhelming,” she said. “Do I belong in the same room? It brings tears to my eyes.”
Darst has worked for 10 years to get to this point. She estimates the cost of just running the race at $50,000. Driving the 12,000 miles to and from Alaska in her truck that gets 8 miles to the gallon cost a bundle, she said.
But it’s OK, she added. This is her dream.
Darst said she tells her mother that she wants her “$50,000 belt buckle” for being an official finisher of the Iditarod. She also tells her mother, who lives next door to her in Blairstown, N.J., that what she’s doing is “insanity.”
Her mother agrees.
“I think she’s crazy and she calls it insanity,” said Della Darst, 65, laughing as she talks about her only child. “Somebody said what is she going to do next and I said, ‘I hope nothing.’”
Kim Darst said she and her mother drove to Alaska in the mid-1990s and visited Iditarod great and four-time champion Susan Butcher at her home along the Chena River in Fairbanks. She got to ride on the back of an all-terrain vehicle hooked to a bunch of sled dogs as Butcher gave a mushing demonstration to tourists.
Then, one of her helicopter students bought one of Butcher’s dogs and gave it to Darst as a gift. The dog, now 10 years old, is named Prairie Dawn.
“It escalated from there. Now I have 30 dogs in my kennel,” she said.
Most of the dogs go back to Butcher’s line. Butcher died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 51.
Darst said she takes seriously the job of bringing Susan’s dogs back home to Alaska.
“I thought she was such an inspiration to everyone in this sport, and everybody else,” Darst said.
She said New Jersey doesn’t get a lot of snow, so much of her training involves having her dog team pull her on an all-terrain vehicle for 40 miles along an abandoned railroad line.
She qualified for the Iditarod by completing a 250-mile race in Maine and a 300-mile race in Michigan last year.
“I always want to go to the top of everything,” she said. “What is after the 300? The Iditarod.”
Even so, she now will be going more than three times as far as her longest race to date.
“Why worry about it?” Darst said.
Della Darst, who prepared some of her daughter’s meals for the trail, including pancakes with syrup, spaghetti and hamburgers, said she will fret for the both of them. Her eyes teared up Sunday as her daughter waited her turn to begin her Iditarod dream.
“Absolutely, I’m worried,” she said.
“You know what worries me the most — moose,” said Della Darst as she prepared to watch her only child hop on the back of a dog sled and embark on the world’s longest sled dog race in a year where warnings abound about deep snow and stubborn moose on the trail that can stomp a team in a heartbeat.
“I think just about everyone is carrying,” Darst said, including her daughter who has a .44 magnum tucked inside her sled bag.
Darst said she’s never been able to talk Kim out of something once she sets her sights on it. Her 40-year-old daughter, a helicopter pilot, has been breaking the mold since she was a little girl, she said.
Kim Darst drove 6,000 miles in a truck with 18 dogs to come to Alaska and realize her dream — racing in the 1,100-mile Iditarod.
“I think if you have a dream you should go after it,” Darst said. “I don’t care if I come in last. This year I just want to get to Nome.”
Darst is one of 15 rookies in this year’s Iditarod. Sixty-seven teams took to trail from Willow on Sunday. Darst was in second to last place late Monday.
Canadian musher Sebastian Schnuelle retook the lead from two-time defending champion Lance Mackey.
Mackey overtook Schnuelle when he was the first musher into the Rainy Pass checkpoint, 224 miles away from Anchorage. But Mackey rested his dog team six hours and lost his lead when Schnuelle rested at the checkpoint for only five minutes.
Darst said she doesn’t expect to be competitive this year. At the musher’s banquet where she drew bib No. 52 toward the back of the pack, it was just enough to be in the same room with the likes of Mackey, five-time champion Rick Swenson, and four-time winners Jeff King and Martin Buser.
“It is so overwhelming,” she said. “Do I belong in the same room? It brings tears to my eyes.”
Darst has worked for 10 years to get to this point. She estimates the cost of just running the race at $50,000. Driving the 12,000 miles to and from Alaska in her truck that gets 8 miles to the gallon cost a bundle, she said.
But it’s OK, she added. This is her dream.
Darst said she tells her mother that she wants her “$50,000 belt buckle” for being an official finisher of the Iditarod. She also tells her mother, who lives next door to her in Blairstown, N.J., that what she’s doing is “insanity.”
Her mother agrees.
“I think she’s crazy and she calls it insanity,” said Della Darst, 65, laughing as she talks about her only child. “Somebody said what is she going to do next and I said, ‘I hope nothing.’”
Kim Darst said she and her mother drove to Alaska in the mid-1990s and visited Iditarod great and four-time champion Susan Butcher at her home along the Chena River in Fairbanks. She got to ride on the back of an all-terrain vehicle hooked to a bunch of sled dogs as Butcher gave a mushing demonstration to tourists.
Then, one of her helicopter students bought one of Butcher’s dogs and gave it to Darst as a gift. The dog, now 10 years old, is named Prairie Dawn.
“It escalated from there. Now I have 30 dogs in my kennel,” she said.
Most of the dogs go back to Butcher’s line. Butcher died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 51.
Darst said she takes seriously the job of bringing Susan’s dogs back home to Alaska.
“I thought she was such an inspiration to everyone in this sport, and everybody else,” Darst said.
She said New Jersey doesn’t get a lot of snow, so much of her training involves having her dog team pull her on an all-terrain vehicle for 40 miles along an abandoned railroad line.
She qualified for the Iditarod by completing a 250-mile race in Maine and a 300-mile race in Michigan last year.
“I always want to go to the top of everything,” she said. “What is after the 300? The Iditarod.”
Even so, she now will be going more than three times as far as her longest race to date.
“Why worry about it?” Darst said.
Della Darst, who prepared some of her daughter’s meals for the trail, including pancakes with syrup, spaghetti and hamburgers, said she will fret for the both of them. Her eyes teared up Sunday as her daughter waited her turn to begin her Iditarod dream.
“Absolutely, I’m worried,” she said.
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