Snowmachine Whoas

You would think the Iditarod Trail Committee would be able to hold back snow machine travel during the race to that of only official trail breaking needs....but this is Alaska....a State of little rules. Instead, they rely on peer pressure and common sense. This tactic doesn't always work. There is a nice write up on the growing phenomenon of Snow Machine Iditarod vacations and their impact on the race (www.iditarod.com) With literally groups of machines chewing up the trail to "witness" the race, more and more resentment is building between the mushers and the snow machines. Sadly, not only are they witnessing the race, they are having a heavy negative impact on it by ruining the trail. In 2006 a group of snow machine travelers ripped up 35 miles of awesome conditioned "set up" trail and turned it literally to dust. With one pass of a group of machines, the crust was broken and immediately turned into 3 feet of "sugar bowl" snow to have following teams wallow in. Dee Dee said she nearly cried when the snow machines passed trough. Its typically only a problem on the narrow seldom used trail from Tacotna to Anvil. The official trail breakers painstakingly care for a broken trail for the leader...they try to break the trail and let it sit overnight to "set up". Sometimes their efforts are foiled by selfish snow machine tourists. This happened yesterday to Aaron Burmiester...he was leading the pack when a group of 5 machines came by dragging sleds along with them.....he was traveling 8 mph before they came, and immediately went to 7 mph after they passed. I hope the Iditarod Trail Committee can get traffic curbed in this section of trail at the very least. Once to the Yukon the trail is wider up the river, and dog sled and machine can safely share the trail without interference.