Yukon Quest musher Hans Gatt plunges into frozen river suffers second degree frostbite

CENTRAL — It’s the end of the trail for four-time Yukon Quest champion Hans Gatt.

Gatt scratched in Central after he suffered second-degree frostbite on both hands after falling into overflow two miles before Birch Creek. It was the second time the

52-year-old musher from Whitehorse ran into trouble in pursuit of his fifth win this year.

“I thought this is going to be a really bad dream,” Gatt said. “Everything that’s happened since Whitehorse, it’s just unbelievable.”

Gatt said he started his run on Sunday with his dogs “flying” out of Circle and soon realized he was moving faster than leader Hugh Neff. He figured he could probably catch Neff by Eagle Summit.

But when he hit overflow before Birch Creek — about 60 miles before Central — things started to go wrong.

Gatt thought what he saw ahead was glare ice and that it was strong enough to support a dog team. All 11 of his dogs were on top of the ice when it collapsed beneath them, dropping the team into 3 feet of water and submerging Gatt up to his neck.

He struggled to get the dogs out of the water and onto stable ice. He thought he had fallen through a river until he started slipping on the ice beneath him.

Gatt spent an hour pulling his dogs out of the water, working hard and not noticing the cold around him. The Birch Creek area is notoriously frigid, and Gatt suspected it was around 50 below zero that night.

Sebastian Schnuelle came behind Gatt and helped him reroute a trail over the overflow. It took Gatt two hours after the breakthrough to get back on the trail and running.

His dogs were fine, but Gatt was freezing. His clothes and boots froze solid. Schnuelle gave Gatt dry socks and helped him wrap dog blankets and burlap bags over his boots.

After Gatt rebootied his dogs, he realized his hands were in trouble. Dexterity is needed to change booties and Gatt wore only his glove liners. Wet, and in 50-below weather, it wasn’t enough to protect him. On the ride to Central, he knew something was wrong.

He made it to the checkpoint early Monday morning, holding swollen fingers wrapped in cotton gloves. He said it was hard to deal with being out of control.

“I’m used to just being very forceful when it comes to racing and when it comes to making decisions,” he said. “And here there was just nothing I could do about those things.”

The first worrisome experience of this race for the veteran dog driver came after the start of the second half of the race, in Dawson City.

Gatt didn’t think he would make it to the next checkpoint, at Eagle, after struggling over American Summit early Friday. Blowing snow forced him to camp out and wait for help. There, Eureka musher Brent Sass helped lead Gatt’s team over the summit.

Gatt said this was supposed to be his last season of racing. He wasn’t sure Monday if he would still run the Iditarod.

With everything that happened in the Quest, Gatt, a seven-time finisher, thought there was dark humor in the situation.

“Obviously, Mother Nature had it out for me.”