RAINY PASS -- Iditarod race judge John Anderson flagged down a veterinarian Monday afternoon outside the canvas tent where musher after musher arrived on frozen Puntilla Lake throughout the day.
How's your grasp on human anatomy, Anderson asked.
Five-time Iditarod champion Rick Swenson, 60, had just arrived. His collarbone looked broken and it was time for an unofficial Iditarod tradition: Animal doctors pinch hitting on human injuries.
Swenson's sled crashed at the bottom of the notorious Happy River Steps, a Z-shaped series of turns that threatens sleds each year.
"I landed on my shoulder and heard a 'pop,' " said Swenson, who suddenly had just 24 hours to decide whether his Iditarod was over, or if he could mush one-handed.
The spill marked a day of setbacks for some of the sport's top distance mushers. Like Swenson, Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse crashed on the steps, his sled turning 360 degrees before he found himself face down in the snow.
DeeDee Jonrowe lost more than an hour when she took a wrong turn out of Finger Lake. Martin Buser lost five dogs after tangling with another team. A musher sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard rescued three of them.
Defending champion Lance Mackey, meantime, blasted into Rainy Pass first and hours later headed out on the Farewell Burn on a record pace.
"I'm comfortable in the front," he said.
Rainy Pass became a parking lot for top teams Monday afternoon as mushers looked to avoid running their dogs in the mid-day warmth and tourists, flown fresh from Anchorage, wandered among the straw and kibble.
Best to get away from the other dog teams to avoid kennel cough, Mackey said.
"It's like the first week of school. Kids come home at the end of the week with runny noses and stuff," he said as bush planes buzzed overhead. "It's kind the same concept with a dog race, with dogs coming from all over the world."
TANGLED DOGS
A case of runaway dogs cost four-time champion Martin Buser at least half an hour, as Rainy Pass officials refused to check him in until he recovered the rest of his team.
Jamaican musher Newton Marshall said he was on the right side of the trail between Finger Lake and Rainy Pass, when Buser's team surged beside him.
"I pulled over just to let him pass, and I guess he had a dog in heat or something, and so they went on to my team," Marshall said.
Buser told Swenson that the dogs tangled and he was forced to turn some of the team loose to unwrap the teams.
Some male dogs in Buser's team chased the female in heat down the trail, Marshall said.
Marshall, who was mentored last year by Mackey and is running his second Iditarod, said he caught the runaway female and placed her on his sled. But he tipped and rolled in the winding, downhill turns leading into Rainy Pass.
Once again, the dog was gone.
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Buser had sped past him, Anderson said.
But miles later, two of Buser's dogs appeared without the musher, said Anderson, who lunged at the shy animals to catch them.
Anderson attached the strays to his team.
"I could tell they were freaked out, like something bad had happened," he said.
A mile and a half later he spotted another dog floundering in deep snow.
"I kind of tackled him," said the Fairbanks musher. He hooked that dog to his team too.
Anderson said his own dogs didn't seem to mind. The extra animals created a kind of flying "V" of sled dogs as the animals fanned out in rows of three across in front of his sled.
TOUGH TO REACH
Later in the afternoon, Swenson knelt behind his sled, wrench in hand as he fixed a bent brake. He was still deciding whether or not to scratch.
"I'm right-handed, but on the next stretch, you need to be two-handed," Swenson said.
Although "the steps" leading into Rainy Pass are infamous for spilling mushers from their sleds, one of the toughest sections of the trail was still to come. As teams head for Rohn, they encounter steep, winding turns and some of the most technically difficult mushing through Dalzell Gorge.
A physician's assistant working as an Iditarod trailsweep inspected Swenson's left collarbone. It looked broken. She bandaged the injury.
Soon, Swenson was describing the injury over a satellite phone.
"I can grip with it, but I can't reach over and pick things up," he said.
A pause. Dogs whined and boots squeaked in the snow as volunteers prepared for more teams to arrive.
"What do I want to do? I want to keep going," Swenson said into the phone.
At 5:25 p.m., less than four hours after he arrived, he climbed back on the runners and mushed for Rohn with 14 dogs.
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