Kasilof - A Mushing Mecca

In New York City they've got cabs, in Ft. Worth they've got horses, and in Bagdad they've got camels, but in Kasilof it is the sled dog that reigns supreme. Kasilof is home to numerous professional mushers including Dean Osmar the 1984 Iditarod Champion; his son Tim Osmar the 2001 Yukon Quest champion; Paul Gebhardt, a 14-time veteran of the Iditarod and two-time runner-up; Jon Little who has placed as high as 4th in the Iditarod and 3rd in the Quest; Colleen Robertia, the only Kenai Peninsula woman to have completed both the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest; Bruce Linton, a four-time Iditarod finisher; Jason Mackey, a two-time Iditarod finisher; and Jane Faulkner and Kristy Berington, who earlier this year completed their first Iditarod.

The Kasilof area is also home to a few sprint mushers, including Jill Garnet, who has won several short, but lightening fast races all around the state. There are also many more recreational mushers that live in the area, running dogs strictly for fun.

Training the dogs begins in earnest around August, and it is not uncommon to see mushers on fourwheelers getting pulled by their dog teams in the early mornings or late evenings, when temperatures are at their coolest. They frequent the trails alongside the asphalt of Kalifornsky Beach Road and around Cohoe Loop Road, and the beach between the Kasilof River mouth and Clam Gulch is a favored destination for the strength training the soft sand provides.

As the temperatures cool off and snow begins to fly, the fourwheelers will be replaced by sleds, and mushers begin to run their teams on longer training runs, some as much as six hours long and 75-100 miles in length. From all this time spent running, camping, sleeping and eating meals together, often miles from civilization, a bond begins to form between the mushers and their dogs, and this bond will become a necessity when the race season begins.

In January, Kasilof hosts the Kenai Peninsula's only Iditarod and Quest-qualifying race: the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race. This is no ordinary dog race, and has earned the moniker as "the toughest 200 miles in Alaska." Typically there are only about six miles of the race that are flat. The rest of the time teams are either traveling up or down hills, including many in the rugged Caribou Hills. Elevation gains and losses from 250-feet to more than 2,000 feet are numerous throughout the race, and sometimes both may occur within a 1-mile distance.

There are also a few miles of trail that are above treeline. This section of the T-200 course can be challenging since it is not a trail maintained throughout the winter. In good weather mushers may only encounter blown snow a few inches deep that does little more than slow down their overall speed, but in a storm several feet of snow can move in a matter of seconds forcing mushers to breakout their snowshoes.

The T-200 has also seen numerous blizzards during race weekend over the years, including a storm that stopped the race in progress in 1985, and resulted in the winner, Tim Osmar, not crossing the finish line for three days. In 2000, another big blizzard blew in dropping four feet of snow in 48 hours. Musher Rod Boyce, of Fairbanks, AK., got lost in the storm and remained missing for six days.

Despite these challenges and hardships, most mushers tend to be cut from a different cloth than the average man or woman, so it is not uncommon for these frost-covered folks to cross the finish line or complete a training run with a big smile on their cold, cracked lips. There aren't many willing to live the rugged and demanding lifestyle of a musher, but the few who do fit in well in Kasilof, a place as unique as they are.