The Yukon Quest: The Toughest Race in the World

IT’S ONLY FITTING THAT, ALMOST FOUR DECADES AGO, YUKON QUEST, THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST SLED DOG RACE, WAS CONCEIVED IN A SMOKY BAR IN FAIRBANKS, ALASKA. WHERE ELSE WOULD THE IDEA OF A MULTI-DAY RACE IN THE DEAD OF WINTER THROUGH SOME OF THE HARSHEST TERRAIN KNOWN SEEM A GOOD IDEA?

Toiling along in relative anonymity, Yukon Quest is a much grittier and demanding race than its older and more established cousin, the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. It has a relationship akin to that of K2 and Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. While the latter is the tallest peak on the planet and acts as a magnet for public attention, K2 is renowned among climbers as the harder and purer peak to summit. It’s the one that doesn’t have huge lines of people snaking up its slopes.

The four men in the bar that night dreamed of creating a sled dog race that would follow the historic route followed during the Klondike Gold Rush. They longed for a race that would challenge racers and hew as closely to the experiences that prospectors had to endure during the nineteenth century. Their thousand-mile racecourse would traverse the mail and transportation routes laid down back then between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, in the Yukon, Canada.

From the moment a musher and his dogs head into the wilderness, they are embarking upon a sufferfest that few could endure. They have to cross four mountain ranges, traverse numerous frozen rivers, and routinely deal with temperatures that can plummet to -60 degrees. All of this happens in near darkness since the race happens in February, a time when racers are lucky to have four hours of dim and murky sunlight if no storms are hovering overhead, which there often are.

What makes the race unique is the focus on endurance and survival on the trail, something that the founders envisioned. There are only nine checkpoints on the trail, and teams cannot accept any outside assistance while racing except at the halfway point at Dawson City. To put that in perspective, the Iditarod can have up to 22 checkpoints, depending on the year. As the Quest racers work their way along the trail, they have to deal with long stretches on their own. If something goes wrong, the only help they can accept is from other racers, or they can attempt to remedy it themselves.

Running shifts of six hours on and six hours off, the mushers rarely get a chance to rest themselves. The moment they pull to the side of the trail for a break, they immediately need to tend to their dogs, not themselves. “It takes several hours to check each dog individually, give them rubdowns, feed and water them, and layout straw and blankets for them. Your sleep is an afterthought. Muscle memory is what gets you through,” says Doug Grilliot, a past racer and the mushers’ representative for the race. “If it’s 30 below and you’re out on the trail, the last thing most mushers want to do is pull out their nice sleeping bag and get completely undressed and crawl into it for just 45 minutes of sleep. Their parka is going to have frost and steam on it. It’s going to freeze solid, like a rock; their boots, too. It’s easier to curl up on the ground next to a few dogs and try to get a catnap before you start back up again.”

Sleep deprivation is standard on the trail. To keep themselves from falling off their sled runners and getting left behind, should they doze off, mushers will tie themselves to their sleds. The sight of semi-dazed men and women pulling into checkpoints is common.

Running on long stretches of trail with no support (the most extended point between checkpoints is 210 miles) can be brutal, especially when the weather turns bad. This was evidenced in 2006, when nine mushers and their dog teams were reported missing as they were ascending Eagle Summit. A brutal blizzard descended as they climbed in total darkness. Three found their way back on the trail the next morning, but the others were lost. They were rescued only after an Alaskan Air National Guard helicopter located them and airlifted them to safety, packing the cabin with dogs and their mushers.

To ensure safety on the trail, every entrant must be an accomplished musher with over 500 miles of long-distance racing under their belt. Mushers hit the trail with a sleeping bag, ax, snowshoes, food cooker, a bale of hay and gear for their dogs, and enough food to keep their canine companions fueled until they get to their next checkpoint. There they will access a cache of supplies that they left the week before to sustain them to the next checkpoint. All of that is loaded into their sled, the only one they can use the entire race. There are no backups like the Iditarod. Tales of racers persevering are legendary. “One race we had a musher break the runner on their sled, and keep going until the next checkpoint,” says Georganne Brainard, the Executive Director of Yukon Quest. “He covered almost 75 miles.”

When a team nears the finish line (each year the race alternates direction, so both Fairbanks and Whitehorse act as start and finish), they have stretched thin in a way most people cannot understand. Worn-out dogs and mushers that have shed close to 20 pounds are familiar sights. This is all done for the honor of accomplishing something few others ever dream of; the prize money is minimal. This race is done for honor and pride.

This season, due to COVID, the race will be split into two segments, each one independent and run inside each country, since no one knows when the border will open again. For the first time, Yukon Quest will not be bigger and badder than its more famous cousin. You can bet that won’t last long.