I wake up the next morning and head to the hot springs that give
the resort its name. It's roughly two degrees outside, darker than
I thought possible, and I'm walking around in my bathing suit.
"This is insane," I tell myself. I practically hurdle the fence and
belly flop into Hot Springs Rock Lake, a 100-year-old natural hot
spring that maintains a yearly average temperature of 110 degrees.
Its healing waters attract loads of Russian and Japanese tourists,
the former because they believe it relieves psoriasis, muscular
pains, and arthritis; the latter because it's rumored they believe
conceiving a child under the northern lights is good luck (there is
ongoing debate around these parts as to the validity of this
rumor).
I submerge myself and become the warmest I have been since
arriving. Then a funny thing happens. As I swim around for a minute
with my head above water, my hair freezes. Literally. Mother
Nature's hair gel has stopped my hairs dead in their tracks,
wherever they happened to be hanging when I came up for air. It
took about 30 seconds for this to occur.
The chorus of 150 howling Siberian and Alaskan huskies, who live on
the property with champion musher
Bill Cotter, startles me from
pondering my new hairstyle. I remember I have a dogsledding date.
Cotter, who has raced the Iditarod 18 times (placing as high as
third), is a sort of dog whisperer, if you will. The dogs, with
names like Blue, Tacoma, Wallace, and Aztec, go berserk when he
begins picking them out for this morning's ride. Every one of these
beautiful creatures is barking, "Pick me! Pick me!" They absolutely
live for this, and it's a treat to see.
Next thing I know, snowcapped trees are flying by in a blur of wind
and fur as a 10-dog team pulls the 250-pound sled, me, my
photographer, Cotter, and a second sled carrying Cotter's
apprentice. It's unbelievable, really. Cotter rattles off commands
barely above a whisper, and the dogs respond like clockwork. Still,
it's freezing out here - and this ride is only 30 minutes.
Deductive reasoning makes it abundantly clear: Anyone entering the
multiday Iditarod must surely be insane.