Max Hall from Stockport is no stranger to a bit of snow… having taken part in a gruelling 1,000 mile sledge races across Alaska.
The legendary Iditarod dog sled race covers runs between Anchorage to Nome in one of the world’s most inhospitable climates.
Max, 63, has conquered the gruelling challenge three times making him one of only six Englishmen to have competed in the race.
With the annual event currently underway in unseasonably warm conditions, Max cites his dogs as the reason why he got into the event.
“I bought two Siberian huskies as pets and all they wanted to do was run so I started to run them up and down the banks of the River Mersey on a three wheeled gadget that I had made,” he told MM.
“After they were about three months old I said I have to go to Alaska and see what this is all about.”
Following a visit to Alaska one summer and then later to see the start of the race, Max came across Joe Redington, founder of Iditarod, who came to the UK promoting a dog food brand.
With his interest piqued, he joined the dog sledding legend as a ‘tourist’ on the trail, three-days behind the competitors who had already set out.
One thing led to another as he became a little more serious, spending more and more time in Alaska winter training and competing in qualifying races for the Iditarod.
“Any training that you did in England was pretty meaningless,” he said.
“I remember one Christmas Eve it was snowing so I slept out with the dogs and everybody thought I was mad at the time.”
While preparing for the race is hard enough in the proper conditions, Max faced the added difficulty of trying to arrange things from his base in Stockport all while juggling his job as a director at a metal machinery company.
“For an Englishman it is a monumental undertaking,” he said.
“I could have been a much richer man if I had not run the Iditarod a few times but I would not change it for anything.”
The 63-year-old described the nightmare of organising his runs as being ‘absolutely fruitcake’.
But these challenges pale in comparison to actually competing in the race itself which he describes, in typical English understatement, as ‘quite a wild ride’.
“It is not just the running of the race. People think you get on a sled and just glide across Alaska waving as you go, it doesn’t cross their mind that you are crossing all sorts of unsuspected terrain,” he explained.
“One time I went through the ice one night at minus 35 with all 16 dogs in the water.
“It is not what you want to be doing. It was probably chest high for me but the lead dog clawed his way out where it was ice again and the others followed.”
Although there are mandatory rest periods for the health of both musher and dogs, competitors can be on the go for over 12 hours at a time.
In the lonely solitude of the trail, mushers are known to suffer from hallucinations brought on by the exhaustion of running both day and night.
“I have had plenty of those,” Max chuckled.
“My hallucinations mainly involved looking at the rear end of the back dog in the team and being able to see an old timers face with a beard and as we ran it was smiling and winking at me and that sort of thing.”
He hails the camaraderie between the mushers despite being looked upon as a novelty to being with.
“The first time they think you are the Jamaican bobsleigh team but after the first three times I ran they treated me as a fellow competitor because I was middle of the pack.
“There is no stigma in coming last, if you cross the finish-line of the Iditarod there is a respect for you.”
There is a lack of snow in the interior section of the race this year making things more difficult for competitors, who may well find themselves being dragged across rock and frozen earth rather than snow if they are unlucky enough to fall from their sleds.
Although his mushing days over, partly thanks to a hip replacement brought on by sled racing, Max still has the bug.
“I have made a lot of good friends there and I miss it like hell. Since the race started last Saturday I haven’t been off the computer looking at who is where and when,” he said.
“It changes you forever. You come back to the office afterwards and you don’t give a monkey about the cash flow.”
Image courtesy of mypubliclands, via flickr, with thanks
