https://www.adn.com/outdoors-advent...hl-got-those-gnarly-cuts-around-his-eye/

Fairly graphic photo and the "quit your bitching..." is exactly what Richie would say.

Iditarod
Tree vs. musher: Here’s how Richie Diehl got those gnarly cuts around his eye
pencil Author: Tegan Hanlon clock Updated: 4 hours ago calendar Published 4 hours ago

TAKOTNA — Here’s how Aniak musher Richie Diehl tells it:

He and his 14 sled dogs are 20 or 25 miles from Nikolai early Tuesday. It’s a perfect trail. He’s “cruising along, checking things out.” He has his head turned. It’s still dark out.

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Then he looks forward and, bam, he runs into a tree. It’s positioned sort of at an angle over the trail. He could’ve ducked if he had noticed it, but he didn’t. He’s knocked off his sled. His dogs jet.

His memory of what happened next is patchy.

“I was doing an all-out sprint to chase the team down, and I dove and I caught the sled, and then all of a sudden I was standing in a ball of dogs,” he said. “There was blood all over my hands, and the dogs were all looking up at me like, ‘What’s going on?’”

Diehl, 33, lined his dog team back out. He grabbed toilet paper and wet wipes, and he put them in his pocket. He started mushing down the trail again as he shoved toilet paper in his nostrils to stop the bleeding and cleaned his skin with the wipes.


“My whole face was all blood,” he said.

Richie Diehl pets his dog Griffey in Takotna during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on March 6, 2019. (Marc Lester / ADN)
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Richie Diehl pets his dog Griffey in Takotna during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on March 6, 2019. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Diehl recounted the saga Wednesday as he walked his 5-year-old sled dog named Griffey around the race checkpoint here, at mile 329 of the trail, during his mandatory 24-hour break. Butterfly bandages covered up bloody cuts under his right eye.

He has completed six Iditarods in the past and never had a tree run-in quite like this. He wasn’t too worried about it, though. He doesn’t think he’ll need stitches and he doesn’t think it’ll impact his race.

“There’s always somebody who has it worse,” he said, “so it’s just like, quit your bitching and keep moving.”

I dunno about all thise folks who spend so much time staring down 14 one-eyed gas bandits.... I'd close my eyes and turn my head once in awhile too.

Laughing!

DSMF question: How lucky was he to catch the sled? I’m thinking he was pretty blessed. But what do I know? Maybe teams backtrack if they realize the musher is gone?

They generally figure it's a free pass to run like hell. But some will. Fiedler ( I think it was) lost his team earlier when the caribiner holding the sled to the dogs broke. Another musher helped him find the dogs some 5 mies ahead.

In the movie "spirit of the wind" George Attla whistled his dog's into a U-turn after calling off the sled.

Amazing that he could turn dogs like that! But in those days how could he "Call" a sled?

Fat fingers

One of which is gestured in your genital direction.

Oops

No! No! Up your's!

Oh. You got that did you?

You are so gentile in your insults...

Well, I know how sensitive you are.

I have never insulated you. Only remarks of admiration and respect.

Oops.

A person from the past! Never heard of the movie. Is it worth searching for?

Yes. But keep in mind it is a production....

I have a vague recollection of someone - ( Frank - "Wolf Man"??) who had a lead dog on his trapping team who on her own would turn the team and bring it back to him if he lost the sled.

Help me out here, you literate ones with memory intact......

I quit loaning books after that one was not returned. Have to find a copy again.

I do not specifically remember that part, but I remember two wolf/dog hybrids he was extremely proud of and attached to. Something happened to them in another's care and he took it very hard.

"Kenai " was one? Did not accept physical discipline at all. Frank would discipline him by laughing at him.... Kenai had to be lead dog. Frank gave him to Denali Park Service with that specification, and warning.

Dumass ranger hooked him up differently (wheel I think) then physically disciplined the wolf-dog when Kenai refused. Next day in pen, Dumass turned his back, and the only thing that saved him was his parka hood. They put Kenai down.

Should have put the ranger down, maybe.... just for being too stupid to live.

Yeah, now I remember.

IIRC Kenai was 120#.

Now he'd be called Powerstroke!

Ordered the book last night. An old photo from about 1978 I believe.

Pete flies home to Bethel tomorrow and the town is setting up to give him a crowd spread from the airport all the way to his house... party! Party! Party!

My George Attla book showed up yesterday. After I finish my new John Grisham book, it will be next.