The 115 miles [185 km] of trail between Central and Two Rivers checkpoints is really a nasty piece of work:

Central 435 feet [133 meters]
Eagle Summit 3685 feet [1123 meters]
Mile 101 Steese Highway 2250 feet [686 meters]
Rosebud Summit 3640 feet [1109 meters]
Two Rivers 750 feet [229 meters]

Gerry Willomitzer, a veteran musher, expands on the problems that have been/could be encountered, especially for the current leader.

Australian Broadcasting reports on the new threat:

A number of communities east of Melbourne are being urged to consider evacuating before today’s extreme bushfire conditions.

Three major bushfires are continuing to burn across the state.

Authorities are concerned the extreme fire conditions will see them spread towards towns in the Yarra Valley, Warburton Valley and Enoch Point, north-east of Melbourne.

The problem is a lack of access, with few roads in the area. This situation is familiar to residents of San Diego county where there may be only one road to a rural town, and the Northern Gulf Coast where all of the major roads run East-West.

High temperatures, low humidity, and increasing winds – there is no way of telling what will develop, and if they wait too long they may get caught on the road with devastating results.

William Kleedehn (12), Hugh Neff (23), Jon Little (18), and Sebastian Schnuelle (20) are beyond Circle. Brent Sass (13) is there. Michelle Phillips (26), Martin Buser (8), and Warren Palfrey (19) are on their way.

Hugh Neff is only 14 minutes behind William Kleedehn, but he has two fewer dogs on his team.

Among the lead teams only Jon Little, Brent Sass and Michelle Philips don’t have the Iditarod facing them after this race ends.

Newton Marshall, the Jamaican musher, is hanging in there at 15, the last money position, and he still has 11 dogs. This is a great rookie run.

The back of the race still hasn’t arrived at Eagle, but they should be there this afternoon.

You can get Race Updates here.

On Saturday Susie caught a Wall Street Journal interview on nationalizing banks with Nouriel Roubini [AKA Dr. Doom]. In the article this point is made:

…I wish there had been more financial and business journalists, in the good years, who’d said, ‘Wait a moment, if this man, or this firm, is making a 100% return a year, how do they do it? Is it because they’re smarter than everybody else . . . or because they’re taking so much risk they’ll be bankrupt two years down the line?’

On Friday in my post I made the point:

Normally, stock holders lose, but they should have been demanding truth from management and not taken rosy scenarios accompanied by high dividends for granted. When a corporation starts doing a whole lot better than anyone else in their sector, they may have discovered the perfect business plan, but it is more probable that whatever they are doing is going to end badly.

Am I in Dr. Doom’s class? Not a chance, but the basic question stares out at you from these events and it goes back to a line from every fraud prevention talk you will ever hear: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”.