Yukon Quest 2011 – Day 8

Hugh Neff isn’t quite as far ahead as he was yesterday, but his lead is very comfortable.

The weather is a bit better today, but a lot of the trail is drifted over which has led to some cooperative efforts among the teams. The half dozen teams immediately following Hugh are taking turns breaking trail and are clumped together. The same situation applies to the last five teams, who left Dawson last night as a group. Clint Warnke (25) isn’t among them. He decided to scratch at Dawson.

You have to be confident before hitting the stretch between Dawson and Circle, because there are no roads up there. Your choices are sleds or aircraft and communications are limited. Reporting from Eagle was via a packet network on HF ham radio, as even satellite phones are spotty around the Arctic Circle.

Update at 9PM CST

Beyond Slaven’s Roadhouse

1 Hugh Neff (8)

At Slaven’s Roadhouse

2 Hans Gatt (13)
3 Sebastian Schnuelle (11)

Beyond Eagle

4 Ken Anderson (18)
5 Brent Sass (22)
6 Dallas Seavey (3)^I
7 Allen Moore (24)^I
8 Dan Kaduce (10)
9 Kelley Griffin (1)
10 Joshua Cadzow (16)

At Eagle

11 Jodi Bailey (17)^R
12 David Dalton (23)
13 Mike Ellis (5)

Beyond Dawson

14 Johannes Rygh (6)^R
15 Tamara Rose (12)^I
16 Jerry Joinson (21)^R
17 Didier Moggia (7)
18 Kyla Durham (14)^R
19 Hank DeBruin (19)^I

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Yukon Quest, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, the small “I” indicates a Quest rookie who has competed in the Iditarod, and the small “R” indicates a total rookie.

Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

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