Day 5

Nikolay Ettyne (14) returned to Circle and scratched. I think these turn arounds are more likely musher injuries from the Eagle descent. There has been enough time for the pain from getting mugged by the mountain to set in, and moving hay bales and feed sacks to be a real problem. The timing is right for the mushers to have made the decision at their first camp after leaving Circle.

Live tracking has Lance just across the Canadian border, but it also has Trent Herbst still at Slaven’s, so don’t put the rent money on it.

The standings at 9:30PM CST:

Beyond Eagle
1 Lance Mackey (16)
2 Hugh Neff (6)
3 Allen Moore (1)
4 Brent Sass (10)
5 Jake Berkowitz (13)^R
6 Sonny Lindner (3)
7 Kristy Berington (2)^I
8 Abbie West (21)
9 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (17)^R
10 David Dalton (4)
11 Kyla Durham (7)
At Eagle
12 Paige Drobny (12)^R
13 Gus Guenther (20)^R
14 Trent Herbst (22)^I
15 Yuka Honda (19)^R
Beyond Slaven’s Roadhouse
16 Brian Wilmshurst (11)^R
17 Marcelle Fressineau (15)^R
18 Misha Pedersen (5)^R
19 Michael Telpin (24)^R

The leaders are camped out on the trail to Dawson. The first team into Dawson that goes on to finish receives 4 ounces of gold. If you push your team to get into Dawson first, they may not have what it takes to finish the race, and the gold often goes to the second or third team to reach the city.

There are formalities when the teams cross the border, so they have to stop and produce ‘their papers’, even on a sled dog trail on the side of a mountain.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

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.

All posts on the Yukon Quest can be seen by selecting “Yukon Quest” from the Category box on the right sidebar.