Iditarod XL Day 6
Mitch beat Aliy to the Yukon, and picked up a 7-course dinner and $3,500 at Ruby.
Running the Yukon River valley is cold work. The cold air settles into the valley, and the sun has limited opportunity to warm it up. The wind channels down the valley, so the wind chills are even colder. It is currently -11° F [-23° C] at Galena with a windchill of -23° F [-30° C].
Teams are required to take an 8-hour break on the Yukon, so the leaders will jump around.
Aliy is taking her breaks on the trail, which is why she is blowing through the checkpoints, and keeps taking the lead back. Mitch left almost 5 hours after her at Ruby. He should be able to claim that as his mandatory stop on the Yukon because he did stay 8 hours, but it isn’t yet displayed that way.
Aliy made it to Galena, and Mitch, Dallas, and John are all credited with their mandatory 8-hour stops on the Yukon. Aliy is going to have to stop in one of the next few checkpoints.
At 8:30PM CST:
At Galena
1 Aliy Zirkle (14)
Beyond Ruby
2 Mitch Seavey (35)
3 Dallas Seavey (34)
4 John Baker (11)
At Ruby
5 Aaron Burmeister (44)
6 Jeff King (10)
7 DeeDee Jonrowe (17)
8 Ray Redington Jr (2)
9 Sonny Lindner (59)
10 Peter Kaiser (28)
11 Jake Berkowitz (29)
12 Sigrid Ekran (24)
13 Michelle Phillips (26)
14 Ken Anderson (39)
15 Gerry Willomitzer (23)
16 Michael Williams Jr (51)
17 Josh Cadzow (55)Q
18 Brent Sass (50)Q
19 Lance Mackey (18)
20 Ramey Smyth (21)
21 Paul Gebhardt (25)
22 Hugh Neff (27)
23 Kelley Griffin (20)
24 Rohn Buser (62)
Beyond Cripple
25 Tom Thurston (5)
26 Rick Swenson (60)
27 Bruce Linton (36)
28 Anjanette Steer (32)R
29 Martin Buser (41)
30 Colleen Robertia (42)
31 Braxton Peterson (63)R
32 Curt Perano (61)R
33 Jodi Bailey (6)
34 Ed Stielstra (45)
35 Nicolas Petit (9)
36 Cim Smyth (8)
37 Gerald Sousa (58)
38 Ryne Olson (46)R
39 Mike Santos (22)R
40 Justin Savidis (38)
41 Jim Lanier (3)
42 Scott Janssen (37)
43 Kelly Maixner (12)
44 Zoya DeNure (53)
At Cripple
45 Trent Herbst (16)
46 Lachlan Clarke (66)
47 Karin Hendrickson (43)
48 William Pinkham (4)
49 Kristy Berington (31)
50 Anna Berington (33)R
Beyond Ophir
51 Karen Ramstead (56)
52 Michael Suprenant (13)
53 Matt Giblin (52)
54 Pat Moon (15)R
55 Art Church Jr (64)
56 Hank Debruin (48)Q
57 Travis Cooper(19)R
58 Jaimee Kinzer (30)R
At Ophir
59 Matt Failor (57)R
60 Kirk Barnum (47)
Beyond Takotna
61 Jan Steves (40)R
62 Bob Chlupach (49)
At Takotna
63 Dan Seavey (65)
The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.
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.
This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
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2 comments
Just read your prior missive about the dictatorial neighbor. I have a feeling that if she thinks she’s going to control someone with your experience, she may have gotten in over her head! These nosy types just set my teeth on edge which is probably why I live in the mountains…
Anyway, my “to do” list can’t match with yours, but yesterday turned out to be one of THOSE days where unexpected things came up all day. I didn’t even have a chance to check your blog once, so I missed all the action yesterday! So Aliy is hanging in there! …. Okay, I just went and checked the standings at 8:08 EST, and she’s had her 8 now, and she’s still in second place. Yahoo. But she’s a couple hours behind Mitch so it looks like he might be the one this year.
Actually, Mitch didn’t gain much, and will have to rest on the trail to Nulato, so Aliy is still ahead of him coming off her 8-hour in real terms.
I would start watching Jeff King, whose team had the fastest time between Ruby and Galena, which is one of the benchmark runs at the end of the trail. Aliy’s time on the run isn’t clear because she stopped and rested before Ruby, and you can’t be sure how long her run really was. The rest are making it after 8 hours of rest, so that gives you a good indication of team speed at this point.
Dallas is sprinting again, but he will need longer rests for the dogs when he does that. That’s how he lost last year – his dogs got tired and faded at the end of the race.