Allen has a monstrous lead of 1 minute at Slavin’s Roadhouse heading to Circle.

Steese Highway is closed at several points because of high winds and blowing snow. The temperatures are down in the comfort range of the puppies, but they don’t like the wind in their face, so it is going to be down to having a weather leader, a dog that will take the team into the wind and keep moving.

Brent Sass is really going to miss Silver this year, because Eagle Summit has a 6-foot snow depth, and there are very high winds that have blocked the highway at the pass. This is shaping up to be another 2009 when Silver had to lead several other team through the mess. Hugh is not going to be happy to know that is waiting for him after his experience in 2009.

With luck the winds will calm down before the race gets there, but the snow isn’t going anywhere.

Allen is pulling away – he was 3 minutes ahead of Hugh at Circle 😉

Hugh left Circle 2 hours ahead of Allen and is back in the lead.

Randy MacKenzie (9) of Fort McMurray made the decision to scratch when it came time to leave Dawson.

Update: Susan Rogan (10) has been dinged an hour plus a fine for arriving at Eagle missing two pieces of mandatory equipment. They don’t say what the equipment was, but the fine points toward her vet book on the puppies. She’ll sit in Two Rivers/Chena Hot Springs an extra hour.

Right after I mentioned the cooler weather for the puppies, it decides to warm up again. Fairbanks hit 30° today and may go above freezing tomorrow. If it snows, it will be wet, clinging, miserable snow that will stick to coats of the both the puppies and the people.

The Standings at 10:00PM CST (8:00PM PST):

Beyond Circle
1 Hugh Neff (4)
2 Allen Moore (11)
3 Jake Berkowitz (20)
4 Brent Sass (18)
At Circle
5 Scott Smith (23)^R
Beyond Eagle
6 Markus Ingebretsen (2)^R
7 Abbie West (17)
8 Susan Rogan (10)^R
9 Normand Casavant (7)
10 Ed Hopkins (25)
11 David Dalton (21)
12 Dan Kaduce (15)
13 Denis Tremblay (13)^R
14 Crispin Studer (26)
15 Cody Strathe (5)^R
16 Darrin Lee (24)^R
17 Brian Wilmshurst (1)
At Eagle
18 Rob Cooke (3)^R
19 Matthew Failor (14)^R
Beyond Dawson
20 Dyan Bergen (19)^R
21 Misha Pedersen (16)

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, and the small “R” indicates a 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.