Yukon Quest 2014 – Day 12
Curt Perano is the only team not moving at 9AM, he’s camped on the trail midway between Carmacks and Braeburn. The Final Four are beyond McCabe’s Creek headed for Carmacks.
Hank and the Siberians arrived at Carmacks just before 1PM CST. The Quest Facebook page is using a picture of the team for their banner. The temperature on the trail between McCabe’s and Carmacks was -50°F – only mad dogs and mushers… After leaving McCabe’s both Jerry and Brian camped for a while to await the sun and warmer temperatures.
Ken and John should be at the finish around 2PM CST. Everyone is now moving, but there have been delays in the tracking – not even electrons want to move when it’s this cold.
Ken and John made it to the finish, in that order, and Hank, Mandy, and Brian are at Carmacks.
And then there is Jerry Joinson – would you believe he broke another sled. He is definitely the Red Lantern, because he is going to get 8-hours added to his arrival.
This year’s race will definitely fall in the category of ‘memorable’.
Standings at 11:30PM CST (9:30PM PST):
Finish
1 Allen Moore (8)
2 Hugh Neff (14)
3 Matt Hall (3)R
4 Ken Anderson (6)
5 John Schandelmeier (17)
6 Torsten Kohnert (13)R
At Braeburn
7 Curt Perano (16)R
Beyond Carmacks
8 Hank DeBruin (18)
9 Brian Wilmshurst (9)
10 Mandy Nauman (11)R
At Carmacks
11 Jerry Joinson (4)
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.
4 comments
-50°F… I’ll never complain about our low 20s°F again! Actually, I probably will, but it helps to be reminded occasionally of the genuine adversity people “400 miles north of anywhere” face in winter.
When you see pictures of the mushers and it looks like they’ve been snow encrusted, you should understand that the ‘white stuff’ is the moisture from their breath freezing when it makes contact with the super-cold air. You learn to breathe through your nose at all times. You do not want to pull in a lung-full of air that cold without letting it warm in your nasal passages.
-50! And here I was complaining when the wind chill was -5 yesterday. The snow has finally stopped here. There’s a 12″ ruler under there somewhere, but it disappeared about 2 o’clock today. At least the dogs had fun running in it this afternoon. One of my dogs is half Siberian, and she seemed pretty satisfied today.
And it’s not just the temperatures that blow my mind. Every year, I look at the distances of races like the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod. When you’re talking 1,000 miles, it’s mind boggling. I just googled the distance from New York City to Jacksonville, Florida, and that is 933 miles. By interstate. Flat. Straight. Nicely paved.
Alaska is just humongous. Amazing dogs and mushers.
They have been down in the Yukon River valley and the cold air collects down there. If you climb the sides the temperature rises. The other bad thing about the valleys in the winter is that if there is wind, it is always worse in the valleys as it gets concentrated. Of course, most settlements were established on the banks of rivers which provide a transportation link [after they run out of the gold they contained].
The front-running teams have been averaging over 100 miles a day – four marathons a day – pulling a sled.
The driving distance from Beaumont to El Paso, Texas is only 834 miles, two miles more than Pensacola to Key West, Florida. That doesn’t get you to Braeburn, much less the finish. Alaska and the Yukon are both very large and very empty places. Fairbanks, Dawson, and Whitehorse would be towns, not cities, in the lower 48.