Yukon Quest 300 – Day 4
Michelle never gave up her lead, having the faster team this year, and arrived about two hours ahead of Aliy.
The extreme cold is having an effect on teams and mushers. I did Arctic survival at -45°F and the world just gets strange. Things, like tires, that normally bounce, shatter. Human hair will break. Things just get strange and the dogs definitely don’t like it.
Two teams are now not being reported on, Olaf Thurau (56) and Gaetan Pierrard (64), with no indication as to what happened to them. I assume they scratched, but no one has officially said so.
The last two teams on the course are moving together back towards Pelly Crossing.
The Current Standings at 9:00PM CST (7:00PM PST):
Finished
1 Michelle Phillips (54)
2 Aliy Zirkle (55)
3 Alex Serdjukov (68)
4 Martine Le Levier (53)
5 Claudia Wickert (60)
6 Timofei Gynuntegin (51)
7 Kim Franklin (59)
Beyond Pelly Crossing
8 Alexandra Rochat (62)
9 Peter Reuter (65)
2 comments
Your description of extreme cold is frightening and most of us probably have never thought about the eerie changes that would come about at those temperatures. Strange doings indeed.
And here I’m complaining because Sunday night is taking us back down to 9 degrees. The only good thing I can say about January and February is that I’ve been too busy to complain about it.
Unfortunately, the daffodils that I transplanted last year from my grandmother’s old home place (I was five when I helped her plant them and dig the holes) have come up and there’s one nice yellow bud on it already. Sigh…but at least I know they survived the transplant. I am so ready for spring.
That temperature shift if one of the things I hate about this time of year. We had a couple of days in the 70s and now we are 30° colder with a wind shift. The plants start blooming and putting out new growth which is then frozen.
Yes, extreme cold is like being on a different planet – the rules change.