Category — Iditarod

I don’t think it would work.

Lance Mackey (47) is on the trail beyond Shaktoolik, having left Unalakleet just after the chase arrived. Sebastian Schnuelle (34) and Jeff King (41) are again the pursuers with an ever widening gap between them.

There is vacation weather for the race this morning, i.e. it is time to find someplace to take a vacation that doesn’t have a 20 mph wind out of the North and a wind chill of -40° [which is the same temperature on everyone’s thermometer – too damn cold].

The trail to the coast has a crosswind and blowing snow to cover the trail, while those heading North have headwinds and frostbite in their future. The dogs love it.

Lance is just about out of the wind and will be enjoying a balmy -20° most of today. He is currently the only one on the course not affected by the wind.

Update: Apparently Kurt Reich (59)^R and his dogs had a meeting at Don’s Cabin on the trail between Ophir and Iditarod and decided that -30° was not in the contract, so they went back to Ophir to scratch. Kurt and his dogs are from Colorado where it gets cold, but not COLD. His record indicates a really bad time around Rainy Pass and a drop off in speed afterwards.

Lance is still in Unalakleet and Mitch Seavey (21) and Hugh Neff (55) showed up at 12:20 AM CDT, 6 hours after Lance.

They are showing that Kurt Reich (59)^R scratched in Ophir, but they haven’t released any other information. He left earlier and must have come back.

Harry T Alexie (67)^R and Karin Hendrickson (29)^R have been racing all day against each other, but Harry is down to 12 dogs while Karin still has 14. Chad Lindner (26)^R was in the mix for a while, but he has dropped back this evening. There are a lot of races within the race that can be more interesting that the main event.

The “red lantern” is in Iditarod, but there is no obvious holder and the last group have also been racing with each other.

The Current Standings:

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Lance Mackey (47) picked up another $2,500 in gold nuggets for being First to the Coast in Unalakleet, and he’s planning to leave before Sebastian Schnuelle (34) gets in. The temperature dropped to -30° which is a normal winter temperature for his kennel in Fairbanks, so his team reacted to the temperature by picking up the pace.

It’s hard for people who don’t live there to understand, but +30° is a problem for dogs raised in the interior. The temperature drop helped him widen his lead. This race is his to lose at this point.

Lance Mackey (47) has a two hour lead on Sebastian Schnuelle (34) on the trail to the coast. Sab is apparently interested in pairing his Yukon Quest win with an Iditarod win. The other leaders are still in Kaltag. This is a 90 mile leg of the trail, so they will have to stop at some point to feed and rest the teams, if nothing else.

Rob Loveman (50) did not scratch at Ophir, he was withdrawn under “rule 36” for not showing sufficient zeal apparently. We’ll have to wait to find out what that’s all about, because they pulled the plug on him while he was taking his mandatory 24-hour stop and he had only recently dropped to the “red lantern” position.

At midnight these were the top six:

1 Lance Mackey (47)
2 Hugh Neff (55)
3 Mitch Seavey (21)
4 Jeff King (41)
5 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
6 Aaron Burmeister (56)

Sebastian and Aaron have been chasing Lance all day, but they needed to take their 8-hour mandatory rest on the Yukon, so Hugh, Mitch and Jeff have taken over the pursuit. We are in the end game.

Lance has a 3½ hour lead and more rest at this point than the chasers. If his team maintains their pace the only way of catching him is with taking less rest, but if you are tired you make mistakes, as Lance found out earlier. If your team doesn’t get enough rest, there is no way of catching him. It is 70 miles to Kaltag, and then 90 to the coast at Unalakleet. Today should be interesting.

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Nigel, the missing sled dog from the Nancy Yoshida (3) team that had the crash on the 10^th, showed up at the Talavista Lodge in Skwentna on Friday, having apparently decided that the “wild life” was not for him.

Lance Mackey (47) is back in the lead, and has made it to Eagle Island, while the group behind him are taking their 8-hour Yukon breaks.

The back of the race is finishing their 24-hour stops in Ophir.

Harry T Alexie (67), the National Guard team, has moved up to 26^th place and becomes the leading rookie. Karin Hendrickson (29) has been the leading rookies for most of the race.

Melissa Owens (30) has been running very consistently in her second Iditarod, and has been staying in the top half of the teams.

The ADN reports, and the GPS tracking confirms that Lance Mackey (47) lost up to two hours of lead when he missed a turn on the trail from Shageluk to Anvik. [The guess is that he fell asleep on the trail.]

He is now running in fourth position, but he has completed the mandatory 8-hour stop on the Yukon, while the three teams in from of him and the three teams behind still have to take theirs and he is less than a half-hour behind the current leader, Jeff King (41). He can make it up, but that’s a lot of time to lose.

The back of the race is in McGrath, apparently taking the mandatory 24-hour stop.

The Current Standings [12:10 AM CDT]:

1 Jeff King (41)
2 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
3 Aaron Burmeister (56)
4 Lance Mackey (47)
5 Cim Smyth (37)
6 Sonny Lindner (42)
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If you are Lance Mackey (47), it’s a seven course meal. Josh Rogers at Iditablog tells us What’s for Lunch in Anvik? Oh, yes, the Millenium Hotel, which provides the meal also hands the First Musher to the Yukon 3,500 one dollar bills. [It’s a tradition, it doesn’t have to make sense.] There is a mandatory 8-hour stop on the Yukon, so he really could stop for a lunch like this.

The back of the race is finishing up their mandatory 24-hour stop in McGrath.

Whatever the trail conditions are for others, the Super Sixteen that haul Lance from place to place don’t seem to mind.

The Dorothy Page Halfway Award and $3,000 in gold nuggets go to Lance Mackey (47), or, more properly, to his 16 superdogs. They made the run from Ophir in under 10 hours, just over 9 mph. In fresh snow that’s amazing.

Only Kim Darst (52)^R and Rob Loveman (50)^R have yet to arrive in McGrath.

The weather is forecast to get colder, which is good news for the dogs. Cold weather during the daylight also helps Rachael Scdoris (58), who is totally blind at night.

The Current Standings [12:50 AM CDT]:

1 Lance Mackey (47)
2 Aaron Burmeister (56)
3 Hugh Neff (55)
4 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
5 Ken Anderson (54)
6 Jeff King (41)
7 Mitch Seavey (21)
8 Paul Gebhardt (15)
9 John Baker (44)
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Bjornar Andersen (18) of Team Norway has scratched at Takotna where he was in 10^th place. His dogs made better than 7mph coming in, so I’ll have to wait to find out the story.

Update: the ADN reports that Andersen was injured in the piece of work that is called a trail between Rohn and Nikolai, but stayed in the race until it became obvious that his condition was getting worse. He was dragged after getting bounced off the sled and hit a stump, probably causing internal injuries.

The trail beyond Ophir is buried under snow, so the group headed towards Iditarod are going to have a hard slog, breaking trail. Normally the lead will switch off a lot as dogs get really tired jumping more than running. The group that Martin Buser passed in Takotna have finished their 24 hour stop and have to move on, while he rests in Ophir. There’s a reason he has won the Iditarod 4 times and holds the record for the fastest race ever.

Current Top Ten [2pm CDT]:

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Martin Buser (33) whipped by the leaders while they rested in Takotna and took the lead. He has been hanging back between 30^th and 40^th place, and then passed them all. He rests on the trail more than at checkpoints and keeps his own schedule. He arrived at Ophir at 7:50pm CDT. The six teams at the back of the race are on the trail between Rohn and Nikolai.

Even though there is $43K in gold nuggets waiting for the first team into Iditarod, it is 90 miles away, so I don’t see Martin rushing to get on the trail.

Teams have to take a 24 hour break at some point, and an 8 hour break at one of the check points on the Yukon, so strategy is kicking in at this point.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Cause of dog’s death remains unknown after necropsy. Jeff Holt doesn’t run a racing kennel. Most of his dogs were pets that people couldn’t keep, so he can’t be happy that they can’t find an obvious reason for a healthy 6-year-old dog to just die. They will continue looking.

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Rookie musher, Nancy Yoshida (3) finally made it into Rainy Pass and scratched.

It was the logical thing to do after losing both runners on her first sled, one runner on the second, and having a dog run off.

In the search for the dog, a volunteer had a snowmobile crash and the machine had to be cut apart to get the driver free.

Maybe next year.

Update: On a happier note, Aaron Burmeister (56) was the first team into McGrath and won the Spirit of Alaska award.

The lead group are in Nikolai:

1 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
2 Hugh Neff (55)
3 Paul Gebhardt (15)
4 Aaron Burmeister (56)
5 Ed Iten (4)
6 Hans Gatt (25)
7 Lance Mackey (47)

But things are not rosy behind them.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that Nancy Yoshida (3) has crashed in the Happy River Gorge and is partially blocking the narrow trail. A sled is being sent to her after it became available because Bob Hickel (38) decided to scratch in Finger Lake. As expected the trail is deteriorating as more sleds pass over it.

Even worse a dog has died:

A dog in the team of North Pole musher Jeff Holt (68) today became the first animal to die in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Six-year-old Victor died between the Rainy Pass and Rohn checkpoints, according to a press release from the Iditarod Trail Committee.

The cause of death hasn’t been determined.