We closed our camp at Paxson and now we are all here in Anchorage.
For Sebastian and Rudi it’s meeting day today and in the evening there is the big startbanquet with the drawing of the bib numbers – unfortunately Sab is in the third group and so his lowest possible bib number will be 73 (but you all know Sabs luck in drawings).
On Friday they will have their last short trainingsrun – both are in the lucky position that they have still more then 16 dogs to choice from.
Lance Mackey won the Yukon Quest the 4th time in row.
While I didn’t reach my target – to run the Yukon Quest – but it has still been worthwhile. In Sabs opinion, I couldn’t find a plausible explanation why I have scratched in Mile 101, it was a gut feeling that I couldn’t make it and when I now hear the trail reports (jumbled ice, overflows, lack of trail markers) and see how many dogs had to be dropped, then I must say that it was probably a good decision.
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Yesterday evening I started from Mile 101 to Central. On the way I had some problems on the icy parts and when the trail got up in the windy sections my dogs didn’t want to go ahead and I couldn’t convince them to do so. So I returned to Mile 101 and after I sleep I decided to scratch. The dogs, and I, are all well.
Andy made it into Chena at 3:37 a.m. after taking a few detours on his way. The dogs look good. Now he has to take 3hrs of rest there, before loading the dogs into the dogtruck and drive to Mile 101. That drive normally takes 4hrs, the organisation alloted 12 hrs, that says all about the road conditions.
Today at 11:00 h (21:00 MEZ) the first Musher started for the 1000 miles (1600 km) to Whitehorse and opened the 25th edition of the Yukon Quest.
I’ll also go on the trail and hope to cross the finishline in Whitehorse in 14 days.
We left Paxson on Wednesday morning to drive to Fairbanks. We that were Andy, Gaetan, Roland and myself Sebastian, in 2 dogtrucks one full with my Iditarod dogs and Iditarod food drop, one full with snowmachines, dogteams and gear. Read the whole post »
This is just a test, while Andy is doing the dishes, he wants me to try out this way to update the website, while he is out on the race. I might have internet access here and there. The crew is out feeding dogs at minus 25°, but it is not that warm further north, Fairbanks and Circle are sitting in the minus 45° and minus 50° range. Hopefully that improves a bit for the weekend. The trucks are ready packed outside, we are doing some small last minute preparations. On Wednesday morning 3 of us are leaving, bringing my Iditaord Food drops to Fairbanks, doing the Bloodwork and EKG with my Iditarod dogs and bringing Andy to his first Quest Meetings. Time to hit the road.
Saturday Rudi and I was in Fairbanks with our 30 dogs to do the Vet-Check. Read the whole post »
I just came back from a nice, two day run to McLaren with my Questteam.
Saturday we where in Fairbanks to drop the Fooddrop – 37 packs in total. As I saw them all standing there I asked myself for how long will we go out, but of course 14 dogs will be feeded.
Today I run a little 20 km loop with my Questteam in the heat of the day 
– in the morning it was -38°C and when we left about -30°C.
So my team looks like follows: Tang, Herring, Ibex, Eagle, Wondar, Suhmo, Libby, Casper, Franky, Jack, Buckley, Hobo, Kritter, Free, Eagle (M) und Lucky.
As we start withn14 dogs in the Yukon Quest I have to find two dogs which stays at home.
