Grayling - Eagle Island
Start/Finish
Checkpoint
Dogdrop
This leg is all on the mighty Yukon - upstream, and usually into the wind. It is long and often boring, but can just as easily be even longer and miserable when the wind is blowing and the temperatures plummet toward 40 below. It's exactly 62 miles, as measured by Rick Swenson in 1997 on a snowmachine (one of the few years he wasn't running the race). Figure about 6 to 9 hours for the run, depending on whether the wind is blowing and how many breaks they want to take along the way.
This stretch has absolutely no terrain - nothing but wide-open river and bend after bend, island after island, bluff after bluff. The west bank is always the high bank, with ridges sometimes rising more than 1,500 feet within a few miles of the river (which is less than a hundred feet above sea level). The east bank is low and wooded, punctuated by sloughs and creeks and islands. The trail stays mostly close to the west bank, but can run anywhere on the river depending on conditions.
There are no towns between Grayling and Kaltag, only scattered houses and cabins, almost all of which are summer-only. Virtually everything is on the west side of the river, and the trail spends much of its time under the west bank as well. In the summer the river is heavily traveled by all kinds of boats and barges, and fishing and hunting camps dot the shores. In the winter everything is abandoned and quiet, and there is little if any snowmachine traffic between Grayling and Kaltag. The only full-time resident on 130 miles of river is Ralph Conaster, whose spacious cabin at Eagle Island was the checkpoint until it burned down a few years ago. The checkpoint is now on the bank of the river near Ken Chase's summer fishing cabin, since Ralph's old cabin (where he's now living) isn't big enough.
The other major factor is the wind, which always seems to be blowing downstream, which means in their face. While it's perfectly possible to get fine sunny days with light breezes, wind chills on the river can be very low, pushing 100 below in the worst cases. For long stretches there is no shelter at all and they must keep plugging. Make sure you have coats for your dogs, especially your leaders, since they will be bearing the brunt of the wind chill and breaking the wind for the dogs behind them.
