Copper Basin 300 (Sab)
With us staying in Zoya and John Schandelmeier it was only a short 60 Mile drive to the Start of the Copper Basin.
The Food Drop was on Friday morning, and we first had to pick up some stuff from Glenn Transport and than Chicken Gerry brought us some booties from Whitehorse. We barely had enough food drop bags, but got it all stuffed in there after all.The Copper Basin has a great base of volunteers and it is always nice to see some familiar faces again. In the afternoon we moved into our usual bed and breakfast at Fireweed Hill, Dorothy and Bill Bowler. The rest of the day we spend with getting the sleds ready and dropping dogs. The mushers meeting saw me draw number 13, not totally in the back of the pack for a change, and Andy number 24.
Saturday morning always calles for an early start, with all teams having to be in the holding area by 7 a.m. Once again I enjoyed the race atmosphere and talking with other mushers, we were parked between Rusty Hagen and Karen Ramstead. Pretty quickly we were underway, guided across the Highway by a snowmachine to the start chute. 3-2-1 gooooo and off we went through town. There was not much snow, but the trail still in good shape and very hard packed. I passed a few teams, playing some passing games with DeeDee. Than Hugh Neff zoomed by my followed by Hans Gatt shortly after. It is always depressing if a team which passes is riding the break while passing. Hugh went out of sight, but once we came to the trail parallel to the highway, there was not much of a trail left and just sugar snow. So much for my hope for a hard and fast trail all the way. Fortunately my dogs do fairly well on ugly trails and I caught back up to Hugh, DeeDee and annother Team ahead of them.
After 5 hrs we signed into Chistochina, taking my usual parking spot in the big open field next to the out trail. Paws did not pull much on this run, I hardly ran him all winter as he was in Andy´s team most of the time. The whole gang ate well and after some burgers I took a quick nap myself. It was fairly cold, about 30° below outside. We left at 8 p.m. towards Paxson. This was one of the most beautiful runs, under full moon. Hugh passed me once again a few hours into the run. It took me close to 4 hrs to reach Excelsior Creek, the first open water, but the dogs got accross almost dry, so I left their booties on, I could see Hugh up ahead and stopped for a snack which all ate well. Paws was still not doing much, everybody else I was happy with. The moon was so bright, that we could see all the mountains around while climbing over the "hill". Last year this stretch was a real struggle, this year hard packed all the way. The trail breakers found a way around the open water on the Gakona River, which is very much appreaciated, specially at 30 below. Here my dogs came into very familiar territory as we trained here in the past weeks. With that they knew of course of some short cuts, which let to some delays on certain junctions. Once we crossed the Highway at Summit Lake, they knew that we were heading the "long" way to Paxson. Summit Lake was also dry, no overflow at all, nice. They picked up a notch a the last 3 miles down the Denali Hwy I had to ride the break hard.What a beautiful moon filled night this was. The Denali Highway felt like home after the many training runs there. I have come to like this area a lot.
After exactly 8hr we signed into Paxson. Much to my disappointment I discovered 2 sore shoulders one on Gas one on Diesel. Not nice, them being 2 of my key dogs, but it seemed to be very early on and I had hopes to be able to heal them up with massages and heat. Also Neuro had some frost bite. They all ate very well. For the first time I rented a room in Paxson Lodge, something I had not done before and for the first time ever I got a solid 4 hrs of Sleep here. That felt good. I gave the dogs a good feeding before leaving again, deciding to drop Paws, as he did not contribute much to the team anyhow. My long massages on Gas and Diesel seemed to have worked. Andy did very well and his team looked good. Maren came by Skidoo to help us in Paxson watch the teams.This next stretch was going to be interesting, as we had to pass by "our" cabin, although on the other side of the lake, the dogs new exactly that "home" was there. I could see John and Zoya's truck parked in the driveway, in Paxson I had learned that Zoya decided to scratch, too bad, I wondered what happened. Luckily it had warmed up from the night before and it also snowed a bit.
In Meiers, I used to stop there a lot and eat a burger (or two) in training, worse off they exaclty had the us sign in and out in the spot where I used to park the team. Training wise this was great, to teach the dogs to go by and not stop, time wise it was not so nice..., it made for a very slow run. Instead of me getting agitated by that, I just just enjoyed the ride and tried to "play happy" with them, but cheating a dog is next to impossible. We signed into Sourdough 6.15 minutes after leaving Paxson (4.30 from Meiers) Much to my surprise no team had passed me on this so seemingly slow run.
In Sourdough we camped in a different spot than usual, no cabin... just a walltent with no head. Looking at the times, I totally realized that "racing for top positions" was out of questions for me. Lance, Hugh, Hans, Gerry were all much ahead, also Thomas Lesatz, Sonny Lindner and Allen Moore. I decided to take a long rest here, actually all my mandatory rest and crawled into my sleeping bag. Inside the bag it is wonderul warm, but getting out of it is a different story. I must have cursed a lot, because Andy and Pierre stayed clear of me. Before leaving I walked each dog to watch for any stiffnesses, and decided to drop Neuro and to leave with 10 dogs. Much to my surprise Jack was doing very well in the team. The speed, although it was not real speed, was quite high for him but Jack and Piano made a very nice pair leaving.
Normally I get next to no sleep in the CB 300, but I slept a full 4hrs again in Sourdough. Leaving at 2 a.m. in the morning is defenitely not my favourite time of the day, but the full moon made for a nice run, the trees were thickly encrusted in ice. The dogs ran faster than I expected. In Sourdough I put my seat back on, and enjoyed the ride. We passed a team somewhere after 2 hrs and made it to Crosswind in a little under 4hrs. Here Kirk greeted me with some soup on the lake. This soup almost has legendy status in the CB 300. I ran all night with no headlight, but as soon as I came onto Crosswind lake, I fumbeled to get the light going, to make darn sure Kirk would see me coming. I stopped for a few minutes, maybe not the best idea in hindsight. I could see a headlight approach behind me, which I later found out belonged to Michelle Phillips. Here team looked nice and she passed me when I snacked my dogs. The run from Crosswind to Wolverine was slow again, I guess quite a bit my fault sitting on my seat instead of helping.First I thought I would stop in Wolverine for a few hours, but the dogs looked chipper and the checker told me that I had to stay for 10 minutes to fill up all my mandatory 12 hrs of rest. 10 Minutes, cool, just enough time to grab some chips and coke, the breakfast of my choice and I left Wolverine shortly after 9 a.m. still with 10 dogs. Some teams were resting while I left and I left in 8th position. Sitting down became a real challenge on the trail to Tolsona. It was super bumpy and it took us 3 hrs 30 minutes of roller coaster to get there.
A quick sign in and out and we were on our way for the final miles. The trail was different than unsual, not along the seismic lines, instead we went along the highway. It got cold again, at least it felt so. Realizing that sitting will not help to stay warm I decided to run up some of the hills, and hey it is not that cold after all. Short before the finish I stopped the team to take some shots and we signded in a 14.59. Not only did I for the first time get a lot of sleep on the CB, but for the first time in 5 years I had a truck on the finish line, it got parked there right after the start, and hey it even stated. In past years I had everything from no truck, to locked truck and no keys, to truck with blown engine that would not start. I took all 10 dogs inside the cab, yes, very tight... but I feel it is very important for them socially. Hans Gatt and Chicken Gerry stopped when I ran along the highway and told me to come to the Brown Bear Lodge for a beer, which I did. Cheap drunk... one beer had me fall to sleep with the 10 dogs in the cab of the truck waking up I totally twisted my back. Andy ran a very nice race and was a few hours of his projected arrival (midnight) and signend it at 20.16 with also 10 dogs. They looked good, and I was happy for Andy to finish his last qualifier so well.
Tuesday we spend more or less sleeping at the B&B before the banquet. At the Banquet they served half a chicken each musher, nice, and we could even get second, real nice... We drove back to John and Zoya`s where Maren had everything nicely packed up. One last night in the little cabin, sad to leave, we packed up the next morning. Brrrrrr 35° below again. The transmission of my truck was acting up more and more, so I decided to leave the big trailer behind, or better said, there was not much choice. Kat, dogs and all we left for Whitehorse and drove it in one long straight shot, arriving back home at midnight, after almost 7 weeks, the transmission of the truck made it,yahooo. Those 7 weeks had been a wonderful time, just training dogs and relaxing. At home Dorit had all in best order. Now, a few days later the "routine" has me back, it is 2 a.m. while I write these lines, after 14 hrs in the office. Time is getting tight between catch up in the office, Quest Food Drop, dogtraining and Iditarod Food Drop, but I feel I am much ahead of last year and much less stressed. We even have time to think about all of us going to the 30 Mile Carbon Hill race this weekend, just for the fun of it...Race results
Sab
